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.
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.
From the time I was about 8 until I was 25 I probably shot 2000 photographs on film.
The first year I had a digital camera I shot over 2000.
I was happy with both, but now that I'm back on film, I'm VERY selective about my precious film.
Look through your film photographs and ask yourself if it was worth shooting each one and why. What value are you getting from capturing that moment. There's a chance a roll of film may last two weeks - cutting your cost in half.
For what it's worth, New Jersey Film Lab does good work.
And if you want to try developing, find a high school or college that has a lab and see what options they have. Black and white is a couple of hours to learn and develop your first roll. And, just as creative as the image capture process.
I buy film from Film Photography Project, B&H, Adorama, and FreeStyle Photo. Most of the brick and mortar camera stores that still exist sell some film. For development I do black and white at home and send color out to thedarkroom.com because I don't shoot enough color to make the chemistry cost effective. I print black and white in my bathroom darkroom.
I'm still able to find 35mm, 120 and 4x5 film easily. I have a 127 camera that is a bit harder to find film for.
I mostly agree with you, I do my own B&W dev and use a mail-in lab for my C41/E6 but I have invested in a dedicated negative scanner and do my own digitisation. For me it was another part of the “creative process” and I wanted to control it.
We forget, with the advent of digital photography, how pivotal access to a darkroom used to be for all sorts of endeavours.
Facility for developing Black and White photos is not very complicated. Usually you just need an enlarger, some chemical tanks and a room with no light. If you want to do slides (rather than prints), and use the right film, it's even simpler as you just need to develop the film.
I shoot film, mostly black and white, on a regular basis[1]. I got into it a year ago January after shooting digitally[2] for the last several years before that. There is a lot to be said for working in the medium and printing optically in a wet darkroom. It's made me a much more patient, slower photographer. It's made me think more about my composition. And, it's also given me a much better sense of camaraderie than I get with a digital camera (I work in a public darkroom, and I've become good friends with a number of other regulars).
If this sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend picking up a film camera and giving it a shot. I put together a blog post a few months back describing a full film kit you can put together for under $200, complete with film developing: http://www.ishootfilm.org/blog/2014/10/18/10-the-best-film-c...
And, if you are interested in learning more about developing your own film and making your own prints, I have a list of darkrooms (and photo labs) here: http://www.ishootfilm.org/businesses
[1] Like, 'every day' regular.
[2] I still do. I took a couple hundred photos at a friend's birthday party last night with my digital Fuji X100S.
I mainly shoot black-and-white. I find the development process really interesting, and mastering the creation of a perfect negative has proven to be really challenging. There are so many variables - film stocks, metering, filter compensation, choices of chemicals, temperatures, times, agitation, etc.
I'd love to be able to do my own prints, but I simply don't have a room suitable for darkroom printing. I think that's the situation for a lot of folks. It's rare for apartment dwellers (like me) to have that kind of space at their disposal.
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.
So how hard is it to DIY development? It seems like every couple of years I read an article like this one that gets me curious, because if I'm going to use physical rolls of film, I'd might as well develop it myself without waiting/paying a lab and to get that sense of pride when you do finally get a good photo.
I'm not someone that takes pictures much on my phone or anything, but reading this makes me want a cheap film camera like this where pictures aren't just throw away, you have to go through a process to even find that the picture turned out crappy.
For fun? My SiL and I sometimes shoot in b/w and then go into a dark room in our in-laws' basement and develop it. She knows how to, I'm more of an apprentice.
I'm not very good. Maybe partially lack of experience. I think I mostly have some 400TX and Fomapan. I think I have some Fuji 400 something for color. I have some dry developer too. Probably have to use it up fairly soon before it gets too old. I develop the negatives, but then scan them using a photo scanner.
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.
Some people actually enjoy developing and scanning/printing everything themselves.
But it's true that colour photography is essentially dead for non billionaires. I stocked up with more than 100 rolls a few years ago. When I run out, I'll just continue with black and white.
Bulk rolls of Fomapan 100 are still very cheap. For 4x5, a single 50 sheet pack lasts me more than a year.
For 8x10, shooting X-Ray film is cheaper than Fomapan in 4x5 (but the film is very easy to scratch).
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.
Hi hacker News, so I recently got in a film photography. But then I realized all the labs around here, end up charging about 15 to $20 per roll if you want them to get developed and scanned.
Assuming you shoot a roll of film every single weekend, you end up spending 1k per year to develop it all.
Developing at home is not an option ( although I would be open to a magic machine that does it for me ).
For my photo game, I need to shoot, develop, and scan the film within a week, which rules out most photo labs.
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