Developing at home (even color) is easy, especially if you have a sous vide machine to maintain temperature. Scanning 120 is also easier than 35mm because the larger negative means you can actually get away with using something like an Epson flatbed (whereas with 35mm if you want decent quality you need a dedicated scanner). Film is really fairly affordable for a hobby if you don't outsource development and scanning to 3rd parties.
While I agree that developing prints at home is a bit problematic, developing black and white films is not. Afterwards you can scan the negatives using an Epson Photo scanner etc.
My workflow for 120mm films is to wait until I have more than 5-7 rolls and process them one by one: while the previous one is in the developer, the next one is in the fixer. In this way, you can process them all very fast.
My biggest concern, though, is the environment. In the past you had special places where you could dispose used chemicals. But even then very few people cared, most just wouldn't care. Today even the last bath bothers me - it should be thorough to be effective, and I'd just prefer not to waste the water so much.
It is real pity that a few decades after the digital revolution in photography we're very far from being able to obtain results close to film. All digital solutions such as Silver Efex are still very far from the real thing.
If you have a digital camera (SLR or mirrorless), which most people who shoot film do, you also have an excellent scanner. I scan 35mm, 120, and 4x5 with a DSLR, inverted tripod, and macro lens. The results are better than any flatbed scanner.
Use a rocket or canned air to keep the dust off, and a sheet of anti-newton glass to keep the film flat and focused while scanning.
Developing B&W at home is economical if you use a shelf-stable developer (I like Kodak HC-110, a half-open bottle keeps for years) and fixer (Ilford Rapid). Per-roll developing cost is between 50¢ and $1.
I shoot a few rolls and throw them in a big Paterson tank. Two rolls of film take 30 min to develop and 15 min to scan. Not much longer than the time to drive round trip to the photo lab.
No darkroom necessary- I load film in a dark bag. Post-process the scans in Lightroom or Darktable. Batch-processing means it's pretty fast. If I want to make prints, either I send out the digital positive to ProDPI or I rent time at the community darkroom.
I guess developing BW film is more expensive because there's just less volume? Most people shooting BW film probably develop it themselves while it's way harder to develop color film without getting a full lab.
The price for 35mm per shot is a bunch less for me. And it seems like people still have stocks o their old 35mm film rolls I can get for free-ish. Developing and scanning was something like 17 euros for me.
Seeing I spent 4.5 months to fill up my current 35mm roll I think I can accept the higher price per frame.
Developing B&W 35mm negatives is pretty straightforward and doesn't require much room or gear. It's also the uninteresting part of the process. (Aside from playing with chemistry.)
I had the rest of the equipment for printing from high school days but, after having good darkrooms in college/graduate school, I set things up in a half bath in my apartment and it was all more trouble than it was worth. By the time I got a house, there still wasn't a good place to setup a darkroom and digital was on the cusp of coming in.
I really only shoot B&W so its still pretty cheap. There are also relatively inexpensive C41 color negative films. Slide/Chrome films on the other hand are all expensive. As for convenience, sure, there are no more drive through 1hr photomats, but the entire reason I went back to film is to immerse myself in the process, so I develop everything at home. I print B&W at home, and I scan at home (with a Pentax K-1ii mounted on a copy rig made froma Sinar P2). If you want snapshot, digital is certainly better in most ways, but if you want to understand and participate in a fascinating optical and chemical process, film is quite amazing.
Is developing the film yourself an option anymore? I admit it's been 30+ years since I developed any film (and that was B&W), but it wasn't that hard. A film reel and some canisters, a dark bag for loading the canister. All the rest can be done in ambient light once the canister is closed.
I definitely remember the developing to be much easier than the printing.
edit: To clarify, I believe home developing IS as good option these days. My opening question was rhetorical.
I sprung for a stable of medium format (120 film) cameras some years back. eBay makes it easy to get decent quality cameras made over 50 years ago (many of the ones I bought came direct from Japan — surprise).
It was a modest investment in learning and money to take the next step and develop my own film. B&W at first (easy, forgiving) and then even color (sill easy but less forgiving).
I guess I was not interested in the darkroom + enlarger thing. I did that when I was young (elementary school, middle school) so I know what's involved. It could be fun but is less modest a move up in terms of cost (and space since you do indeed need a dark room — just processing the film was easy with just a changing bag).
Instead after processing the negatives, I go next to flatbed scanner and we're digital for the rest of the trip.
I don't know the commercial situation in the US, but here in Europe it's still cheaper to set your own darkroom up - for black and white film, that is. Color (both negative and "slide") always was, and still is, costly and "messy". If you shoot b&w, perhaps you really should make developing at home an option.
If you shoot B/W home development is easily achieved - even C-41 is doable at home but it is more involved. Of course that only gets you negatives, you’ll either need to scan them yourself, pay for it, have an enlarger to make photographic prints, etc…
During the quarantine, I started photographing on film, developing the film at home and digitize the negatives using my DSLR. At least for B/W film, the process of developing film yourself is dead easy and I'm happy to have a hobby away from my computer. Also, having a price per picture and only a limited amount of shots helps me actually think about composing nice pictures instead of taking 5 almost identical images and moving on.
In general, film photography is having a comeback. Prices for used film cameras skyrocketed in the last years for a few models.
Personally, I find photographing on film really rewarding. Having a physical product in the end (be it a print of the image or only the negatives) makes the process more enjoyable. So if you have some old film cameras lying around, I can only recommend giving them a try. Maybe there are even old films with old memories in these cameras.
I agree, scanning can be expensive (I've got a Coolscan for 35mm and I'm eyeing a v700 for 4x5).
But if prints are the desired end result, it's still less than $10 to develop and print a roll of 35mm film. What's the price and cost of an inkjet, paper and ink carts?
Then again, if all you're doing is taking quick snapshots to upload to instagram, just use whatever smartphone you have and don't bother buying an actual camera.
Wow, I didn't realize you did your own scans. That's very interesting and cool, thanks for the information about it.
Looks like you can get those scanners used for pretty reasonable prices. Maybe if I've got a house one day and I think the odds of having to move within a few years are low I'll get into it and try setting up a lab.
> In summary, you can see why even pixel peepers are content with their Sony A7R. Press button, get 50 megapixels. And no toxic chemicals being absorbed through your skin.
Yep, and on top of that we're not limited by the sRGB gamut or bit depth issues of early digital cameras. Recent ones produce raw files that are extremely easy to develop and manipulate into something very nice looking.
The thing is, even on top of the enjoyment some people get out of working with film, if you're after a particular film-like look you might be able to save yourself a significant amount of post-processing time by just going with film. I've seen no one-click filter that can approximate it.
Yes, if you want prints then film is still an economical option. I think 120 film is kind of awkward for scanning because there are no affordable dedicated film scanners which handle it but it's still not quite big enough to get really good results from a flatbad. (It's tough to get more than 1200dpi of real resolution out of a flatbed and that only gives you 8MP for 6x6 negatives.)
In the US, 35mm film is still widely available as general merchandise in chain stores. 120 (medium format) is available in most camera shops (though camera shops are increasingly less common). Large format 4x5 may or may not be available in a camera shop. All of it is available over the internet. Most pinhole cameras are medium format or large format because a tripod is required anyway so the convenience of 35mm is pretty much lost.
Between B/W and Color, C41 color negative development is still widely available. E6 color transparancy, i.e. slide film is less common. B/W is also a specialty development service, but it's the easiest to do yourself but non-trivial. The internet is again an option.
You actually have a very good point, I think I'm going to end up buying a cheaper digital camera and
Something around 5 to 600, but I still love the idea film. Film. The idea of making something where you don't know exactly how it's going to turn out until a week later, you can't just do a reshoot instantly because you didn't get the shot you wanted.
So with that spirit, I would like to be able to get my film developed in scanned for cheap.
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