Ok, its been a couple of months since i posted anything, but in that time i have found myself with cameras in hand most days, but my digitals haven't been seeing a whole lot of use, Ive been shooting a whole bunch of film, and loving it.
Why have i been loving the experience of shooting film again? Well, it takes the immediacy of the digital age out of the picture, and it also takes the lets just shoot a thousand frames and choose the best ones, shooting film has a very limited number of frames to use, so it slows me down to think what do i want to take with this press of the shutter release, have i got all the settings right.. then when the roll is finished, i still have to wait for a few days for the film to come back from the lab to see if it was alright.
I digress, as i have been shooting these films, i have also been looking at the bank account go down as the cost of getting film developed is not cheap, with a single roll of C-41 negative costing around $10-$15 dollars a time, and a proper black and white or E-6 film costing double! It got me thinking, i used to love developing film back in the day when i was at high school, and using a darkroom.. I did the numbers, and went about buying all the gear i needed to develop film at home... I went to my camera store, and ordered a developing tank that will hold 2x 35mm or 1x 120 roll film at a time, thermometer, mixing jugs, a squeegee, measuring things, a dark bag, and clips to hold processed film, and chem. I worked it our that to pay off the initial cost of setting everything up, i only need to shoot 10 rolls of black and white and its payed for, and i am already 20% of the way there as i had a couple of B+W films to process.
I have also found a supplier who will ship a simple 4 step ready to go c-41 colour neg processing mix to NZ for not bad money, and i will be able to get my costs for developing down to around $4.50 a roll for colour, and $3.00 a roll for black and white..
I will endeavor to post a step by step of developing a roll or 2 at home in the future. but lets just say film is a whole lotta fun now i can develop at home, and my camera store will love me because i will be buying a whole lot more hahaha
