In the next few days I will embark on two new adventures. One of them will be to bulk load some Ilford XP2 with my new bulk loader. After I liked the results of my recent experiment with Ilford XP2 in Rodinal so much I actually bought a 30.5m roll of this stuff to experiment with it some more. This should be some 18-20 rolls worth and will give me plenty of opportunity to see how it fares with different ISO ratings and developing times.
The second experiment will be to try to develop some colour film at home. Since this needs to be done at 38°C I’m still wondering how I will keep the temperature stable, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Anyone who has been following my blog for a while knows that I actually hardly ever shoot colour. In fact I dislike digital colour a lot and only started to shoot some colour film this year without yet getting any of it developed yet. After seeing the Joel Meyerowitz retrospective in Düsseldorf I just can’t resist anymore though. This exhibition really gave me something to work towards with respect to colour photography. Eventually I would like to shoot slide film, but for now I’m starting out with cheap German drugstore C41 film. Once I figured that one out I will definitely move on to developing E6 at home.
For now I will show you more black and white digital stuff though, since I still couldn’t find the willpower to face my scanner.
All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.
Playing hide and seek with his kid.
She’s putting a doll into the bag … Only visible in the full resolution I guess.
Serious skating gear!
Find the ball!
If I take pictures of dogs on the street I might as well take a picture of this wonderful cheese label. Makes total sense, doesn’t it?
Everyone is engaged with some serious waiting!
Hiding behind the bike.
Such a surreal picture, it’s almost scary …!
Temperature control try a tropical fish tank heater 25 Watt should do it in small water filled container to put your chemical bottles in. I just bought some cheap Agfa colour film made(£1.00 24 exp) in Japan and it is Fuji 200 apparently.
Also got a Watson bulk loader but they can produce waste so I thought of doing the whole process in a changing bag when using the loader.
Only the C-41 developer step is critical in temperature 100F/37,8C +/- 0,5C especially when printing RA-4. Bleach, Fixer and washing and the final Stabilizer can be +/- 3C.
XP2 in C-41 is much better then any B&W developer but the film must be exposed around iso 200-250 to have a bit more contrast. The film is pretty soft hence suitable for portrait photography.
Hi, As above re the temperature control, and I just use a bowl full of water and keep the tank immersed in that keeping an eye of the bowls temp.
I did find though that as I also only shoot a small amount of colour film its not cost effective to do it myself as the developer wont keep long on the shelf
Using seperate concentrates the only problem is part C of the C-41 developer containing para Phenylene Diamine. It will keep approx. 10 months. The C-41 developer itself you can regenerate till 6 months so this is not too bad.