6 Developing
So you’ve shot your film. You can send it to a lab—which is what I do and recommend—or you can develop it yourself. You can develop both color and black-and-white film by hand at home. Developing BW film is relatively simple as long as you have all the chemistry, but developing color is a much more demanding and sensitive process.
Color film has to be developed at precise temperatures for precise times. Even the slightest change in temperature can cause your film to be pushed or pulled. With that said, you can buy many at-home color-developing C41 kits. Just be sure to keep the temperatures precise and to watch the time of developing. Temperature is super-critical. I had my lab friend try to hand-develop color film one day by siphoning chemistry from the mini lab and using the BW film-developing canister. We achieved good results, but I think it’s just safer and easier to use the mini lab processor. It was hard to keep the temperature constant.
NOFEAR
“Do or do not; there is no try,” said Yoda. So just keep shooting. If you mess up on your first few tries like Luke did when he was training, don’t worry. Just keep practicing, and you’ll become a Jedi at using film.
Black-and-white film, on the other hand, is fun to develop. It can be done at many temperatures, and the time changes with the temperature, so it’s less critical. Room temperature (68 degrees) is what I believe my lab develops at, and they push or pull the film by keeping it in the developer for a longer or shorter time.
You push or pull film when you shoot it at a speed different from the film’s box speed. So if I shot Portra 400 at 1600, I would have the lab push it two stops, which means they’ll keep it in the developer longer. If I shot it at ISO 100, then they would keep it in the developer for a shorter period of time.
Black-and-white film developing requires fewer chemicals, too. You have the developer, the fixer, and some washes. There are many kinds of developers from Kodak, Ilford, and other companies that all do different things. By using different developers in combination with different films, you can control grain size and contrast to get the look you want. BW developing is not as strict as color developing and can be customized to your liking, so there is an incentive to develop BW film yourself if you want to achieve a personalized look.
I highly recommend that you develop test rolls with shots of nothing important before you ever do a roll that’s important to you or a paid gig. One wrong step, and you could ruin your film.
Also, keep in mind that the chemicals are not all that ecofriendly, so you will want good ventilation and storage for used and unused chemicals. And dispose of chemicals properly—it’s not safe to pour them down your drain.
“One wrong step, and you could ruin your film.”
Barry Kaplan on How to Develop Black-and-White Film at Home
Barry Kaplan is the owner of the Finer Image Photo Lab in Danvers, Massachusetts.
Black and white from a lab rat’s perspective... Well, not entirely, since I have been a photographer for longer than I’ve been developing and printing my own and others’ images. My current photo business primarily comes from pros, mothers, and businesspeople who want to know someone is looking after their images in a curatorial way. We cater to their desires to keep it warm, cool, cropped perfectly for framing; match the color to another copy; and so on.
When I make the occasional suggestion of “Let’s see how it might look in black and white,” the usual response is, “Ooh, I love black and white!” So why don’t we see more of it—especially in a digital world, where the conversion starts easily enough with a mouse click of desaturation? Why is it that BW film photography has been left in the hands of students and fine-art image makers?
The biggest culprit is probably the time needed to shoot, develop, and create a BW image from film, yet it’s well worth the investment and perhaps not as daunting as a new photographer might think. After all, it’s what we learned to do in high school, and we often had to wait until sunset to set up if we didn’t have a dark closet in the house.
With a well-exposed and well-developed negative and a good scanner, I think we have a historically new and great ability to create and manage fine images. Whether you choose a good old 35mm camera or a medium-format tool like my Mamiya RZ or Pentax 6×7, the process is pretty much the same.
1. Seeing. Teach yourself to see shades of gray and tones of light. Shapes, shadows, and highlights will appear where you previously only saw colors.
2. Shooting. Learn to expose your film properly, using the camera’s meter or a handheld one (available used for good prices). Because BW negatives need enough exposure to illuminate the shadows, you might want to overexpose 1/2 to 1 stop from the average light reading. If you are ambitious enough to learn Ansel Adams’ Zone System, you can use special chemical additions to your developer stage to extend this tonal range even beyond what your eye can see.
3. Deciding. What is the most important part of the scene or subject? In the tonal world of BW, you want to make your statement with shape and contrast. Is it a dramatic high-contrast situation or all soft grays, like a misty day with the promise of romance? There will be times when you allow the highlights to blow out for the sake of holding shadow detail and vice versa.
4. Developing. Do it yourself or get it to a knowledgeable lab. Please, no chain drugstores! There are many tutorials online to find good techniques. The film manufacturer will have chemical, time, and temperature recommendations for your starting point. I suggest sticking with one film type at first—say, Ilford HP5 or Kodak Tri-X. They have a huge following, so there’s a lot of info available, and both are forgiving films in case your technique is a little off. And that’s the fun of doing it yourself. Make a mistake, experiment, keep a few notes, and you will find your own path to B&W fulfillment.
Here are the basic steps to get started.
◇ Film: Tri-X 400
◇ Chemicals: Prepare these ahead of time and set them in front of you in the sink, ready to access as you go through the steps. Read and follow the package directions explicitly.
◇ Developer: Kodak XTOL or D-76 (powder mixes; both are excellent). XTOL may give you slightly finer grain. Ilford, Sprint, Agfa, and Edwal all make good products. T-Max liquid developer is also good and very convenient to mix.
◇ Stop bath: Water or glacial acetic acid (a concentrate that mixes with water to immediately stop the developer action inside the tank).
◇ Fixer: Usually mixed at one part fixer to three parts water from a liquid concentrate or a powder mix.
◇ Hypo clearing agent: This is required to eliminate any residual fixer from the film. I like Perma Wash by Heico. It cuts your water usage for washing down to two minutes, saving costs and the environment.
◇ Wetting agent: This helps water from the final wash step “sheet” off the film surface, allowing for even drying with no streaks. Don’t over-concentrate the mix, as it can leave white residue on the dry film.
◇ Dryer space: A place to hang the wet film away from possible airborne dust is a must. If you don’t have a drying cabinet or a broom closet, there are plastic ones for sale, or you might make one from an old-fashioned shoe bag hanger. I prefer to let the film just hang and air dry for a cleaner result.
◇ Small developing tank: Stainless-steel Nikkor-style or Paterson-style plastic. Each of these tanks has specific style reels for rolling the film onto them in complete darkness. The plastic reels are easier to learn but harder to keep clean. The plastic reels also adapt to handle 35mm or 120 film sizes. You need to practice reeling a length of film onto your reels with the lights on until you can do it with your eyes closed and cause no kinking or bending of the film.
◇ Film cassette, tank, reel, can opener, scissors.
Ready? Lights out! It should be dark enough that after two minutes you can’t see any light leaks or your hand in front of your face.
1. Open the film can with the can opener and slide the film out. It may want to unroll, so keep a light grip on it and keep your hands over the work area in case you drop it. I’ve hit my head coming up from the floor in pitch dark so many times that I should wear a hardhat in the darkroom.
Cut off about 2 inches of film below the leader, nice and straight across. This helps the film insert evenly into the reel. Sometimes a 36-exposure roll will have a leftover “tail” at the end of your loading. If this happens to you, either you didn’t cut off enough leader or it slipped out of the center core of the reel. You could remove it and start over, but it’s okay to leave an inch or two loose for your first time, although the frames on this part are subject to damage.
Now drop the loaded reel into the tank. If you’re doing just one roll, add an empty reel to the tank to take up the rest of the space. This prevents over-agitation from too much movement in the development step. After you pop on the tank cover and its partner the fill cap, you can turn on the room lights.
2. As long as the caps are fitting tightly, your film is safe in the can with the lights on for as long as you need to mix and temper your developer. Because you have already made your stock solution of developer from the mix, read the directions and figure out whether you will further dilute it for use as a “working” solution or whether it’s ready to use. Make enough to cover the reel or reels inside the tank at a measure of 8 ounces per reel. If you have an empty reel on top, just use 8 ounces for the one with film.
If it’s a ready-to-use mix and it’s too hot or too chilly, you can temper it by running water along the sides of the container before you add it to the tank. Some people in warm climates use ice to cool down solutions, but you have to allow for the increased dilution and extend your developing time. Your goal is to have 68- or 70-degree developer for the best contrast and grain. Use a thermometer to watch your temperature.
Using a small graduated or measuring beaker to temper your 8 ounces makes it easy to deal with the chemistry. Remove the small top filler cap, tilt the tank at an angle to help displace air, and pour the liquid into the tank at a steady rate. If you have two rolls to cover, you’ll probably have a little chemical run back out of the top. Now replace the fill cap and rap the bottom edge of the tank on your sink or counter to dislodge air bubbles that entered along with the flow.
Then do your first agitation for 5 to 10 seconds and let it rest. (To agitate, pick up the tank and tilt it right and then left about three times in 10 seconds. Do this every minute of developing and fixing. With Perma Wash, you’ll do it constantly during the one minute of that step.) You will repeat the steps of agitate, rap, and rest once a minute until the last minute of the development stage. With 15 seconds to go on the timer, remove the fill cap again and start pouring out the chemistry. (Developer is not harmful to the environment in this dilution, but I still wouldn’t pour it into a septic system.)
3. As you empty the tank, this serves as your last agitation, and you can then stop the developer activity by filling and emptying the tank two to three times quickly with water of about the same temperature. A better way to stop developer activity, which is alkaline in nature, is to use stop bath—a glacial acetic (acidic) chemical that neutralizes the developer on contact without any other effect on the film.
The choice of which to use goes back to the idea of flexibility and personal results. I don’t like the smell of stop bath and have learned to allow for the developing action to continue a little beyond my ideal time. However, if you are using a fixer that will be reused as part of a larger working solution, I’d use the stop bath to prevent weakening the fixer with leftover developer that remains after the water rinse.
4. Now you have emptied out the developer, you’ve stopped the process with water or stop bath, and you are ready to fix the film. Fixer removes any remaining silver from the film that was not converted by developer. Without this step, your film would be ruined by exposure to light when you opened the tank. Use a hardening-type fixer and agitate as described in Step 2 for the two to four minutes required. After the film has been fixed for at least two minutes, if your anticipation gets the better of you, you may open the tank and inspect your handiwork. But put it back in and finish the full time. I feel that the full four minutes suggested by most film and chemical suppliers should be followed for permanent results.
5. Clean film lasts forever, as far as we know. The three washing steps will ensure that your film won’t fade or develop staining over time from residual fixer. Remember, fixer’s job is to remove silver from film, but we only want to remove unwanted silver, not the nice highlights we worked so hard to produce. A typical wash will be water for two minutes with constant agitation, Perma Wash or another hypo clearing agent for one to two minutes with agitation, and a final wash of about five minutes. Water is not a resource to be wasted, and the amount you need is less than you might guess. Kodak’s recommendation is enough water to completely change the water in the tank once in five minutes—that’s little more than a trickle for a small tank! Keep your wash water close to the same temperature as in the other steps.
6. Final rinse—sometimes called wetting agent—minimizes drying marks by helping water sheet off the film as it hangs. It’s like Rain-X for film. The key here is to gently pour the mix into the open tank and give the reel an easy spin to make sure all the surfaces get coated. Do not agitate in this step. You don’t want a bubble bath for your film. When you lift out the reel and remove the film, try to maintain one direction for the lift. If you lift one end and then reverse it, the resulting water streaks may show up as lines on your prints.
7. Hang the film up with a wire and alligator clip or clothespin at the top. You can hold the film straight by attaching a weight or the used film can to the bottom of the roll. Close off this space so that no dust dries into the emulsion and leave it for a couple of hours to dry. You’ll know it’s dry and ready to print or cut when the curl is convex and the base (non-glossy side) side is atop the curl.
Congratulations! You have the satisfaction and pride of working with some of the earth’s basic elements to create a magical capture of light and shadow. You will become a better photographer by seeing the range of tones your film gathered. And you will make better decisions about how you want your prints to look, whether in your own darkroom or at the counter of your favorite photo lab.
Some of my favorite photography-school memories are the hours I spent in the darkroom, developing film and wet printing images. True, exposure to fumes and chemicals for extended periods of time might not be all that good for you, but it’s funny how I associate that smell with a certain kind of creativity. We worked in well-ventilated spaces, and the odors associated with that time are forever etched in my fond recollections. Maybe it’s the hands-on approach to a tactile object that gives film a different life than uploading straight files onto our hard drives. There is something to be said for making something concrete that you can touch. It becomes more than the idea, and the process and its many, many variables become an artistic journey with different possible outcomes.
Barry’s step-by-step directions leave out the feelings associated with fumbling in the dark, trying to get your film onto a little metal reel. It takes some concentration. The splashing of chemicals, the smell, the physical exertion it takes to agitate, the experience of holding your negatives up to the light once they are fixed and washed for that first peek...
If you really want to call yourself a film shooter, then I think developing a roll of B&W film is an absolute must. At the very least, you will learn about the amazing chemical process that takes light and silver and makes a negative, which you can then print. It’s nothing short of magic, in my mind.