diy - How do I develop black and white film myself?

I have recently got a film SLR and I have shot a lot of pictures (say like 6 rolls in a weeks time). To develop these pictures in my area takes up to a week or two.... so what struck my head was to develop the film myself.

Can someone help me by explaining how this works? What is the process of developing a roll of film?

It's a fading art which I want learn and keep alive.

Answer

The process involves the following steps:

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  Remove the film from its roll(s), load it onto reels, and insert the reels into their tank. This must all be done in the dark. (Good to practice on some old ruined film so that you can learn to load the reels by touch.) Once the cover is on the tank, you can turn on the light.

  
  


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  Pour developer solution into the tank, agitate periodically (or occasionally don't) for the required amount of time. Pour out the developer.

  
  


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  Pour stop bath solution into the tank, agitate periodically for the required amount of time, and pour out.

  
  


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  Pour fixer into the tank, agitate periodically for the required amount of time, and pour out. At this point the film is no longer light sensitive and you can open the tank.

  
  


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  Rinse in clean water. Add a capful of wetting agent to help prevent water spots on the negatives. Agitate. Dump the water.

  
  
  


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  Remove the film from the reels and hang each strip to dry. Your film isn't really film anymore -- it's photographic negatives. When its dry, cut the strip into shorter lengths of 5 or 6 frames and store properly until you're ready to print.

  
  

Printing works much the same as taking pictures and developing film, except that you do it all at once:

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  Load the negative strip into a negative carrier and insert this into your enlarger, which works like a camera in reverse. A light in the enlarger shines through a condensing lens, through the negative, through an imaging lens, and onto the enlarger base. With the room dark, you adjust the lens to focus the image, switch off the enlarger, place a piece of light sensitive photographic paper where the image will appear, and turn the enlarger on to expose the paper for the required time.

  
  



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  Much as you did for film, you slip the exposed paper into developing solution, then stop bath, then fixer, and finally rinse in clean water.

  
  


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  Hang the paper to dry, or dry on a print drying machine.

  
  

Note that the are a lot of unspecified times above. These depend on the particular chemicals that you're using, the temperature of your solutions, film speed, whether you under- or over-exposed the film, etc. Baseline figures can be found in data books from Kodak and other suppliers, as well as in the data sheets that come with your film and chemicals.