It's very important to get rid of this excess water else it'll take longer to dry the negative and it will have a lot of water stains when it dries. Negative squeegee - When you take your developed negative out of the tank, it will have lots of excess water. Any kitchen variety funnel will do as the chemicals you'll be using are NOT the burning-through-plastic kind. I prefer using the one with the circular head as it measures the temperature quickly and I can just leave it dangling on the mouths my chemical containers.įunnel - Since you're going to be recycling your chemicals at least 16 times, you'll need a funnel when you're pouring your chemicals from the developing tank back into their respective containers. In the photo, I have one regular thermometer and one with the circular head. Thermometer - An accurate and preferably fast thermometer is the one thing you cannot forget when you're developing your films as you will need to measure the temperature of your chemicals as that greatly affects how your negatives will turn out when you are done. Also, they can be very handy during shooting emergencies!Ĭlear plastic measuring pitcher that can hold 1 Liter of fluid - This is important when you're mixing your solutions. You use them to load your negatives in the reels and into the tank without worrying about light leaks or exposure. Lomography's Online Shop have them too but I just checked today and they didn't have any in stock.Ĭhanging bag - Changing bags are cheap, easy to use and come in different sizes. If you're getting them online, I would recommend B&H since their prices are competitive and their shipments are surprisingly fast. The rest of the stuff, you're going to need to buy from a photographic supplies store in your area or online. So that is our first and most important material - a roll of exposed film* I know what you're thinking. Of course, before you can actually start developing film, you'll need an actual exposed film to develop. The first half, this half, will cover the introduction, which you just read, and the "materials" you'll need for C-41 film development while the second half, which will be published shortly after, will cover the actual film development process. Since this is more of a tutorial or a crash course rather than a tipster, it's going to be a bit long. But because people are often surprised when they learn that I develop (and have been for more than a year now!) my own color negatives, I thought I’d share what I know and how I do it by way of another beginner’s guide (check out the one I did for star trail photography, so that those who are intimidated by film development would realize how easy it is and be inspired to do it themselves. There are probably a hundred or so people like stouf and ck_berlin in this community who have a more advanced knowledge of it than I do. Now, I am in no way claiming to be an expert on film development. In fact, the first roll I developed did not look at all like it was developed by someone who didn't know what she was doing! And by the third try, I had already figured out a flow that worked for me and everything was easy. It was tricky but definitely not hard at all. – and it felt like I needed an extra pair of hands since developing often requires performing two tasks almost simultaneously. I had to have a cheat sheet next to me so I could remember the important things – the number of minutes each solution should stay in the tank, the order of chemicals, etc. The first couple of times I did it, it was tricky. ![]() And when I thought I was ready, that’s when I bought all the materials I needed. I read a lot of articles about C-41 film development and I watched a number of YouTube videos. Of course, before I went off spending my hard-earned cash on chemicals and darkroom equipment, I did a lot of research on the Internet first.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |