Just developed my first roll....

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bucks11

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Okay so I got bored this afternoon and figured it was time to learn to develop my own B&W....

School had some Arista chemicals so I stopped in and swiped a few.. (Shh...I don't have that class til spring) Loaded up some Arista Premium and set out on the town for a few minutes...

I just got my negs out of the tank, and there are IMAGES!!

Hung em up to dry, hoping I could scan some later on, but what do you recommend for drying time? (I just put them in a closet I'm never in)..
 
I remember that feeling. It is just great, isn't it?

As far as drying time, I've only ever used drying cabinets, so I wouldn't know.
I'd guess at a couple of hours...
 
I generally leave negs overnight to dry in as dust free an environment as possible. This is usually because it is the early hours of the morning by the time I have finished developing as I usuually have 6-10 B&W and 5 or 6 C41 to do :) - - I have scanned within a couple of hours before though, with no problems..
 
I usually leave stuff to dry for a 3-4 hours. The longer the better, but I think you can generally tell when stuff is dry. The negative should curve towards the emulsion. I usually put the negs in sleeves and sandwich them between two big books, and scan the next day. I find this helps as you want flat negatives when you are scanning.
 
A line in a David Bowie song goes ... "the music comes up better on a stolen guitar."

... based in this theory the negs should be fantastic! :p

From one of my all time favourite albums ... 'Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.'
 
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So they're dry enough for me...here's what we've got.
It's only my first rodeo, so I know there are a lot of flaws...
Critique away...
35mm003.jpg


35mm007.jpg


First off, I notice the shadowed areas don't look fully exposed...I'm going to check my scanner settings, maybe that's it?

Don't be too hard on me...
 
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They look fairly well developed.
To my eye, you've got no problems there, this may just be how that film looks in that chemistry (that being said I have no experience with either).
Different combinations of film & chemistry will yield different results (otherewise we'd only have one option available).
 
So I reconfigured some scanner issues and here's what I came up with. I don't really like the ICE technology, you can see the noticeable difference of whether it's being used (the first photo) or not being used (the 2nd)...

Look to the bottom left (the light post's base)
35mm007.jpg


35mm017.jpg


I don't feel it's too bad for my first run-through...
 
ICE works using infrared light, and apparently gets confused by B&W negatives. Or something like that. It basically doesn't work with B&W film, only C41 film.

When I did my first roll I was happy I ended up with photos. Period. I think you're off to a good start.
 
Ice interprets the silver halides as dust, and then proceeds to remove them. Not exactly the desired effect!
 
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