How to Develop Your Own Film: A Beginner's Guide
How to Develop Your Own Film
A Beginner's Guide
Michael Elliott --- Fine Art Film Photographer-Flaneur and Londoner at Large
If you are a film photography enthusiast, you might have wondered if you can develop your own film at home. The answer is yes, and it can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to enjoy your hobby. On my website, I've published a how-to guide for developing black and white film, and in this article, we will go through the basics of film developing, what you need to get started, and how to do it step by step in detail.
Developing your own film allows you to be in control of the whole process, including being able to selectively choose certain effects like push or pull processing, cross-processing, as well as making your own developer, and allowing you to choose how to expose your film.
Film Developing: What's It All About?
Film developing is the process of transforming the latent image on your exposed film into a visible image that can be scanned or printed. Film developing involves using specific chemicals, reacting them with the silver halide crystals in the film emulsion, which record the light that passes through your camera lens.
There are different types of film that require different developing methods and chemicals. The most common ones are black and white negative film, colour negative film, and slide film. In this article, we will focus on 35mm black and white negative film, which is the easiest and cheapest to develop at home.