to process or not

[justin_kroman]

to thoughs of you that have home dark rooms, do you process your own

film, or do you have a lab do it, and you make the prints. (i talkin

B&W)

 

I am just looking to see if really save much money in the end by

doing it yourself. This dark room that I am building will most likly

only be up and running (for me) for about a year, as I plan on

moving. In a years time, would I have saved enough money to pay for

chem, tanks, reels, ..... ?

 

Thanks for any help.

[gerald_widen]

I think most people do their own negatives for control not to save money. For the time being try some C-41 film, I like the Ilford XP2-Super and have a local lab process it. Very nice film.

[ann_clancy3]

Not to sound ugly, but doing your own developing and printing is not the way to save money. Most of us do it because we love the process, the results and the control we have over the final print.

We do not save money.

I have lost count of how many times I have moved, including the

darkroom. It is always worth the cost in time and labor and money.

Developing film is not the expense factor. Tanks, reels and chemistry is relatively cheap. In fact you don't need a darkroom to develop negatives.

 

Set up your darkroom if you love the work, if not send them to some lab.

[rick_jones5]

Justin-as to whether or not you can save money will depend on how much you shoot and how many of those shots are printed. One roll a week-no brainer-send it out for processing and proofing ordering selected prints. One roll a day may be a different story-I believe you could actually save money doing your own processing.

[justin_kroman]

ok. I enjoy printing very much, but when you send color film out to a lab and print it yourself, you are still involoed in the final look of the image. As i am a student my buget is less than I would like. I still have labs there, but lab hours are lame (why are they not open at 3am when I want to print) I will do much processing there, but what I dont do there I would either do at home, or send to a lab. I enjoy processing, but at the same time, I have got to pay the bills. Thanks for input. I will still look into both options.

[ole_tjugen]

I process my own film.

I also mix my own chemicals.

 

I'd like to say that this is for artistic control, or even saving money.

 

It isn't.

I just enjoy doing it!

[klix]

No need to "build" a darkroom. A changing bag (about $30-$40) in a darkened room with running water is good enough for personal use.

 

As other have said, it's not about saving money -- it's the "ama" in "amatore..."

[silverfishla]

Time vs. money is the key here. It takes a lot of time to set up your chemicals just right,

develop your film, then clean up (Oh how I hate cleaning up!!!). If time is of no relevance, go

with the darkroom and process yourself. I develop all of my own black and white materials

because if affords me the luxury of attaining certain goals with my film (controlling contrast, grain,

etc.). It also lets me try different combinations of chemicals with different films. Most black and

white labs run their film through a machine and only select few will offer alternative chemicals for

development.

[evan_parker]

I've found that, besides the darkroom equipment itself, high quality paper expenses get pretty high. I'm not as miserly with paper as I might like, and this coupled with my tendency towards perfectionism but not-quite-perfect-skills leads to more waste than I'd like.

[walter_degroot]

you probably cannot do any worse than a commercial lab.

they are your pictures and you care about them.

developing and making proof sheets for a 36 or 2-36 rolls every week is not a real chore. developing and printing every frame a 36 exposuer roll and printing all 36 every week IS .

 

I built a auto-exposure device many years ago.

i have not found / unpacked it yet . I guess i could build another.

all you do is dial in the paper / developer number and it auto-exposes. i would like a commercial version.

 

color: i duped a lot of slides and used 200 feet of film in 7-8 months. that worked out fine.

I printed a few negatives and slides with kodak and cibachrome.

I would not develop c-41 color and try to print a whole roll.

too much like hard work. print my favorites- yes

but not a whole roll. printing from negs is a do-able thing.

slides cost more and are harder.

c-41 b&w sounds good and b&w printing is standard.

the wide latitude is a good feature.

 

i would stick to kodak products unless i am assured that agfa and others are not like they were ( coiled springs ) i used a few rolls or agfa isopan record and could not keep it flat!

 

I am anxious to get started again. as soon as the grandkids move out!!

[adrian_vincent_twiss]

I process and print all my own black and white photographs and hand print all my own colour. I leave the development of colour negatives to my lab because there is a great deal less control you can exercise over colour print film than is the case with monochrome films. Doing your own printing is certainly not a money saving exercise. I want to make my own prints because ulitmately only I know what I really want and it is more reliable to achieve my aims myself rather than try to explain it to another printer. Printing is a very personal thing. Doing your own printing also allows you to "spread your wings" and experiment to a far greater extent than many printing houses would consider commercially viable. Finally there I get a real sense of satisfaction by being able to say that a finished print was all my own work.

 

I recommend you investigate home processing and printing in more detail and you will find that it opens up a facinating world of new possibilities in photographic expression.

 

With the digital age well and truly with us it has never been a better time to get some real bargains in darkroom equipment.

 

Good luck and enjoy

 

 

Adrian

[lachaine]

It might be possible to save money in the long run if you develop your own. Just developing is easy and economical. That's what I do now. I don't have a darkroom anymore, but I develop my own B&W film (all you need is a Paterson tank, the chemicals, and a few minor accessories). I scan my negatives at a lower resolution on a Canoscan 8000F flatbed (lower resolution is fast) - I use this as I would a contact sheet, only it's a million times better than a contact sheet, even at a lower resolution. Then, I either rescan the keepers at 2400dpi, or I have only the keepers I want printed. At this point, I wish I had bought an enlarger instead of the scanner though. As with anything computerized, you lose too much value if you sell, so I'm stuck with the scanner, and I make the best of it as I described. But I do think it's possible to save money on just the film development by doing it yourself - not to mention that you have the ability to develop your film as soon as you get home from shooting if you want to.

[diogo_quintas]

I've just built a darkroom in a bathroom that anyone used here at home, so I'm a beginner just like you, but I've already tasted the enjoyment of developing and printing your own negatives. I don't think it's cheap but maybe thats because I've a "tendency towards perfectionism but not-quite-perfect-skills" as one said.

 

I do my own develpment and printing 'cause I'm just anged up with photography and if you're really amazed by this world of B&W, I'd strongly sugest to stick with your task.

 

(I appolagize by any speling and gramma errors in this message... I'm not natural of an english based country and I dont feel like getting the dictionary.)

[erik_asgeirsson]

The main reason to do it yourself, as mentioned earlier, is for control of contrast, especially if you plan to push the film. You will probably save money in the long run if you process a lot of film, or if you mix your develper from scratch. However, once you figure in the cost of your time spent mixing chemicals, developing, and drying, it really comes down to whether you want to be involved in all steps of the photographic process, or if you are willing to be at the mercy of the lab's developing. As an aside, if you ever start investigating the zone system, you pretty much have to develop film yourself.

[james_megargee]

There is nothing as educational about what is possible within the process (

both film processing and printing) as doing it yourself. With that said -

establishing a relationship with a real professional lab in your area (one that

will work with you to assist you in getting what you want) will in the end "save

you money" if that is your goal.