Getting started: 35mm film processing

Learning to develop your own film can be a fun and rewarding process that puts you straight in the middle of the creative process.  The initial equipment cost is quite low (around $100) and with a little preparation and planning you’ll be developing your own film in no time.

First of all, lets assume that you have chosen the particular  film you want to develop and are already familiar with terms such as ISO rating, film speed, etc.  If not,  click here for a crash course in the intricacies of film.  Of course for the rest of this procedure,  we are referring to black and white film (of the non c-41 variety) sold in specialty camera shops and all over the internet.   The kind of film that you run across in your local department store is most likely NOT the kind that you would be able to develop yourself, as least not easily.

Now having said that, lets compile a modest list of equipment that the budding film photographer needs:

• Film processing chemicals: for simplicity purposes, I would recommend the following
  • Kodak   D-76, a general all-purpose film developer (comes in powdered form)
  • Kodak indicator stop bath (liquid very smelly)
  • Kodak  professional fixer (comes in a powdered form)
  • Kodak hypoclearing agent (small bag powdered form)
  • Kodak photo flo (liquid)
• Some nitrile gloves, to prevent your hands from coming in contact with chemicals that you may or may not be sensitive to.
• 3 – 1 gallon brown plastic jugs.  These you will store some of your chemicals in, and they need to be opaque to keep the light from reacting with them in storage.  If your local camera shop doesn’t have some, or you find that you cannot order some of these relatively cheaply, then simply use whatever is available to you in the gallon variety.  However, find a nice dark and cool place to store your chemicals when not in use.  And label them clearly as to the contents and date prepared.
• 1 – liter brown plastic jug to hold the hypo clearing solution
• a safety dusk mask (for mixing dusty chemicals)
• safety glasses (you definitely do NOT want to get stop bath,  or anything else that is not supposed to be in there  in your eyeball)
• a steel 35 film reel (be careful when buying these,  a cheap one will warp and let your film loose mid-process, and you will be sad.  Also, avoid the spring clip style of these reels if you can.)
• a stainless steel film developing tank (the height of the canister determines how many reels you can develop at one time, if you want to be more economical and do two or more at a time, then get a larger canister.  however I would recommend starting out with the single reel version)
• A couple of darkroom thermometers (I would suggest at least one of them to be the stem-type with the dial on the top)
• A plastic funnel or two
• some plastic condiment bottles to stage your developing chemicals in
• a medium-sized plastic tray about 2 or 3 inches deep, that will hold water
• a film changing bag (optional) or a very dark room that you can use to load the film into your developing reels
• Distilled water
• Weighted film clips or some plastic clothes pins with a small lead weight on one of them
• Small metal can opener
• Small pair of scissors
• digital Kitchen timer
• zip lock bag or two
• negative archival sleeves

Optional:

• film washer  (you can find a used one fairly cheap $30 or so)
• film dryer (easy to build and worth the trouble.)

A few brief words about safety and common sense type things:

Mix all chemicals according to the directions on each of the containers.  Pay attention to the temperature of the water your using to dissolve the powdered chemicals in, its very important.

Also:  DO NOT mix any powdered chemical without a dust mask and eye protection.    Always make sure there is proper ventilation in the area that you are using to mix chemicals in.  The chemical dust is definitely not good for you or anyone else.  Having food or anything else of that nature in an area where your mixing chemicals or working with chemicals is NOT a good idea.  If your developing film in your kitchen or bathroom sink it is in your best interest and everyone else’s interest to keep the area clean as you can.  Once again, as far as darkroom and film work goes, becoming a clean freak will pay off for you later.

Onward

Generally, if i mix new developer and fixer from powder, I like to wait 24 hours before i actually use them.  Why? Because quite frequently there will be small particles of chemistry that haven’t fully dissolved, and rest assured they will stick themselves firmly to your negatives, producing aggravating white spots in your prints or digital scans.

Also, if your water is excessively hard, or you use any water softener additives in your household tap water, you would be better off using distilled water for this step.  If there is any doubt as to the integrity of your water, then use distilled for mixing your chemicals.

Store your chemicals in a cool, dark area until you need them.

Preparing your chemicals

• Locate your condiment containers and film tank
• With the lid on the film tank, remove the smaller light-tight cap from the film tank and pour some water in until it is just full.  Do not fill it up to the point that you
  

  Condiment bottle used for staging chemicals

  actually see liquid,  rather it should be just below that level.

• Pour the water from the film tank into your condiment container and mark the level with a permanent marker, this the amount of chemistry you will need to fill up your tank.
• Mark each condiment bottle as to the chemical it will contain.  Developer, Stop Bath, and Fixer.  You may also wish to mark one for Hypo Clearing solution and Photo flow.  Wash them thoroughly after use and always use the same container for each chemical.
• Carefully fill each condiment container with the appropriate chemical.  Fill the photo flow container  with distilled water.  And mix the hypo-clearing solution accordingly.  Remember only fill each container to the level required to fill your tank.

Prepare your water bath

Most film developers operate optimally at a temperature of 68 degrees.  Deviation from this temperature will produce different effects on your film.  Although not quite as critical as it used to be, it is wise to stick as close to this temperature as possible if you wish to have consistent results.

So having said that, fill your plastic tub to a depth of a couple inches with 68 degree water.  If it’s too warm add some ice, too cool add warm water, etc.  A lot of beginners become frustrated at not being able to keep their water bath a constant temperature, all it takes is a little practice and patience and you will quickly master this.

Place your small chemistry bottles inside the water bath and prepare to load your film.

Loading your film

Before you actually attempt  this with live film, I would suggest you acquire a roll of ‘junk’ film and practice this  in the daylight.  It can be tricky at first, but after a few times it is quite easy to master.

First, wash you hands.  Any oil or dirt on your hands will only give you trouble later should you  happen to accidentally touch your film.

Gather your film reel, steel film tank, can opener, small scissors and roll of film and put them all in your film changing bag or darkroom.

Perform the following steps:

• Using your can opener,  pry off the lid from your roll of film.
  

  film canister

• Carefully ease the roll of film out if its container.  Taking care not to let it unwind.  Avoid touching the film, rather try and grasp it on the edges.
• Using your scissors trim the ‘leader’ from the film.
• Cupping the film in one hand, orientate the film reel like SO and feed the film into the small slit in the center.
• Turn the film reel slowly and the prongs in the film reel should sink into the sprocket holes on the film

Threaded film reel

• Gently turn the film reel while feeding it film from your film canister.  Ideally there shouldn’t be a lot of tension on your film and it should feed into the film reel quite easily.  If you feel your film kink or an unusual amount of tension, chances are that  the film is not seated correctly and you must unwind your film and begin again.

Winding the spool

• The plastic spool that your film is wrapped around, is taped to the end of the film.  Therefore you must trim that edge of your film off after you have successfully loaded it into the film reel.

full film reel

• Once you have the film reel properly loaded, place it inside the film tank and fasten the lid securely.
• Try to develop the film within 24 hours after loading it in the film tank.

Again practice is essential to being successful in loading your film.  You will master this in no time and never give it another thought.

Go time

• Locate your digital timer and set it to the appropriate time for your film.
• Using your stem thermometer, check the temperature of your developer.
• If the temperature of your developer is not quite where it needs to be, then consider removing it from the water bath and placing it in a separate mini-bath.  Developer temperature is critical, the temperature of the stop bath and fixing chemicals are not so critical.
• Once the developer has reached the proper temperature, remove the small light-tight cap from the film tank, and tilting the tank slightly,  pour the developer in.
• Once the film tank is full, replace the cap and start the timer.
• Gently agitate the tank for 30 seconds.  (Agitate meaning gently turning the tank over and then turning it right-side up)
• Once you have completed this, give the tank a few taps against a hard surface to dislodge any air bubbles that maybe have formed during agitation.
• Place the tank in the water bath.
• Agitate the tank for ten seconds for each minute of developing time, don’t forgot to tap the tank before placing it back in the bath.
• Approximately 15 seconds before developing is complete remove the light-tight cap and pour the developer down the drain.
• Pour the stop bath in just as the timer goes off, once it is full continually agitate for 30 seconds.
• After this is done,  do not throw away the stop bath, simply pour it back into the bottle.  You can reuse stop bath until it turns purple.
• Set your timer for the appropriate fixing time. (generally it is safe to use 7 minutes for the standard kodak fixer)
• As with your film developer, agitate for 30 seconds and then 10 seconds for every minute of fixing time.
• Do not throw away the fixer, pour it back in the bottle for reuse.
• Add the hypo clearing solution, agitate for two minutes and discard.

Film washing

After using the hypo clearing solution, you must wash the film to get rid of any residual chemicals.  I recommend at least 5 minutes in a vigorous water bath.  If you don’t have a reel film washer, simply remove the top from your tank and  place it under the faucet for at least 5 – 10 minutes.  Extra washing will not hurt under normal circumstances.

Once your film is washed,  you must dunk it into some distilled water mixed with a minute amount of photo flo.  The amount of photo flo you need is equivalent to about 1/4 of a drop, so dip the end of a tooth pick into your photo flo bottle and dunk it briefly into your container of distilled water.

Douse your film reel in this swirl it around briefly and remove.  Give the reel a brief shake to remove any excess water and quickly place it inside a zip lock bag to protect it from dust.

Film Drying

You have a few options here.

You can build your own film dryer for about $30, or you can hang your film in the bathroom and let it dry overnight.
The bathroom is generally the most dust free room in the house,  especially just after someone has taken a shower.  So if you going to use the bathroom, run  a hot shower briefly until the bathroom mirror just slightly fogs.  Also, depending on how dirty your duct work is, you may want to close any any air conditioning/ heating vents in your bathroom.

Unless you live alone or can avoid the bathroom for many hours, I would recommend building a film dryer.   The only difficult part is having someone cut some PVC pipe for you and drilling a few holes.  Here is a demonstration model.  I’ll add directions to build this contraption shortly.

film dryer

When hanging film to dry always put one film clip on the upper left corner of the roll, and the other clip on the lower right corner, so the film hangs at a slant.  This will hopefully encourage the water to run off the bottom of the film as opposed to lingering on your work and causing water spots.

Hanging film can take anywhere from 6 to 24 hours to dry completely, depending on the humidity in your area.  Handling film when the emulsion is not dry is a disaster waiting to happen,  so always err on the side of caution.

Post processing

After your film is dry, carefully cut your negatives into strips that hold five frames each, and slip them into your archival sleeves.  If your using a 36 exposure roll, you’ll have one frame leftover, so either slip that single frame into a different archival page or throw it away.  Make sure the dust is kept to a minimum as you do this, or any dust that lands on your negative will  grind away at the emulsion when you slip it into the sleeve.  I keep a bit of canned air handy so i can gently dust off the negative as I put it into the sleeve.

All Done

You did it!  Ok sure things got a little hectic at times, but now that you have the procedure down you will only improve.  If your results were not to you liking, make some notes for improvement next time.

The post game show

Of course as you will soon learn, every photographer and almost every book addressing the subject will have a number of different ways to accomplish the same task.   What i’ve given you is the generic procedure, and it is up to you to customize the technique in accordance to the results that you want.

There are a multitude of developers and fixers available, as well as films.  Each requiring different handling and perhaps offering different avenues to explore.