My first time was...

Yesterday, and I was a little nervous.

I'm talking about developing film in the darkroom, of course.
I had a friend from the Photog society explaining again the procedure, but I did everything by myself. It went ok... Unfortunately there were a few glitches.
The practice runs of getting the film into the coil went fine, but for the real deal, it got all tangled up...
I had the chemicals all prepared, but forgot to align them in the proper order...
DOH!
So developer > fixer > stopper > fixer was the actual procedure... Needless to say the negatives got a bit overdeveloped...

Still... No blacked out roll so I'm still happy.

Today I went back in and made two prints (do you call it prints?) Which turned out ok, one has a water mark which I hadn't noticed in the negative (I didn't use the pincers because they were causing probs for my friend).

I'll see if I can scan them tomorrow and I'll show you the results.

BTW, these were negatives of Ilford HP5 400 on the MX (MX 1 for those following my MXs dilema).

Besides the obvious lesson regarding the mess I mention above, it was really good because now I'll do it again much more relaxed.

Kudos for having done it! I've watched it being done but never dabbled myself.

Having the resources of the Photog. society really helps. It makes shooting film much cheaper. Its also quite fun, although you are risking the results at least in the beginning...

Well done for giving it a go.

I developed film once, in the school Photo club, what a disaster!

I bottle out and take mine for developing, mind I shoot colour nowadays.

Here you go, my 2 first prints.



Notice the water mark... DOH! missed that. This experiment didn't work very well, plus I got the DOF wrong. Film is Hard...
Oh, btw, look at those arms... Noob! I have to work on my shooting stance.



I like this one, although it doesn't really gain anything with B&W.
Dunno what that white mark up there... I hope its water again.
More lessons learned:
ISO 400 is too noisy, and way too much speed than necessary for these. I got it because of Edinburgh's weather, but luckily most days lately have been sunny.
The Uni's scanner is c**p.

Good things: No clear problems with exposure, so the MX seems to be working fine.

I have maybe 2 or 3 other prints to make out of that roll.

They're not perfect but for a first attempt they're fine!

Lessons learnt you'll be posting some great B&W shots soon.

Good luck.

Thanks
I hope so.
I might work on the second picture a bit more. Maybe expose it longer overall (except on bushes to the right) and especially on the sky.

Its good to know that someone is trying darkroom work. I must admit I miss the magic of seeing the print develop in the dish.

In your workflow of the film development process, you did not mention washing. in the final wash bath, you can add a few drops of photographic Wetting Agent. this helps to dry the film evenly and avoid drying marks. I personally used to also use my fingers as a squigy to remove excess water.

Your right graham. I actually had that on my scribbled down notes, but I obviously forgot... DOH!

I'm gonna load a roll onto the other MX (MX 2) and take it on the trip I'm gonna do this weekend. I hope this next one goes better.

If the water mark is on the back of the film you can breath on it and wipe it off with a hanky ( NOT one you use to blow your nose on !)

Good for you. I've just had my old Pentax SP1000 cleaned, the shutter checked and the light-sealant thingies replaced and I'm signing up for a B+W photo course in Edinburgh which will include some darkroom stuff. It'll be mostly re-learning tho. I used to know how to do all that stuff in my teens.

I'm heading off to Ghana on the weekend for two weeks. I'm bringing the digital camera but also the old Pentax, three rolls of Black and White film and a roll of Kodachrome (just to get the last chance to use it before they stop processing it.)

Great job, takes me back to 1975 when I did it for the first time got in a right mess but it's easy once you've done it 50 times