B&W develop only - setup and ongoing costs?

T

Terao

Kiloran
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I've just shot my first roll of film (Rollei Pan25) for over two years and am now like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting for it to come back from the developers. Now the only downside of this is (a) they only dev B&W on Thursdays and I shoot a lot at the weekend so the wait is unbearable and (b) they charge £5 per roll cut and sleeve!

Now don't get me wrong they do an excellent job but I'm looking to lower the costs a little. I have a film scanner so have no requirement to wet print so therefore I just need to get set up to develop my own film. B&W only as well...

I guess I need to know how much this is going to cost me to get set up, how much hassle is involved, and how easy this stuff is. I've never set foot in a darkroom so have no idea what's involved (well, I have some idea but don't like to assume). I do have a light-tight bathroom which seems to be step 1. In terms of volume I doubt I'll shoot more than 4 rolls a month - most of my shooting is digital. Based on that volume is it going to make sense to develop at home?

Is there a good complete idiot's guide somewhere? If it helps I think I'll mostly be shooting these new/old Rollei films...
 
Check out this from Ilford.

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/applications/page.asp?n=31

You don't need a dark room. Just a developing tank (e.g. Patterson) plus a couple of film reels. Some developer and fixer (you can use water for a stop bath). A changing bag for loading the reels and tank (no need for a dark room). A thermometer, a watch with a second hand and a couple of pegs to hang your film up to dry. I started doing this earlier this year and it is not very difficult.

Total cost if you pick some stuff from *bay should be around £20/£30.

Good luck.
 
I found this guide on developing your own film to be useful.

I'm not sure of the costs of equipment and chemicals in the U.K.; however, in general there's a larger front-loaded cost of getting the equipment and then much more minor ongoing costs buying new chemicals. Developing films is a pretty straightforward process and if you're sticking to B&W, it's harder to screw it up to the extent that you get *no* results (getting great results may take some fine tuning, though).
 
Not much. Paterson tanks are maybe 15 pounds. Stainless steel double or triple. Bag of developer for a gallon 4/ pounds. Fix the same for a quart or liter. No stop required. Wetting agent a must

Then a thermometer, a dark place to load the film, closet or changing bag, then a place to hang ang dry and clips to hang and weight it. Some measuring graduates, and mixing container for the developer

Filtered water and air filter if yu start to get marks or imbedded dirt.

If you decide on a liquid developer, then a 10 ml grad cylinder (plastic is fine for a few dollars) and some transfer pipettes to move the developer to 10 ml cyl.

I never squeege the film, just drip dry. I never use stop bath, usually nothing or plain water.
 
Of course, the cost goes up dramaticaly if you hang out here and try every possible film developer combination known to man or photographer. :)
 
Terao,
I develop my own B&W as do many people here. After a bit of trial and error, you should be just fine. All you need is a plastic developing tank, a reel or two and a dark bag, in addition to the chemistry, in order to develop the film. You can hang your wet film in the shower from a clothing hanger and scan after the film is dry. You'll find it much cheaper than using a commercial lab. But, for only 4 rolls month, it may not be worth the time. The best reason to do this is learn more about the photographic process. It's quite easy and the setup w/ chemistry should be less than $50.00
 
Beware of evilbay bargains for things like Paterson tanks and changing bags. Paterson reels wear out and get sticky, the tanks can be cracked and leaky and changing bags can have cuts and such in them. £50 will get you up and running with new kit, maybe £70 if you include chemicals. Fixer and stop bath concentrates last a long, long time if doing film only so the cost is very small over time. My darkroom is not filmsafe and I develop film in the kitchen. Come to think of it, I wash my prints in the kitchen too :) The cost per roll in my system is around 60p.

Oh, and it's good practice to pick one film and developer combination and get to know it before moving on.
 
Thanks all - not as scary as I thought! Looking at the dev chart from Rollei ( http://www.rollei.com/files/Entwzr.pdf ) I notice it doesn't mention fix times - is that more or less universal? I've also read that for scanning it makes sense to have a low contrast neg - do you adjust contrast with the dev time or the fix time? What's the relationship?

Does this sort of dumb question get asked all the time here? :eek:
 
Fixer is just there to clear undeveloped silver form the film.
Test your fixing as follows:
Take the leader you cut from your film when you loaded the tank and toss it into a beaker of working strength fixer. Swirl the beaker and time how long it takes the film to clear completely. You should then fix for at least twice this time, I usually give 3x, don't do more than 10x. Agitate as you would for development (or more, if you like) during this time.
Fixer can be reused, repeat this test every few rolls and dump the fixer when the clearing time has doubled, You now know the capacity of your fixer.
 
Three minutes fix should do, but someone once told me to drop the fogged film leader into your fix. (You'll need to cut this off anyway to get the film to load properly in your dev tank.) Time how long it takes the leader to clear (i.e. change from opaque, it won't go completely clear as it's fogged) then double that time to fix. Always comes out at about three minutes.
 
If you want to cut cost you can buy time expired bulk reel and reload used once or purpose built reloadable cassettes! This is more practical in your bathroom, most people make do with changing bags much more difficult. beware fluro lamps they after glow!

If you live in a hard water area you need the wetting agent, really hard water a squeegee, people in soft areas wont understand until they move away.

Mark is correct about the plastic tanks and reels, but some of my cracked tanks are still going, damaged reels I discard like paper tissue.

If you want to be really frugal you can buy plain hypo powder, and use a two bath approach...

Noel
 
I can suggest Rodinol developer for that type of film and the quantity of developing you plan to do.
 
Xmas said:
If you want to cut cost you can buy time expired bulk reel and reload used once or purpose built reloadable cassettes! This is more practical in your bathroom, most people make do with changing bags much more difficult. beware fluro lamps they after glow!

If you live in a hard water area you need the wetting agent, really hard water a squeegee, people in soft areas wont understand until they move away.

Mark is correct about the plastic tanks and reels, but some of my cracked tanks are still going, damaged reels I discard like paper tissue.

If you want to be really frugal you can buy plain hypo powder, and use a two bath approach...

Noel
Click to expand...

Thanks, especially about the hard water thing. I live in Reading and the water is absolutely rock hard here. Incredibly difficult to get glasses, etc. to dry without streaking, and if you don't dry them straight away the mineral deposit buildup is very hard to shift...
 
So then you'll need: developer, fixer, wash-aid, a 2 reel developing tank and 2 reels, changing bag (or a really dark room), a thermometer, a clock with sweep second hand, a 600 ml graduated cylinder, and a 5 to 10cc syringe (for measuring Rodinol developer). Easy as pie.
 
FrankS said:
So then you'll need: developer, fixer, wash-aid, a 2 reel developing tank and 2 reels, changing bag (or a really dark room), a thermometer, a clock with sweep second hand, a 600 ml graduated cylinder, and a 5 to 10cc syringe (for measuring Rodinol developer). Easy as pie.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what the man at College Cameras sold me all those years ago when I walked in and said "sell me everything I need to develop film". Apart from the wash-aid and the syringe, that is. Great shopping list, Frank.
 
The lid has light proof baffles under the pour hole, so no,
the film isn't exposed. The pour hole should come with it's
own small cap.

Don't think you've got to have a giant dev. tank like fecalface.
Impractical for most of us, and, till you know what you are doing
an easy way to screw up a lot of film all at once. Later you may
learn you don't want to develop all rolls the same way, also.

Keep us posted.

Good luck & enjoy
 
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