|
|
|
Ever wondered how you go about developing a black and white 35mm film at home?
It's easy and only takes 20 minutes...
The first step is to transfer the film from the cartridge onto a plastic spool.
This has to be done in complete darkness, so I use a rubberised black bag with
elasticated holes that my hands fit into (above). It takes a bit of practice to
get the film onto the spool without being able to see what you're doing!
The spool goes into a light-tight plastic tank. Then I can take everything out
of the bag and work in the light. In fact, my tank takes two films at once.
I mix up three chemicals: developer, stop bath and fixer. Ideally, all should
be at a temperature of 20c. If the temperature is higher or lower, then the development
time has to be decreased or increased.
I pour the developer into the tank and agitate it (by turning the tank upside
down) for ten seconds every minute.
After six minutes I pour out the developer and pour in the stop bath, which I
leave for 30 seconds. I pour out that and pour in the fixer, which I leave for
three minutes. The stop and fixer can be reused a number of times.
By now, the film is no longer sensitive to light. But all traces of the fixer
have to be washed away. So I pour water (at 20c) in and out of the tank and agitate
it. Maybe ten changes of water in all. If you have running water at a temperature
of 20c, you can just leave the tank under that.
Now the exciting part! I remove the film from the spool and take a look at my
results. They're negatives of course. I hang up the film to dry, somewhere dust
free, and then cut it into strips.
Finally I load the strips into my Acer film scanner and soon they're available
to work with on screen.
Once you've bought the film scanner (cost around £300/$450) this is an inexpensive
way to enjoy photography. You can use any 35mm camera and, if you buy the film
in bulk, it can work out at around £1 ($1.50) per 36 exposure b&w film,
including the cost of the chemicals.
You can work on the images on your PC, put them on a web page, print them out
yourself, or burn them onto a CD and take it to a photo store or lab, where they
will make prints for you.
The Acer can scan slides or negs (colour or b&w) up to a resolution of 2700x2700
pixels. To put that into perspective, that's enough quality for full page reproduction
in a professional glossy magazine or a 12 inch photo enlargement.
Though I'm sure digital is the way of the future, film continues to have advantages.
You can carry around a cheap camera and still get excellent shots and there are
no restrictions on the storage of images -- just load another film!
More about the films I developed today, in tomorrow's journal entry.
Click here to visit the Badpuppy website
GETTING IN TOUCH
See the contact
page for full details of how you can reach me by e-mail or chat.
All content is
�copy; Copyright GarySevenUK.com 1999-2006.
Read more here
|
|
