First Time Developing at Home

Leila got a film developing kit for X-mas. It was finally time to give it a go this past weekend, so we went out on a couple of walks on Saturday and each shot through a whole roll of B&W. Leila with her Minolta slr and Tmax 400, I used my Widelux and Ilford Delta 100. 

We had some powered developer, fixer and liquid stop bath, a thermometer, a couple of 1 liter bottles, the developing tank, and some scissors. I wont go into too many details but just getting all the liquids and titrations and dilutions ready and then at the right temperature (68F) is a huge ordeal. And then after all that setting up the bathroom to be pitch black dark and then trying to open the film canister, cut the ends and feed it into a tiny reel and seal it inside the tank was involved to say the least. The actual developing wasnt too bad after we figured out the steps with all the times and agitation intervals etc. We wrote it down:

We ended up going through the whole process twice bc our films were different speeds and required different developing times. The rolls came out perfect from a developing standpoint. But, as it just so happens, Leila's Minolta shutter was only opening about a third of the way, so many frames came back small or not there at all. It always seems to be the rule for me with film photography, whenever I take one step forward, the camera or equipment or film or something will fail and take me a couple steps back. But I guess that is how to learn this art and science. 

We were lucky enough that the Widelux worked. The one thing we did not have was water repellent, so as the film dried the evaporating water left behind residue, so that is something that will have to be addressed next time. But as for the exposure and developing time, it seems to be working. What a revolution it would be if we could stop going to the store to get our film developed...the entire process could be internalized: shoot, develop, and scan right from home. 

Thats the dream for now. 

 There is no self-timer on the Widelux, but its slowest shutter-speed is 1/15th of a second. It takes the lens about 2.5 seconds to actually scan across the 140 degree panorama from left-to-right. So here I hit the shutter and quickly ran around the counter to take my position before the lens swung around to the right side.

Minolta (note half-frames and water marks):