Instructions for developing black and white film
Kaden Kratzer, a super photographer, recently shared his developing process with me for black and white film. We recently became good friends and I had remarked that I regularly found white specks on my scanned film using my original developing technique so Kaden sought out to give me a hand. This post is his instructions, which after I tried, worked flawlessly for me. Kaden is a wonderful photographer (who recently joined us over at www.lostinfocus.org), an expert at film / developing and a great guy who is very willing to share his knowledge. Someone over at Lost in Focus asked if we could share his instructions and Kaden agreed. This post is Kaden’s original mail with my minor additions prefixed with (LR:).
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LET’S SEE IF I CAN MAKE THIS SIMPLE AND EASY
1 – In total darkness load your film onto a reel, put the reel into a tank, and put the appropriate
lid on. Did I mention that this step needs to be done in TOTAL DARKNESS.
2 – Prepare your developer and consult the BW film charts for particular films other than what I am suggesting, if you must. That can be seen here: http://digitaltruth.com/devchart.php
Here are suggestions from me for mixing chemicals and water:
- HC110 mix 1 part developer to 7 parts water (1:7 ratio)
- XTOL mix 1 part developer to 1 parts water (1:1 ratio)
- For RODINAL follow the instructions on box
The amounts needed in ounces are found on the bottom side of the tank and they differ for 35mm and 120mm film and the number of rolls of film being processed. Also since the tank is made for 2 reels if you are developing one reel use half of the cited amounts. Again, just look at the bottom of the tank
3 – LET’S GET STARTED:
A) Presoak – fill tank with water (remember at 168 F/20 C). Fill tank with water and agitate for 30 seconds. Agitation means moving the tank up and down with both hands and twist it. Pour water down the drain afterwards.
B) Start timer and pour DEVELOPER into tank. Agitate continuously for the first 15 seconds, then agitate five seconds every 15 seconds for the rest of the development. When the time is up, pour used developer down the drain.
(LR: paranoid that the white specs I had potentially came from crusty / dried bits of developer, I was careful not to let any get into the developer mix solution this time around. When I poured the developer in, I also banged the container HARD on the sink several times to dislodge any air bubbles)
C) Fill tank with STOP BATH. Agitate continuously for 30 seconds. Pour stop back into the container where it came from. You may use water instead of STOP BATH for 2 minutes and will have the same effect here.
D) Fill tank with FIXer. This step will take 7/12 minutes. Agitate as you did with developer – continuously for the first 15 seconds then five seconds every 15 seconds until its done. Kodak TMAX films require at least 8 minutes. Pour fix back into the container it came outta.
E) Fill tank with WATER. Agitate continuously for 30 seconds. Then pour water down the drain.
F) Fill tank with PERMA-WASH. Agitate continuously for 90 seconds.Then pour PERMA-WASH down the drain.
(LR: I didn’t have perma wash for when I tried this but it was ok)
G) Take reel out of tank and place film in washer/if you don’t have one put it into a water pitcher let the water run into it and fall out of the pitcher for 10 minutes. Meanwhile rinse tank thoroughly while film is washing.
H) Take film out of the washer and place it back into the tank. Gently (slowly like pouring beer) fill tank with PHOTO-FLOW. Agitate for 30 seconds. Then pour PHOTO-FLOW down the drain.
NOW YOU ARE DONE.
If you don’t have a dryer for film use a clothes pin in both ends of film to stretch it and let it dry somewhere that is clean and isn’t dusty. Many people use the shower area in bathroom for that purpose.
(LR: Only thing I would add here was that, following Kaden’s advice in another conversation, I also ‘squidged’ the film between my fingers to remove any visible / excess water as I hung it up – again, to avoid dust collecting).
Congrats!!! You are now an expert at this. :) these specific instructions.
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Thank you Kaden! If you have questions / comments, feel free to add them below – I am sure Kaden will swing by.
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I use the Ilford wash method to rinse negs. Saves a lot of water.
“After fixing, fill the spiral tank with water at the same temperature, +/– 5oC (9oF), as the processing solutions and invert it five times. Drain the water away and refill. Invert the tank ten times. Once more drain the water away and refill. Finally, invert the tank twenty times and drain the water away.”
This is book-standard black-and-white processing. I’m curious to know what you were doing before that was wrong?
@ Melanie the Ilford inversion method is actually 5/10/20/10/5 inversions
and although there is latitude for temperature of water slightly warmer
the advisable is still 20C. Colder water may give reticulation to the film.
@ Jeremy I beg to disagree. This is NOT book-standard black-and-white processing.
Look at the variations on agitation times. It uses the framework of the standard
b&w processing but deviates in the consistency of agitation times. :)
I forgot to mention in my post that I also banged the container on the sink at the beginning too which could have affected the white specs. Entry updated accordingly.
Okay, the agitation is more than usual — the usual is 5 seconds every 30, so what you’re doing is over-agitating (not a bad thing, I just mean “over” the box recommendation), but that’s not going to affect your white specks.
However, if you weren’t banging the tank to dislodge air bubbles, that could definitely help with the white specs, since air bubbles are one possible cause of them. Silly me, I was assuming the banging, since it’s so ingrained into my brain as part of agitation — but I bet that’s what made the difference.
The main reason I asked was because I did battle with the white specs, too, and what cleared it up for me was mixing my developer with distilled water instead of tap water. So I was wondering what fixed it for you.
Glad you got it sorted out, whatever the cause. :)
Thanks Jeremy – I wondered re that – distilled vs tap water also… I had read that on some of the forums but couldn’t bring myself to do it :). You were right to assume I was banging – I missed it cause I’m a total novice in this whole area (but learning fast).
In summary, there were a few things I did differently following this advice:
1. Banging (hard! :)
2. More washing
3. Different agitation times
4. More careful squeedging following the process
5. Taking note to try to limit of crusty floating parts
That’s encouraging though having found out others ran into the white spec problem too – I nearly gave up after the first couple of rolls. The new process worked great for me with 120 film. I’ll be trying with 35mm over the weekend and assuming my experience will not be different.
BTW, nice blog you have – will be spending more time on there.
Distilled water makes sense in countries where the water isn’t as fine as the water in most cities in the US. Then again distilled water usage is common recommendation. Not so necessary in the US.
Btw, agitation affects the smoothness of the development process and hence any potential white dots. The recommended 5 seconds every 15 is Ansel Adams / Fred Picker recommendations even though at the present at any local University is being taught 5 seconds every 30. It works a lot better across all formats inclusive in large formats, which was my main concern. The variation is also in the remainder of the areas outside the developer and fixer application which one is taught in University to be consistent as well. As stated not book-standard.
Ansel Adams recommended 5 seconds every 30 (“The Negative”, page 215).
The usual reason to agitate more is to increase contrast.
Jeremy I will be more than glad to expound on what I stated sometime tonight.
As to your comment about agitation let me post a quote for you:
“Agitation affects the rate of development, as it distributes
the developer to all areas of the film evenly, as soon as it makes
contact. While reducing the silver halides to metallic silver, the
developer, in immediate contact with the emulsion, becomes exhausted
and must be replaced through agitation. Agitation also supports the
removal of bromide, a development by-product, which otherwise
inhibits development locally and causes “bromide streaks.” A
consistent agitation technique is required for uniform film
development. Increased density along the edges indicates excessive
agitation, and uneven or mottled negatives indicate a lack of
agitation.”
Jeremy indeed I am wrong on 2 counts. Adams did it at 5 seconds every
30 and the description on the negative starts on page 204 onwards. Just
wanted to get home and check it out.
Next count – Picker has an even more complicated method on Zone IV
Workshop page 27. His involves a whole 15 seconds of agitation.
My version is a variant of experimenting with Fred’s method. That will
tell you how long ago I made that experiment that I could not even get
the source straight.
With the chapter in “The Negative” you have to be careful to look at the part about roll film, not sheet film, since the two obviously vary. Hence the confusion.
In practice the most important thing is to be consistent with agitation so you get consistent results. In any case, the “standard” I was talking about was the overall process with regard to the “white speck” problem. I don’t see any way the agitation interval could affect that.
I may disagree with you there…just based on my experiments a while ago although it was done in developing 4×5. I found this agitation I
suggested to work just fine all across the various film formats. Hence
I kept it.
The increase of agitation helps development and the contrast won’t occur
necessarily with increase in agitation. Now, length of time in development and certain types of developer will do that.
PS. I too develop color. I think you need a jobo. :)
The way I see it, the proof is in the pudding. Here are samples of
what I mean:
http://www.pbase.com/dehl/image/115614747
http://www.pbase.com/dehl/image/115600437
http://www.pbase.com/dehl/image/102940574
I got the Ilford information directly from an Ilford technical sheet (for FP4, I think — I don’t use Ilford films).
I don’t know, I am pretty fast and loose with my development practices and I’ve never had problems with my films. I use D76 either full strength or 1:1 depending on my mood and follow the directions on the box for whatever film I use. Very straightforward. I try to keep the wash water not too warm and not too cold but I’ve never actually used a thermometer and my film always comes out looking the same.
Does it really need to be so complicated?
Melanie if your practices work for you all the better. Post a link to some images you developed, I would be interested in seeing them.
Based on this thread, I went out and bought the Negative and the Print by Ansel Adams today. So, soon i’ll be able to contribute to the complexity.
Well good informative post!I don’t have much knowledge of making film but my few friends are working in it so i will share this information with them.
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