semrich
Well-known
I'm shooting mostly film now and started doing my own B&W developing close to two years ago.
On a trip to India I shot a bunch of 135 and 120 color film and I paid a lot to have it developed by a local "Pro" lab. What I got back was dust and water spotted negatives.
Shortly afterwards I saw and commented on some of Keith's color photos that he had just developed himself using the Tetenal Press Kit. I picked up some of the kits and finally got up enough nerve to have a go at it.
I went out and shot 4 rolls of 120 various ISO's and put two rolls through my Xpan and 2 rolls through my M3 with the Zeiss Sonnar.
Now for the good, bad, and ugly:
The Good: to begin with I was concerned about the difficulty of keeping the chemicals at 102F and ended up using a big kitchen kettle 27 cm wide X 14 cm deep with a thermostat controlled hot plate underneath. The pot was big enough to fit three 1L glass juice bottles with about 5 cm mouth (easy enough to pour the chemicals back into from the developing tank) and a plastic graduate for the pre soak water. Keeping the temperature controlled worked great.
Mixing the chemicals was easy, and I was more than pleased with the results. Here are 2 examples scanned with an Epson V750, auto settings, simple curves in CS3, very little dust spots and no water marks:
The Bad: I use stainless steel tanks and when the temperature is up to 102F the plastic press on lid is loose and when doing the inversions every 30 sec. the developer and Blix continuously leak out. The kit makes 1 liter each and I was using a 500 ML tank so I got all 8 rolls done without running out. Just a messy process where you need good ventilation.
If anyone can advise me about a tank that I don't need to invert to agitate I would use that for color film.
The Ugly: After developing the 4 rolls of 120 which looked good I started on two rolls from the M3, one roll of which I had one of those shots you knew was a keeper as soon a you press the shutter, feeling confident with the process now and not having to pour the pre-soak water back into a container just down the drain I inverted the tank, the lid popped off and both rolls of film tumbled into the sink. Some valuable lessons there about non attachment. If I can't find a more suitable tank for C41 you can be sure I will duct tape the lid in place the next time.
On a trip to India I shot a bunch of 135 and 120 color film and I paid a lot to have it developed by a local "Pro" lab. What I got back was dust and water spotted negatives.
Shortly afterwards I saw and commented on some of Keith's color photos that he had just developed himself using the Tetenal Press Kit. I picked up some of the kits and finally got up enough nerve to have a go at it.
I went out and shot 4 rolls of 120 various ISO's and put two rolls through my Xpan and 2 rolls through my M3 with the Zeiss Sonnar.
Now for the good, bad, and ugly:
The Good: to begin with I was concerned about the difficulty of keeping the chemicals at 102F and ended up using a big kitchen kettle 27 cm wide X 14 cm deep with a thermostat controlled hot plate underneath. The pot was big enough to fit three 1L glass juice bottles with about 5 cm mouth (easy enough to pour the chemicals back into from the developing tank) and a plastic graduate for the pre soak water. Keeping the temperature controlled worked great.
Mixing the chemicals was easy, and I was more than pleased with the results. Here are 2 examples scanned with an Epson V750, auto settings, simple curves in CS3, very little dust spots and no water marks:
The Bad: I use stainless steel tanks and when the temperature is up to 102F the plastic press on lid is loose and when doing the inversions every 30 sec. the developer and Blix continuously leak out. The kit makes 1 liter each and I was using a 500 ML tank so I got all 8 rolls done without running out. Just a messy process where you need good ventilation.
If anyone can advise me about a tank that I don't need to invert to agitate I would use that for color film.
The Ugly: After developing the 4 rolls of 120 which looked good I started on two rolls from the M3, one roll of which I had one of those shots you knew was a keeper as soon a you press the shutter, feeling confident with the process now and not having to pour the pre-soak water back into a container just down the drain I inverted the tank, the lid popped off and both rolls of film tumbled into the sink. Some valuable lessons there about non attachment. If I can't find a more suitable tank for C41 you can be sure I will duct tape the lid in place the next time.
