Since getting back into film, I’ve slowly invested in the hobby with the aim of lowering the overall cost and having a bit more control over the creative process. That led, of course, to processing and scanning film at home. After processing dozens of rolls at home (all quite successfully, I might add), I have the operational experience both to calculate and talk about cost, and to reflect on the benefits I’m seeing — some of which were unexpected.
Let’s begin with a bit of a level-set here:
- I only process black and white at home at the moment this article was posted. I have a C-41 (color negative) chemistry kit waiting for enough rolls of film to justify mixing and processing, and an E-6 (color reversal) chemistry kit is on its way for those rolls that are piling-up. But the discussion and math in this post is for black and white only.
- Everything you’re about to read is based on shooting primarily 120 film, and where it matters to the discussion, generally it’s 6×6 frame format, yielding 12 shots per roll.
Reason 1: Cost
One of the main drivers of wanting to start processing at home was cost. When I first got back into film, and wasn’t aware we even had local labs around anymore, I sent my film off to The Darkroom in San Clemente, California. They’re pretty highly regarded, but round figures, it runs US$15 per roll for B&W or C-41 if you get decent quality (what they call “enhanced”) scans. (E-6 color reversal processing is higher.) That’s about the same pricing my local lab offers. If you assume a roll of film averages somewhere around US$7, the math is easy: US$1.83 per image. (See my notes above about the assumptions on that.)
Paying nearly two bucks per image means thinking twice about taking a shot. It discourages exposure bracketing, it discourages experimentation, it discourages any gratuitous shooting of any kind, and in the process, it sucks some (or a lot) of the fun out of it. I was having fun, but I felt constrained and limited, and I was holding back creatively.
Step one for me in reducing costs over the long run was buying a scanner, and I was reluctant to bite down on the investment. Epson is about the only viable option remaining on the market these days, and while they have several models, the most popular seem to be the V600 and the V800. The latter is US$800, and the former is about US$220. I labored over the choice a bit, but decided I didn’t want any compromises, and went for the V800.
Having a scanner immediately dropped about US$10 per roll (round figures) from the overall cost, changing the cost from US$1.83 per image to about US$0.42 per image — a non-trivial difference. Scanning 80 rolls of a film is a lot to reach break-even on the scanner investment, but I’m much farther along on that than I expected, much sooner.
Step two was doing the film processing at home. Like the scanner, that requires investing in a spiral tank, graduated cylinders, a decent lab thermometer, and other things I’ll cover in an article later.
The consumables (the required chemicals) also have a cost associated with them, and trying to figure it all out ahead of time was tough. But with some operating experience under my belt, I now know both the costs, and the yield, and the overall cost per roll was less than I expected.
I currently use all Kodak chemistry, and I decided on HC-110 developer because it can be mixed easily on a per-roll basis, and used economically as a “one-shot” developer (used for one roll and discarded). I chose Dilution H, which is half the chemical per roll of Dilution B, and provides more margin of error with timing; since times are basically doubled, being a little imprecise with timing doesn’t make much difference to the outcome — and I prefer that flexibility. Regardless, it also means using half the developer on a per-roll basis, which is even more economical since your burn rate in milliliters is obvious halved.
With the amounts I use, and the yields I get out of mixed fixer, hypo clear, etc., it break out like this:
- HC-110 Developer, US$0.28 per roll
- Indicator Stop, US$0.00 per roll (see below why it’s zero)
- Kodafix Fixer, US$0.15 per roll
- Hypo Clear, US $0.03 per roll
- Photo Flo, US $0.04 per roll
I use 8 ml of HC-110 per roll of 120 film. For fixer and hypo clear, I mix one liter, which lasts about 15 rolls of film before the fixer tests as exhausted, and the hypo clear begins to show noticeable discoloration. Photo Flo is 2 ml per roll, the amount Kodak recommends for 500 ml of solution. As for the indicator stop, it lasts so long, and is so cheap to begin with, I can’t really calculate a per-roll cost; fractions of a cent I’d guess, but I decided to just call it zero.
That results in a grand total of US$0.50 (50 cents) per roll of 120 film. On a per-shot basis, about US$0.04 each. With 135, less chemical is used for the developer, but it’s close to the same numbers, just divided over 24 or 36 exposures, not 12.
The final analysis then? Let’s do this with a sort of worst-case scenario, which is a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400, 120 size, which when I bought a roll retail while in New Jersey, cost me a whopping US$9.00:
- US$24.00 per roll (US$2.00 per image) using a lab w/ lab scanning
- US$14.00 per roll (US$1.17 per image) using a lab w/ home scanning
- US$9.50 per roll (US$0.79 per image) w/ home developing and scanning
If you switch that up to a roll of Fomapan 400 from B&H in New York, at US$4.29 per roll:
- US$19.29 per roll (US$1.61 per image) using a lab w/ lab scanning
- US$9.29 per roll (US$0.77 per image) using a lab w/ home scanning
- US$4.79 per roll (US$0.40 per image) w/ home developing and scanning
Those prices are the two extremes, but on average, I figure I was paying about US$1.75 per image when I started out with typical B&W film, and now I’m paying about 40 cents per image when I use Fomapan, which is often. In the process, I no longer feel constrained, I’m not holding back, and I feel a lot more creative freedom. I also experiment a lot more often — testing the effects of filters, playing with flash intensity and positioning, and so on.
Reason 2: Control
Like costs, there are a couple of aspects here: control over scanning, and control over developing.
When you have your own scanner, you get the decide scan quality, how much processing is done by the scanner or its software, and everything else. If you want low-res scans routinely, and high-res for the money shots, you can do that. If you want to use machine correction for dust and accept the quality tradeoffs, you can. Or not. Nobody’s going to tell you what’s best, and the only difference is going to be the time you spend waiting for the scanner to do its thing.
With developing, same story. Do you want thinner negatives, denser negatives, or do you want to explore stand processing to bring out more detail? Go for it; you control the process, and the decisions about what process you use.
I like being in the driver’s seat, and doing it all myself puts me right there. Of course, you also own any screw-ups along the way, but that’s the risk side of the risk/reward equation. Still, I’ll take the control any day.
Reason 3: Time
The most frustrating thing in using a mail order lab like The Darkroom has nothing to do with the lab — it’s the time required to get things back and forth in the mail, and the time you spend waiting in the lab’s queue. When I was using mail order, it was at least a week, usually ten days, from the time I dropped the film in the mail until the time they posted the scans for download. I like the slowness of film, but not this aspect of it.
My local lab may have turned it faster, but the lab is 35 or 40 minutes from home, and they turn things in 2 to 3 business days typically, resulting in over two hours of my time in the car between drop-off and pick-up. My E-6 lab is even farther away, though they can turn same-day. Regardless, time is time, and it’s taking it away from something else I could be doing. (Of course, developing film at home takes time as well, so perhaps it’s a wash, but I’d rather be processing my film than be stuck in a car in traffic.)
Developing at home, I can go out early afternoon and shoot an entire roll of film, process it late afternoon, and by early evening, it’s completely dry and ready for scanning. By bedtime, I have the film completely done, scanned, retouched in Photoshop where needed (dust touchups in my case), and ready to use.
Reason 4: Quality
While I love my local lab, when it comes to black and white, they have a set range of known workflows, and they don’t deviate. I brought-in a roll of Foma Retropan 320 before I was processing at home, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Customizing the workflow wasn’t really an option, so they arbitrarily decided to process it like Kodak Tri-X, and that was a mistake; the negatives came back usable and scannable, but they were quite thin. Development times for Retropan are supposed to be considerably longer than Tri-X.
Another example: Bergger Pancro. Bergger strongly recommends a presoak, and they strongly suggest longer fix times. Again, my local lab had never seen, heard of, or processed Bergger Pancro. I decided to hold onto the roll until I was processing at home, so I could do it the way the Bergger data sheet suggests.
I could go on (e.g., Film Photography Project’s cinema and speciality film conversions), but the point is that when you do it yourself, whether you’re using some oddball film you found online, or something mainstream, you can get better quality results because you can adjust the process to target any film you choose to use.
And speaking of quality, one thing I’ve noticed is that processing my film at home results in significantly less dust on the negatives. No matter how much I try to alleviate it, lab-processed film that I scan myself is covered in dust that doesn’t easily spray away with “canned air.” Because my film goes from the tank to the scanner in mere hours in most cases, and because it’s never inserted into plastic film carriers, the level of dust is dramatically reduced. (Obviously, most scans done at the lab are done in the processing workflow, and dust isn’t an issue, but then we’re back to the cost differences.)
Reason 5: Experimentation
Another reason to process at home is experimentation. It’s related to what I said above… Weird films you get from the FPP store, or perfectly mainstream but not widely available films like Bergger or Foma Retropan, are easy to try-out because you just refer to the data sheets or online resources like the Massive Development Chart, and customize the processing to meet the need.
But moreover, do you want to push or pull? Shoot that roll of Tri-X 400 at 1,600 — or 200? Go for it, and adjust your development times accordingly to compensate. Of course you can ask your lab to do that for you — and they will — but for a pretty outrageous price, honestly (based on my local lab, and The Darkroom, anyway). At home, it’s easy, and costs nothing but the additional development time you may need for pushing.
And let’s not forget to mention stand and semi-stand developing. I’ve not experimented with it personally, but these very long development times with highly diluted developer chemistry can provide some interesting results, and you’ll never get the typical commercial lab to do such things for you.
Oh, and developers. I’m using solely HC-110 at the moment, but do you want to play with Rodinal? D-76? Diafine? Make your own with coffee and orange juice (or whatever)? The developer world is your oyster. There are infinite combinations of chemistry and timing and methodology, and you can try one and stick with it — or spend the rest of your life tinkering with the options open to you.
Reason 6: It’s Not as Hard as You May Think
I developed film back in my high school years in photography class, and I remember the process being irritating, error-prone, and difficult. I’d have trouble getting the film onto the metal spirals, I’d often end-up with a spot of film buckled a bit resulting in a ruined frame where the chemistry couldn’t reach the emulsion, and I had a tendency toward getting over-dense negatives. It just wasn’t much fun. Alas, times change.
It can still be challenging sometimes, but first off, the equipment is better. The popular Paterson tank is practically miraculous, and with practice (not even that much practice, honestly), you can easily ratchet a roll of film onto the spiral in less than a minute from start to finish. (Just make sure you use a completely dry spiral; wet ones don’t ratchet very well.)
The rest of the process is following directions. If you find it challenging to step into your kitchen and cook something based on a professional recipe, you probably aren’t going to like developing your own film. On the other hand, if you can read and follow directions, if you can cross-check your work, and if you can pay attention to what you’re doing and resist distractions like social media and smartphone notifications, you’ll be just fine. Film developing is not rocket science, but it absolutely is about following directions exactly, paying attention, and resisting the temptation to multitask. The chemistry has to be diluted properly, mixed properly, be at the right temperature, be fresh or sufficiently fresh (vs. old and exhausted) and be used in the development workflow in the right way, and for the right amount of time. If you mess-up any of those basic things, you can count on getting poor, or at least not-as-good-as-it-could-be results.
But beyond the following of directions, there is nothing particularly difficult or complicated about film developing. Just do your homework, practice loading film on a Paterson spiral with a sacrificed roll of unexposed film until you can do it in the dark, and then follow the steps.
Reason 7: Environmental Impact and Waste
Let’s be honest for a moment; film itself is not exactly environmentally friendly. Plastic substrates, silver compounds, harsh (and sometimes even dangerous) chemicals, and tons of water are all needed. Others have spoken of issues like silver recovery and chemical disposal to help minimize it, but it’s not impact-free — no matter where your film gets developed.
However, shipping film off to a distant lab and having them ship media back to you isn’t exactly low-impact either. And even a local lab requires some carbon emission to get to and from. Then there’s the plastic carriers they put your negatives in which is not reusable in any practical way, and the paper and cardboard it’s all likely to be boxed in.
While this is probably the very weakest of my reasons to develop film at home, it feels to me that there’s a slight net reduction in environmental impact doing it yourself. No shipping, no driving to a lab, no packaging, the opportunity to do things like reload and reuse your 35mm cartridges with a bulk loader, and perhaps the opportunity to create an art project with your 120 backing paper (yes, I’ve done that).
Reason 8: Because You Want To
Probably the best reason to develop film at home? Because you want to. Everything I said above is a justification for the choice, and they’re good enough reasons. But the main reason I develop film at home is because I want to. It’s fun, I enjoy it, it adds to what makes photography appealing to me, and at the end of the day, I don’t need to justify developing my film, or turn it into some sort of financial analysis exercise. I do it because I want to, and if you do as well, go for it. (And, of course, if you don’t, that’s why there are photo labs.)
In Closing
While a film scanner was a pretty significant investment I’ve still not fully amortized, developing and scanning my film at home has been fun, fulfilling, and has provided terrific results. There have been learning opportunities; a recent roll of Tri-X has vertical streaks from the use of a squeegee for example. Improper agitation procedure led to light edges in the images. And I’m finding that online development times aren’t always dead-on for me, and I’m making adjustments. I’ve also learned just how far I can stretch my fixer. But so far, I’ve not ruined anything, every roll has been usable and scannable, and I’ve gained a lot in control while reducing the costs considerably. The resulting willingness to get creative, try things, and simply shoot stuff has improved my work.
To be sure, I’m no Ansel Adams. But I am having a great time with film photography, and at the end of the day, that’s truly what it’s all about.
Happy shooting.
