Film Developing, Scanning and Printing
I thought I’d let myself talk about the later stages of the photo making process. While I want to avoid becoming a gear obsessive I think the after-camera part of the process are in many ways what differentiate film from digital.
Well, sort of. There’s obviously other differences (cost placement, speed, film limitations etc.). But to me the photo making process should end with the final product (which I suppose I think should mostly be a print). I can’t say I’m great at taking things to this completion, but I aspire to be better.
Developing
The first stage after finishing a roll/sheet is to develop it. There’s two options for this for colour films, namely send it off or do it yourself. I’ll not dive into that, suffice to say that for now, I send them off. However, there’s a huge number of options for developing black and white. Developers with different characteristics, advantages and disadvantages abound. For black and white I home develop. For the majority of things I’ve used the developer that came with the kit I first bought, Rodinol (Tetanol Paranol S to be precise). I’ve recently added a second developer (Ilford Microphen) mainly for Delta 3200, which is supposed to suit it (I think it does). I started with normal development at 1:25 as the instructions in the kit told me to. But have slowly moved to stand development. Mainly as it’s simple, and involves a lot less direct interaction.
I recently listened to an episode of The Large Format Photography Podcast with Wayne Setser (this episode), who uses FP-4 and Caffinol stand development exclusively. While I’ve a different film (Fomapan 200 at the moment, but that’s mainly for the cheap factor when first learning large format) I’m thinking that is the way to go, stand development and one film. I may even try Caffinol at some point (once the Paranol S runs out).
Printing
So once you’ve got the negative the paths to a print divert. While I’d love to be able to darkroom print, at the moment I’ve not got anywhere I can (not even a room I can see how to make light tight to jury-rig something in). That is something I’m definately wanting to do though, probably using an Intrepid Enlarger when I am able to. If you haven’t guessed the alternative is “scanning” and digital printing.
There’s lots written on the methods of “scanning”, I’ll not dive into what you could do. What I do is to use a light pad, my phone (sometimes on a tripod, sometime hand held) and FilmLab. When it arrives I’ll use a Pixl-Latr to hold the negatives better, especially for second scans. Mostly I do quick scans for what I’d consider a contact print equivalent, and plan to do better ones later, for things to print. I then do a minimal amount of editing initial and run off some 6x4 prints at the local Boots. For something I particularly like I plan to make a better scan, potentially edit more and get a bigger print. I’ll talk more about how I decide, and how I display things in another post.
That’s all been true for small/medium formats. I’m not sure how it’ll change with large format. Probably only that I’ll be more inclined to try darkroom printing, and I’ll have less things to scan in the meantime.