Good Film developing setup needed

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papo

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Hey you guys, i would like to develop bw film and wondered if someone could put together a good mix of components because there seems to be so many different products that it's hard to know what's a good fit. thanks in advance.
 
THanks for the advice. I heard that it also depends on what "look" you wish to achieve - what exactly does look mean? More contrast? Isnt this defined by the film characteristics itself?
 
Depends how dexterous you are with your hands.
If you are dexterous, a metal 35mm tank and reel will do fine... loads from "center out" and you must keep a curl in the film as you load it....
Takes less chemicals (not a big deal with B&W since those are cheaper than C41 chems.)

LIST:

1) Paterson developing tank, any size comes with only ONE REEL. they come in 2/4/6/8 reel sizes (35mm) adjustable and loads from outside to the center

2) 3-4 32oz beakers (Dev, Stop (optional, can use water instead), Fix, Photo Flo) -- 1 64oz beaker to hold mixing water at 20c

3) 1 glass measuring cup... 2.5cup size

4) 1 4oz shot glass type measuring glass to measure small amounts of chems... in ml units (10ml to 120ml in 10ml steps)

5) 1 medicine dropper measure to measure 1ml to 10ml chems (Rodinal, and the like can do 1:25 and higher dilutions and you will use 3ml-8ml to mix with water)

6) Large stem instant read thermometer (8" or longer) -- I use a candy thermometer that is digital and can measure from below freezing to over 400 degrees in f or c

7) Large changing bag if you don't have a darkroom to load your film

8) Church key, or leave a small amount of the leader out when you rewind...

9) Tablet of phone app: Master Dev Chart... iOS and Android ($9.95)

10) 200ppm water filter accessory for your kitchen water tap. Don't buy the cheapest one... because they have a cheap connector that breaks easily to the tap.
 
I would add to this that you should get the best thermometer you can. Paterson make one that reads to better than 0.5c and which although sold for colour processing also works fine for B&W.

Also, consider getting the Massive Dev app (see http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php). This has an amazing database of films and developers, and the app can act as a timer to guide you through the developing process. It also helps take out the guesswork when developing at an ambient temperature other than 20c...

For B&W I would start off using liquid chemicals that are easy to dilute. I use Ilford, and DD-X is really easy to use and gives good results with most films. There are cheaper developers that you might try when a bit more experienced - such as HC110 which is great but tricky to make x directly from the concentrate.

Colour is also fairly straightforward if you use a kit like the tetenal C41 - just follow the instructions.

Whatever you use, make sure that you have some gloves. The chemicals are not deadly, but they are not good either, particularly when concentrated...
 
My Part 2

Chemicals....

Start with a standard developer like D76, HC110

To obtain YOUR exposure index for the film you shoot (stick to one brand and speed at first, like TriX 400 or Tmax 400 (cheaper than Ilford)

*Shoot an ISO test roll first..... shoot 2 images with a highlights and shadows in daylight with a blank on either side at ISOs 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600,

Then use your phone app for the FILM and DEV + the dilution at 20c and the suggested time.
Standard agitation is continuous for the 1st 30s, then 5s every 60s.

Us a stop bath or rinse in filtered water for 3-5m, around 20 changes of water. (my tap changes the water 4 times a minute)

Fix for 5m

Rinse for 15-20m in filtered water,

Photo Flo for 2m (5-6 drops in 600ml (20oz) of water) 2m not 1m.... and 5-6 drops on purpose to help dry.

Dry with a weighted clip on the bottom for about 1 hour (turn off AC or Heat)
...you can use hair dryer to dry the rest of the way, move the dryer back and forth a for a few minutes on each side, keep the dryer about 2 feet away. continue switching sides until it is all dry.
(I have never had a problem with curling using this method to dry.
BTW the Photo Flo step is a very important step to help in drying.

Now look at the ISO test frames and pick the pair that has best contrast and tonal range.... THAT IS YOUR FILM INDEX (ISO) for that film and dev combination.
 
I would not start with HC110. It works best if you can mix straight from the "goop", but it is so thick that measuring accurately is difficult and when starting out you want to minimise the uncertainties. You can make an intermediate dilution, but this adds another layer of complexity.

Why I would suggest DD-X as a first developer is because it only needs to be diluted 1 part developer to 4 parts water (vs typically 1+31 or 1+63 for HC110).

The powdered developers like D76 or ID11 are fairly easy to use too.

I remember the first time I developed film as something magical. There were so many things that could have gone wrong from loading the film to the processing that I was somewhat in disbelief when I ended up with well processed images 🙂 Even more surprising is that several years on and I have yet to have anything fail when developing - the worst being one film processed with expired chemicals and which came out quite "thin".
 
Again, thanks a lot for all of the infos! I might have some follow up questions but this is it for now 😉
 
:: Mark said:
I would not start with HC110. It works best if you can mix straight from the "goop", but it is so thick that measuring accurately is difficult and when starting out you want to minimise the uncertainties. You can make an intermediate dilution, but this adds another layer of complexity.
Click to expand...

The joy of eBay - one can grab plenty of expired disposable syringes and bottle adapters for pennies, and forever have an easy and mess-free way to measure out HC-110.

Personally I hate Paterson tanks and reels, and would instead recommend a steel tank (Calumet sell some acceptable ones) and Hewes reels, but YMMV.
 
it's not a lot of automation there - as you correctly stated, you still need to roll the drum by hand. achtually what this is good for is to use the rolling method instead of the inverting method.

the jobo dev tank is quite good. however, i found hewes steel reels easier to load, but that might be just me. (by coincidence i have some more hewes reels than i actually need ... )

as for bottles: it depends. i only need two bottles to keep mix the working solutions for dev and fix, as i use liqid concentrates.
if you use powder, you additionally need bottles to keep your base solutions.

choice of film and developer depends on your preferences - it's a good advice to start with some basic stuff. since i prefer liquids, hc110 or ilfotec LC29 would be good to go with. i prefer syringes (german: "einwegspritzen" 5ml) for determining the right amount of concentrate.

in germany, typically ilford film is cheaper than kodak or fuji.
i also like the results with fomapan, but i found their films to be soft (prone to scratching).

cheers,
s.
 
Hi papo,
Great you want to develop your b&w: that's the best you can do.
I strongly recommend you to act in a way you can learn from your results from the very beginning... IMO there are a few things that are a lot more important than the darkroom goods or the chemicals you use. Here's what any good teacher should tell you:
1. Use just one film, for some months at least, better more than a year.... Use the film you choose at box speed only, for the same time. Best films are, for classic look, Kodak's Tri-X and Ilford's HP5+. Don't shoot too much...
2. Use for the same time, just one developer. The one that's been produced for the longest time is Rodinal: that speaks about how good it is... Apart from a very long and stable life, Rodinal shows film's grain as it is, instead of dissolving it a bit (as D-76/ID-11 or HC-110) or instead of dissolving it a lot or masking it (Perceptol and Pyro). If you use Rodinal, try to use its 1:50 dillution only, for some months: it gives a beautiful tonal range.
3. Get a notebook and write down what you see in every roll you develop. You'll want to come back to see things again and analize them again after some time, even after years, so you'll need to know where is what, and you'll discover new things if it's easy for you to locate every negative for every note.
4. This is the most important one: all meters, in camera ones (reflected light) and handheld ones (incident light) are blind meters: they tell you a metering to set your aperture and speed, but that's not a metering for your photograph to be well exposed, but a metering for making a photograph that in promedy produces an image that's middle gray... And only less than 10% scenes are middle gray in promedy, so very few times a meter can tell you the truth... Meters were and are designed only as a first step in the judgment of light: it's the photographer who has to decide how much less or more light give to the scene from the meter's values, depending on the scene's subject and the scene's contrast. So get in contact with a good photographer to learn in person about the types of light and how to meter different scenes... And use just one camera during that process.
Cheers,
Juan
 
papo said:
To my knowledge, it would have to roll the JOBO by hand and that would help get consistent results. I dunno, i have never done this so i dont know how the results can differ from eachother if i do it by hand, compared to automation.
Click to expand...

True, you can later (and probably would if you go down this road) get a jobo machine roller to roll it for you (no fun sitting 10-20 minutes) hand rolling continuously 😀

The other kit by comparison is so much cheaper, so you don't need to spur a chunk of money out front to give it a try, and it contain everything you need to g dev your first roll of film (maybe minus the syringe you can get from pharmacy to measure the developer amount).

Use the saved money for more films, you'll need it 😀
 
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