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12-22-2008, 06:22 PM   #1
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First Roll Black and White Success!

I decided that I wanted to develop some B+W on my own instead of sending it out to a lab seeing as how no places around here do B+W.

So I scoured the internet to find some information on what I would need and $35 later I was the proud owner of a small developing tank and kodak D-76, kodak hardening fixer, and kodak indicator stop solution.

I don't have a dark room so that was the first challenge. I put two chairs in my closet and sat down to rip open a couple of Ilford FP4+ rolls. After some stumbling around and dropped scissors I had the cassettes loaded and the tank was sealed up.

After that I loaded up the chemicals and sat there with my watch inverting the tank. Little while later after I had finished washing the negatives I strung them up in my shower to check them out and to my great surprise they actually look great!

Haha I never would have that that I would succeed on my first attempt but I did and I'm quite proud of myself, haha hence the post here.

Just to make it relevant the two roles were shot with my KX and the M135 f3.5 which is definitely my favorite film camera, though I only have a K1000 an ME and a Fujica ST801 to compare it to. Though I'm hoping to add a 67 at some point and get my grandfather's old rolleiflex up and running soon.

I got much of my information from this board so I just wanted to say thanks to all of you guys for all of the great information that is stored here on this board.

Thanks!
Morgan

12-22-2008, 07:58 PM   #2
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Woo, congrats! Great feeling, isn't it? And it persists; for some reason I'm amazed every time I pull the negs out of the reel and see all those little pictures on them.
12-22-2008, 08:08 PM   #3
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To start the next argument, steel or plastic reel? :-)

Congrats,you will never regret doing your own film.
12-22-2008, 08:59 PM   #4
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So how are you going to make the prints?

12-22-2008, 09:16 PM   #5
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i would love to try developing but i'm too lazy and don't want to mess up the house
and plus scanning is hard work
12-22-2008, 09:32 PM   #6
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Congrats Morgan, show us some work when the time is right


QuoteOriginally posted by k100d Quote
i would love to try developing but i'm too lazy and don't want to mess up the house
and plus scanning is hard work
I feel the same. Do you just have the negatives scanned by a lab, in high resolution instead ?
12-22-2008, 10:15 PM   #7
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Way to go!!! I have been wanting to learn myself, but have been to lazy. Please post up the images when done.

12-23-2008, 06:36 AM   #8
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Unfortunately I don't have any way to make the prints myself, thats my next adventure. So I'm going to take them to the local lab to have prints made there. He'll just scan them and do the normal fuji frontier printing. A guy I know claims his work is about to throw out an enlarger so I'm going to try and scoop that up for future print making, but I don't have much room considering I rent a room in a house right now.

I'll definitely post up what I can, though I'll tell you right now the images by themselves won't look too spectacular. They are all parts of a whole. I took about fifteen frames of the same object with slight overlaps in hopes of creating one large image. Haha if it works out this will be the christmas present for my parents, but we'll see how it works out.
12-23-2008, 06:42 AM   #9
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I've been curious for a future attempt at this. Normally I know people try to minimize grain in their shots, or atleast keep it under control. I've got an idea in my head for some extremely grainy shots to create a certain mood. I've seen some older high ISO stuff in books that matches this, but when I looked at ilford 3200 and the other high ISO films they looked about as good as my K20d at those ISOs.

Anybody have any recommendations for film choice or processing to really emphasize the grain? Maybe to fog out the background a little bit? (I've been stomping out in the rain a lot recently to get real mist and fog but sometimes thats a little uncomfortable and for the next few days the weather doesn't seem to be cooperating.

Right now my KX is loaded with Ilford 3200 set at 1600, should I maybe expose it higher than that to get a grainier image?

Thanks for the encouragement and the help!
Morgan
12-23-2008, 09:16 AM   #10
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Morgan, While I have no clue as far as developing film, I do know that the scanning of the film is brutally important. Places like CVS and Walgrens add ''pp'' to scan so I request they turn off all pp and scan it plain. By doing this it avoids the over saturated colors especially the reds. I scan my own film now.
12-23-2008, 10:04 AM   #11
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Yeah, I'm hoping to get a good scanner myself so that I don't have to worry about it. I like the guy here who runs this lab so I'm not too worried, though his prices per print are a little over the top. The film is there now getting printed so hopefully I'll have it soon so I can start assembling the pictures and getting them ready to be matted and framed.

Haha kinda down to the wire on this but thats pretty normal. Stupid Christmas, always catches me off guard when it comes to buying presents. . . . . or maybe I'm just bad at procrastinating
12-23-2008, 10:06 AM   #12
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QuoteOriginally posted by WJW Quote
To start the next argument, steel or plastic reel? :-)

Congrats,you will never regret doing your own film.
Plastic reel, it was cheap and not mention about as easy as I could possibly imagine. It took nothing to load two rolls sitting in my closet so I'm pretty happy with it.
12-23-2008, 10:27 AM   #13
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If you want to emphasize grain, you can use your D-76 to good effect there, ...if you look at your developing chart that came with your film, just go one step warmer with your developer for starters: in general, this will emphasize the grain and usually incidentally bump contrast. (Not, generally, in ways I find pleasant)

A lot of things you might do will raise the grain, along with them different secondary effects. I've never been someone who was bothered by grain, but if you like the look, it's usually about the peculiar quality of a given film-developer combination, rather than the quantity. (Good old Plus-X is pretty grainy for its speed, compared to more modern films, but it's such *nice-looking* grain, you neither need it to be really obvious nor worry about reducing the visual effect of it, in my book) You can push and the grain will be quite conspicuous, too, along with getting you a speed boost if you want to play in lower light. Which for me, I'd almost always rather do than increase temperature. (Frankly, haste was the only reason I'd usually not wait for 20 degrees C, once upon a time, I'd notice the effects, but these days, there's no haste in getting B&W out when someone could be emailing it off a card. )

Doing negs is very like cooking... A lot easier to do competently than most people think, but you could occupy yourself with the subtleties for *lifetimes* if you so wished.

Mostly, I advise starting off with good film handling habits, to avoid any tragic mistakes.

For instance, I like to leave empty film cans (or spools/ a scrap of backing paper in the case of 120) in the funnel of a loaded tank, and never lock an empty tank closed: not only do I know exactly what's in there if there's a delay, (particularly cause I tend to write on my film cassettes with a Sharpie, for various reasons ) I know it's empty when it's empty, etc, etc.

And, to avoid doing that closet drill, a dark bag is a nice thing to have.
12-23-2008, 10:37 AM   #14
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Welcome to de DarkSide
It is addictive, and fun!
Now D76 is a great developer, good speed and fine grain, diluting it to 1+1 or 1+3 can help you increase grain and gain accutance.

A quick trick to make the whole gallon last longer is to go to CVS and ask for empty cough syrup bottles (or nalgene bottles) and "break" the gallon into many smaller bottles, filled to the brim.
That way you can get 8-12 mos out of the D76
12-23-2008, 02:15 PM   #15
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QuoteOriginally posted by titrisol Quote
Welcome to de DarkSide
It is addictive, and fun!
Now D76 is a great developer, good speed and fine grain, diluting it to 1+1 or 1+3 can help you increase grain and gain accutance.

A quick trick to make the whole gallon last longer is to go to CVS and ask for empty cough syrup bottles (or nalgene bottles) and "break" the gallon into many smaller bottles, filled to the brim.
That way you can get 8-12 mos out of the D76
Just get some Rodinal. Mixed as a one-shot when needed and the concentrate keeps forever. Mixed 1+100 and low agitation it gives grain and sharpness. :-)
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