How To Develop Black and White Film at Home

As a supplement to our ongoing feature, we show in this quick video some of the basics of developing black-and-white film at home. It's not that complicated at all!

[pedrojosesantos]

Done that in school more than 20 years ago, fixed my old Contax Camera this afternoon, put film on it and now I'm good to go

[purplecherry]

Sooo helpful! I just got a 35mm and I'm pretty excited to go back to film! haven't developed film since I was in high school. Digital photography has been my profession but Film was definitely my first passion!

[molinkie]

I was doing this as a teenager in the '60s and am thinking about starting up again. I used those same steel tanks and found this to be the least confusing and most helpful video to re-familiarize myself with the process. the only thing you didn't mention is the matter of solution temperature control.

[molinkie]

I used to work in complete darkness without a changing bag. I would open the film canister by whacking the protruding spool end on the counter to push the end cap on the other end off. I never used a retrieval tool. So unless they've changed the construction of the canisters in the last 50 years, that should still work.

[gsansoucie]

I learned on steel tanks in the dark ages, I do prefer the Patterson tank with the universal and easy to load spools (since I shoot 120 and 35).

[BennyCFD]

A regular bottle cap opener works fine to open the canisters.

[KevinKennedy]

Later this year, or early next year I'm gonna develop in my own, that is definitely my goal.

[mamiyapress]

Stop Bath and Fixer can be re-used several times.

[merlinmarquardt]

I used to do this in a makeshift darkroom at home. Used steel tank and reels. Opened film cassette with a bottle opener. Did not cut film. Pulled end of film from plastic spool before loading into reel. Film was taped to spool, and when pulling tape from spool noticed a very faint bluish white light at the line of separation. Wonder if anyone else has noticed that and has an explanation. Thought it might be a static electrical discharge? Anyway, a little off topic, but I thought an interesting phenomenon. Also, used Kodak Photo-Flo after washing film to minimize water marks.

[randallstewart]

Couple of critical comments: (1) Steel reels are a lot harder to load than suggested. A lot of practice with a dummy roll is required to be able to do this in a changing bag. (2) The final water wash shown is poor technique at best: flushing water in and out of the top of the reel doesn't wash the film much. and 5 minutes is too short even with proper technique.

[Myds]

Hi! I bought the same chemicals used in your video but I am confused with the amount I have to put in the developing tank. Could you also explain what are you mixing with the chemicals at the beginning and how much of it? It would really help me a lot!