Australia/New Zealand Black & White film development in Auckland

[d__b]

Dear NZ rff'ers,

I recently moved to Auckland and just finished a roll of tri-x. I don't shoot a lot of film and haven't learnt to develop it myself yet. So today I went to a place that develops film and they wanted 35-40 NZD for one roll... are there any cheaper places in the Auckland area?

Thanks for your help,
David.

 

[Scrambler]

Probably cheaper to learn.

At this stage of the game, the price you are paying is for some semi-retired technician to hand-develop your roll using the same equipment and chemicals you would use. And with a smartphone you can download timing software anyway.

What about http://filmsoup.co.nz/ ? They have a drop-off service.

 

[d__b]

Hey, thanks for the link. I will definitely check them out. And you're right: I should really learn to develop myself. Just need to find someone to teach me and the time to learn it.

 

[Scrambler]

Hey, thanks for the link. I will definitely check them out. And you're right: I should really learn to develop myself. Just need to find someone to teach me and the time to learn it.

You're welcome 🙂

If you can follow a recipe you can develop film. Get a dark bag off the net, a daylight developing tank system like Paterson (but there are others as well), developer and a fixer. Loading the film on the spirals in the dark is the hard bit - waste a roll and practice in the light until you can do it blind. Everything else is just pouring fluids in and out of the tank, and stirring either with the handle or by turning it over a few times. The developer is the only time-critical bit really. You can always fix again if it wasn't enough to begin with. When done, hang your film to dry with a bulldog clip or peg on either end.

 

[Keith]

35 to 40 dollars ... that's robbery! 😱

It's not a hard process to learn. I gleaned most of my knowledge here before I took the plunge.