The Beginner’s Guide to Home Developing Part 1

It’s Easier Than You Think

I came back to film photography during the summer of 2024 after decades in the digital doldrums, clocking up thousands of exposures on my mobile phone and with a DSLR, without really understanding the whys and wherefores of digital imaging. Despite beginning my career in the world of film photography at Kodak in the late 1980s, I focused on selling the stuff, rather than using it, and my attempt at learning the basics with a manual Pentax SLR bought (actually swapped for a box of film!) from one of my dealers was short-lived. My last dalliance with silver halide was with a Canon IXUS APS camera in the late 1990s, before moving to the ‘dark side’ with a Canon 300D DSLR in the early 2000s.

Via a rather unconventional route, I found my way back into film photography and haven’t looked back, shooting across multiple formats: 8x11mm Minox, 16mm, 110, 126, 35mm, 127, and 120, in colour as well as black and white. Although I still take lots of pictures on my phone (mostly of my film cameras!), I only use my DSLR now for scanning film negatives.

From the outset I decided that I wanted to develop my own films and have ‘enjoyed’ a very steep but fascinating learning curve as I tackled both black and white and colour (C-41). Literally starting with a Google search of ‘how to develop a film’, I have stumbled my way through, reading lots of books, articles, blogs, and leaflets, watching hours of YouTube videos and listening to podcasts, and getting involved in many photographic groups on Facebook. Despite all that people say about Facebook, this source has been the most valuable, with like-minded individuals from around the world all happy to help me as I navigated around numerous dead ends, mistakes, and own goals.

The idea behind this article is to entice the reader, who may be a film shooter but still send their films off to the lab to be processed, to make the next step and start developing your own films. I’ve nothing against labs, per se, but if you’ve embraced the joys (and challenges) of analogue photography, the next logical step is to develop your own films. There is a lot of fun to be had loading films into tanks, mixing up chemicals, and following a set of simple instructions to let the wonders of photochemistry turn a strip of film into a strip of negatives with your pictures on them. The cost of setting up is less than you think (especially if you buy second hand), and you don’t need degrees in chemistry or much space in your home to do it. Nor will you poison the watercourse with noxious chemicals or fill your room with offensive vapours, as modern chemicals can be environmentally friendly and almost odourless.

There are also loads of silly mistakes to be made, as I can testify to, so this article hopes to save a prospective home developer the frustration (and cost, both in wasted materials and lost photos) and navigate a quick road to success.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT

This approach represents months of intensive experimentation, trial and error, disasters and successes, with input from film photographers from across the world, but I am still learning and do not claim to be an expert, and there are different approaches that could achieve the same, or better, results. The intention is to share what I’ve learned with fellow fans of film photography to encourage them to start developing at home and avoid the mistakes I’ve made, but I would strongly recommend doing your own research and engaging with like-minded individuals on the internet (Facebook groups and forums, for example) or at your local camera club. There are also good courses and workshops available. My technique will keep evolving but these steps are where I’m up to at the time of writing, which are giving me good and consistent results. For brevity, I am only focusing on home developing 35mm black and white film – much is common with other formats, although each have their own quirks.

Good luck, and happy developing

Preparation

There is no magic involved in home developing – if you can follow a recipe, you can develop your own film as it’s ‘simply’ a matter of mixing the right ingredients, getting the temperature right, and following a set of instructions … just like baking a cake, but with fewer calories.

As with cooking, your life will be made a lot easier by carefully preparing your workspace. I am lucky in that I’ve converted an outbuilding into a permanent darkroom, but you can develop film pretty much anywhere in your home, but different rooms suit different parts of the process. All spaces need to be clean and, as much as is practical in a home, dust free. You can load film at your kitchen table using a dark bag (most film has to be handled in total darkness), and your kitchen sink for the chemicals. Many people use their bathrooms, as it’s useful to dry film by hanging it over a bath. If you can light proof a room, however, then that is preferable as it allows you to move more freely and avoid getting hot and bothered with your hands and all the equipment inside a sweaty black bag, but you obviously need to fit around your family and normal day to day activities.

When converting my shed into a darkroom, I insulated it and lined the walls and ceiling with plywood which cut out the vast majority of light leaks. It’s difficult to block all the gaps around a door, so I used a piece of blackout fabric from a fabric shop (the sort of thing you’d use to line curtains or blinds with), which I Velcro’d around the door frame. Be sure to plug other leaks such as air vents, water inlets and outlets – I built a light baffle box around the extractor fan so I could run it while in the darkroom, useful if the chemistry gets a bit smelly. If you’re like me and have all sorts of electrical equipment humming away in the background, such as HiFi, wireless routers, computer equipment, electric heaters, coffee machines, make sure you power everything down to ensure all the little LED lights don’t ruin your blackout. I would strongly recommend having a roll of photographic masking tape to hand (www.gaffatape.com/photographic-masking-tape/) – it’s not cheap but it is light proof so you can use it to cover LEDs (my amplifier, my Mac, and a couple of hard drives, for example) to save you having to power those down every time. I have a checklist (I’m a big fan of checklists, as you’ll see) to make sure it’s all off, but letting your eyes fully adjust to the dark (which can take 20-30 minutes – time to listen to a podcast or do a bit of meditation!) is the only sure way of checking for those small pesky leaks. Until you get into home printing or start loading your own films, the only time you need total darkness for is loading the film into the developing tank, however it is critical that no light gets to the film, or it will fog and be ruined.

Next, prep your working area. I made a wooden frame, about 15mm high that fits over an A1 cutting mat – I screw it down onto my worktop to stop it from moving. You may not be popular drilling into your dining room table, so you could use a tray with high sides. The idea behind it is to contain all your equipment when working in the dark, and it has saved the day for me on many occasions.

The last thing you want is for a crucial tool, component, or even your film to roll off the table onto the floor leaving you crawling around on your knees in the pitch black. I slit and load my own film (Minox, 16mm, and 110), so I’ve cut grooves on the front edge of the frame so I can easily measure out the required length of film in the dark.

Before you get much further, give your workspace a good clean – dust and debris could get into the tank, into the chemicals and onto the film, which is never a good idea. Lay all your film loading tools out in a consistent way so you know where to reach them in the dark – for example, I put the parts of the tank along the left side in a particular order, with my scissors in the bottom right-hand corner. Reels with the films attached go in the top right-hand corner.

A word about scissors. I recommend a decent pair of sharp scissors to trim and cut negatives (mine are needlework scissors), but a pair of rounded tip scissors for cutting the film canister off the end of the film in the dark. You’ll see below why this is such a good idea.

I also use a little LED lamp that goes in the top left-hand corner – when I’ve finished in the dark, all I have to do is reach over a push a single button to illuminate my workspace, rather than having to feel my way across a pitch dark room to the light switch.

One of the most common problems encountered by beginners is finding that their films jam when trying to load them into the plastic reels which go into the developing tanks (made by Paterson, AP, Jobo, etc.). These reels or spirals have grooves that spiral towards the centre, long enough to take the length of a full 36 exposure film. You feed the end of the film through a pair of guides on the outer edge, over a couple of ball bearings that engage with the sprocket holes on the film, and a clever ratchet system draws the rest of film into the grooves. This is explained in more detail below. That’s all fine in theory, but, as I found out to my cost, the tiniest bit of moisture in the reels will cause the film to stick like glue, and jam in the grooves, leaving you stuck in the dark with a film half in the reel and half in the cassette, or worse, snaking loose on the bench. Also, unless the reels are properly cleaned after development, chemical residue can build up in the grooves and around the ball bearings causing similar problems. As you wrestle with the film, it’s easy to make stress marks on the negatives, too. The solution is four-fold. Firstly, clean your reels carefully after use using an old toothbrush in hot soapy water, rinse them well, and allow them to air dry – it took me a while to realise that the two halves of the reel came apart! Secondly, before use, use a hair dryer to carefully blow-dry the reels to ensure any residual moisture has gone. Thirdly, use a pin or probe to ensure the ball bearings on the edge of the reels are loose - a gentle tap on the bench won't hurt either. Finally, carefully trim the leading edge of the film as I describe below. Follow these simple procedures, and loading your films into the tank should be a quick and stress-free experience.

I should point out that there are also stainless-steel reels on the market that work in a different way – these are popular in the USA but less common in Europe, and I have not used them.

A couple of additional tips based on my hard-learned experience … Assuming you’re loading two or more films at a time (developing multiple films at once in the same chemistry is quicker and cheaper), I recommend having the same number of empty film canisters to hand in case the loading proves to be problematic. I put these just outside the frame on the left. If all hell has broken loose and there is 6ft of exposed film snaking around on your bench, it’s sensible to roll it all up and pop it into one of the light tight film canisters to give yourself a chance to regroup and rethink.

I’ve also made an ‘emergency film canister’ should you encounter the dreaded reverse curl phenomenon, as described below.

Film Loading

You’re now ready to load your films into your developing tank.

When you finish a film and wind it back into the metal cassette (power-wind cameras do this automatically, manual cameras require you to push a small button on the base or front of the camera and turn a crank on the top), nine times out of teHon the end of the film leader disappears back into the cassette. Even if this doesn’t happen I manually wind it in myself, as a flapping leader is vulnerable plus you can’t tell it from an unexposed film. To load the film onto the developing tank reels you clearly need to get at the film first. I practise the film-leader-extraction method of film loading … some favour the crack-the-cassette-open-with-a-tin-opener approach, but this seems fraught with problems and totally unnecessary. When you load a film into a camera, especially SLR cameras, you instantly fog the first few inches as you pull the leader across the film compartment and tuck it into the take-up spool. The amount of wasted film is less on smaller compact cameras (I can normally squeeze 38 exposures out of my Minox 35 cameras), but the principle remains. Therefore, why not make use of these inches of fogged film to attach it to the reel in daylight, rather than wrestle with it in the dark? The idea of cranking the end of the metal cassette off with a tin opener and extracting over 5 feet of unruly film in the dark (worse still if you’re doing it in a dark bag), running the risk of scratching the film’s delicate emulsion and/or slicing your fingers on the exposed tangled metal edges, seems excessively risky, when a simple-to-use film leader retrieval tool can be purchased for around ten pounds – mine is an AP film leader retrieval tool, but others are available, and they all work in a similar way.

This is how it works, and with a bit of practice it is almost foolproof – I once spent a summer working in a minilab and extracted many hundreds of leaders using this approach.

First, wind the film backwards inside the metal cassette to make sure it is rotating smoothly – sometimes the take-up spool in cameras slightly mangles the end of the leader, so you want to try to smooth it out.

Next, with the two plastic tongues pulled back into the tool, slide the guide piece and the ends of the tongues into the felted slot in the film cassette.

When they’re all in, slide the first button along the tool towards the cassette as shown in the picture – this inserts the first (upper) tongue.

Then slowly rotate the film spindle in the direction shown in the picture (away from the tool and towards you) while holding the tool against the cassette with your other hand. You are listening for a quiet but distinct click, which is the sound of the film leader slipping under the end of the upper tongue.

When you’ve heard the click, slide the second button towards the film cassette – this inserts the second tongue, this time going over the end of the film leader. Hopefully the leader is now sandwiched between the two plastic tongues.

You can now pull both buttons down the tool away from the film cassette, pulling the leader with it, but I prefer to leave them in, flexing the tool away from the cassette while gently pulling the two apart.

You should be rewarded by seeing the leader emerge sandwiched between the two tongues. If it doesn’t appear, simply start the process again – it only takes a few seconds.

 The next stage is very important. The narrow part of the leader needs to be cut off, but even if you have spotlessly clean reels, sharp or jagged edges can snag on the grooves causing the film to jam. Using a pair of sharp scissors, cut between the sprocket holes to create a smooth profile with rounded corners.

 I use a numbering system to keep track of my films from purchase to printing, with each film having a unique number such as AL156. 156 has no hidden meaning – it is simply a number in a numerical sequence. To identify the negatives once they come out of the tank, I write the film number on the end with a Chinagraph (grease) type pencil. This number survives the developing process, and I can then cut up and file the negs keeping to my numbering system.

We’re now coming to the end of the part that can be done in the light. With the two sides of the reel reassembled, feed the trimmed end of the film through the guides on the outer edge so that the film’s sprocket holes push over and engage with the small ball bearings.

Then carefully lay the assembly down in your chosen spot – mine go in the top right corner of the frame. Pop the trimmed off film ends into an empty film canister – you can use them later for clip tests to check your chemicals. You’re now ready to go dark …

The next section describes what you’d do in a totally darkened room, but the steps are broadly the same if you’re using a dark bag. Once the lights are off, it’s worth spending a minute or so orientating yourself to your work bench and also looking round to check you’ve powered everything down. A classic mistake is to leave your mobile phone out and it lights up when someone texts you right in the middle of the film loading!

I’ve used an old test film loaded into a reloadable cassette to illustrate this next stage, which is why the film black. Remember, you’d now be in total darkness.

Reach over and pick up your first reel assembly. Hold it with one hand and gently pull out about 10 inches of film with the other – the ball bearings should hold the end of the film on the reel, but you can put your thumb on it if you’re worried.

Then, gripping the edges of reels with both hands, smoothly ratchet the film into the grooves. The action is a bit like unscrewing the lid of a jar – one hand goes one way, while the other goes in the opposite direction. Then the action is reversed and then repeated until your little fingers feel the film canister getting close to the reel. Pull out another section and repeat the ratcheting process – keep going until you’ve feel that you’ve come to the end of the film.

Giving yourself a few inches of film to play with, reach over for your scissors (mine are in the bottom right-hand corner of the frame) and cut the film canister off – it should be obvious now why round tipped scissors are a good idea! Do a couple more ratchet twists so that the end of the film is safely in the grooves.

Now reach over and pick up the spindle from the developing tank – mine is placed over the spout of the tank funnel, pushed up against the left-hand edge of the frame. Push the loaded reel over the spindle until it reaches the stop at the end.

Pop the spindle and reel into the tank for safe keeping while you repeat the process for the second film. You can get bigger tanks that take 3, 5, or even 8 films – it just means your workspace needs to be better organised.

Once both your reels are securely on the spindle and in the tank, it’s time to put the tank funnel in. Rotate the funnel clockwise until it clicks in place (on the AP tanks it is a screw fit). The tank is now light-tight, but just to be sure, put the lid onto the tank.

 Now reach over and turn on the light – you’ve successfully loaded your films into the tank and can now move onto the developing stage!

The Reverse Curl Problem

Hopefully, the loading stage goes smoothly, but there are several things that could go wrong, although you will have hopefully mitigated these in your preparation. A neatly trimmed edge feeding into clean and dry reels will certainly help things along, and as you ratchet you’ll feel and hear if it’s going smoothly. If you feel resistance, just pause the ratcheting and think what might be happening. Some old pros recommend gently tapping the reels on the bench – this may loosen the ball bearings if they have become stuck or nudge the film edge over a sticky bit. Don’t force the film through, though, as this will leave stress marks on the negatives. If you’re still not able to continue I recommend disassembling the reel to release the film – don’t try to pull film out through the grooves as it will buckle. Hold one side of the reel in your left hand and then turn the opposite side away from you (clockwise) – there’ll be some resistance but keep going (it might squeak a bit!) and the two sides will come apart (practise this beforehand) releasing a long snake of film onto your bench (a good reason why your workbench should be spotlessly clean). Carefully roll up the film holding the edges – it will naturally curl emulsion side inwards – and pop it into one of the empty canisters you’ve left out for this very eventuality (mine are placed up against the outside left of the frame). With the lid on, the canister is light tight, assuming you’ve used one of the black ones! If there’s another film to load, proceed with that one and get to the stage that you can turn the light on.

Have a cup of tea and a bit of a break …

Now, how to troubleshoot the problem?

Film is made from a polyester (or similar) base coated with light sensitive emulsion. Essentially a flexible plastic, it will retain some of the shape as it curls around inside the film cassette. This actually helps when loading onto a reel as it curls in the same direction as the grooves. However, when the film is put into the camera it is put under tension (which ensures the film is held flat as it is being exposed), and if the leader is bent in the opposite direction (depends on the design of the take-up spool) it can retain that shape – a reverse curl. This can be worse if you’re trying to develop a film straight out of the camera – it is better to let the film stabilise at room temperature inside the cassette (with the leader all the way inside) for a few days, but that may not always be possible. A reverse curl will probably be obvious when you’re extracting the leader, but it may also affect the film inside the cassette. If the film wants to curl in the opposite direction (outwards, rather than inwards), it will fight you all the way, making loading really difficult. The best solution for this is to abandon a conventional approach, and, while still in darkness, pull the whole film out of the cassette onto your bench. Roll it up starting from the original leader end (the opposite way to normal) and pop it into an empty film canister or, if you’re ready for such an eventuality, move straight to the next stage.

The only way round this reverse curl problem is to load the film from the opposite end – the end that you’ve just cut off from the metal cassette. The curl will be less pronounced at this end and should load more easily. To help with handling this long snake of curly film, I created an ‘emergency cassette’ from an old plastic film canister. I cut a vertical slot about 2mm wide up one side of the canister and lined it with photographic masking tape (you could use self-adhesive camera felt for a deluxe version!). Pop the roll of film into it with the new leader end (the one you’ve just cut off the film cassette) sticking through the slot. Put the lid on and you can now load the film onto the reel as you would normally, with the film being pulled out of the plastic emergency cassette as you ratchet it onto the reel – this saves you having 64 ½ inches of film trying to escape from you on your bench. You won’t have been able to get a neat rounded edge to the film end, but that is the least of your problems at the moment. 

This approach has saved the day on several occasions, and I always have my ‘emergency cassette’ positioned against the inside left edge of my frame … just in case.

This article has hopefully equipped the beginner with the knowledge to get through the first stage of the process, getting their exposed films safely inside the light-tight developing tank. It has also hopefully helped you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made. Now it’s time for the photochemistry to work its magic and turn a strip of film into a strip of negatives with your pictures miraculously on them. Part 2 of this article will walk you through the steps needed to get you to the finished negatives.

I’m constantly learning so am more than happy to adjust my approach based on new advice from more experienced photographers. Please email contact@andrewlong.info with any comments or ideas, and I’ll put out an updated version as a blog post on this website, www.andrewlong.info.

Useful Sources

RPS Analogue Group www.facebook.com/groups/rpsanalogue

UK Film Photography and Darkroom www.facebook.com/groups/filmphotographyuk

Ilford www.ilfordphoto.com

Massive Dev film database at www.digitaltruth.com and via the Apple/Android app stores.

Develop! Film Development Timer by Todd Breslow on the Apple App Store.

The Sunny 16 Podcast www.sunny16podcast.com and on all podcast platforms – an informative and entertaining podcast dedicated to film photography.

Zone Imaging (510-Pyro and Eco Zonefix) www.zone-imaging.co.uk