First Attempts at Developing Film (aka taking my precious photos lives into my own hands)
Getting into film photography has been so much fun. I’ve really grown in my knowledge of photography as a science. What I hadn’t anticipated though was how absolutely expensive this hobby can get. From the quadruple digit priced point-and-shoot cameras to the double-take high prices for one roll of film, and getting your film professionally developed… it can really set your credit cards on fire.
I started taking film photos back in August and within 3 months have amassed a collection of film that needs to be developed. In those early days I went through a roll every 2 weeks. Now? It’s 2 rolls a week. And every trip to the camera store to get those developed set me back around $20 per roll.
As much as I love being indulgent and spending money needlessly, and lord knows this was necessary, I really was not keen to continue forking out this much dough. I did a little curious search in Youtube: how to develop 35mm film at home. After watching the 5 videos on offer I decided it was worth a try.
So after spending a yucky amount of money on the essentials I was ready to go.
Now, I’m not here to do a tutorial by any means but honestly there isn’t much room for error other than every step of the process needs to be followed to a T without error. No pressure, alright? But honestly, I was pretty nervous the first round. I didn’t know what was on the roll of film I was developing but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t care if I pulled a blank strip out of the reel.
I did misinterpret the instructions when mixing the chemicals and may have diluted the developer a smidge. At this point in time, after developing 5 rolls of film now, I can say that it didn’t really make a difference but I certainly won’t repeat that mistake the next time.
Another thing to note, there is a magical equation the you have to do every time you process a couple of rolls of film that adds a precise amount of time to the developing time. This accounts for how weakened the developer becomes with every processed roll. This equation is something that is vaguely detailed in the Cinestill C41 instruction “manual” (which is just a folded piece of paper) and I have decided I’ll just add a couple of seconds each time and hope for the best. This is how I operate in life and I by no means suggest others follow my lead but I know the consequences of living chaotically and I accept those concequences (fast foward to me crying because my film did not develop properly).
Also of note, developing black-and-white film at home is stupid easy. No playing chemist and mixing chemicals, it’s one step, and takes just a few minutes of your time. This is in contrast to how my local film developer takes a minimum of 2 weeks to process black-and-white film.
Developing my own film was the best decision I ever made. It’s saved my wallet in the long run and has also satisfied that makers-itch (you know, the itch you get to spend an obnoxious amount of time and money on making something that someone else could do for you if you weren’t so cheap). Although I live a ridiculously busy life at the moment, it really is rewarding to use my free time to develop a few rolls from the accumulation in my fridge and see the results of my vision. Now the next hurdle is to master digitizing these negatives with my plustek film scanner…of which has been a labor of love, for sure.