I spent week 2 of the FP4 Party developing and scanning my negatives in
readiness for week 3 when I get to share some of my images. I have some decent shots, and some howlers
too, that have taught me a lot about
using and developing expired black and white film. It
was fun to do and
also
gave me a chance to experiment with the
scanning process using
things I have to hand. My DSLR, some accessories, and a cheap negative and slide scanner you can buy
for pennies on ebay.
Developing film is something I have not done for around 30 years. I tried it when I was still in my teens, but managed to splash a small amount on my arm and had a bad reaction to it. Dermatitis isn't fun, so I never bothered again until recently. I set my self 2 goals for 2020 and one of them was to develop my own film.
I had my first attempt at the turn of the year with an Ilford Simplicity starter pack that was designed to develop 2 rolls of 35mm film. I followed the instructions Ilford provide on their website and took some time to get the temperatures right to give me a decent chance of success. My first 2 rolls were Kentmere 100 I had used between christmas and new year and I soon learned how fiddly it is to load exposed film onto a developing spiral in a dark bag. They key was taking my time, there's no need to rush each step. With care and a fair bit of concentration I soon had the films loaded onto the spirals and in the light tight developing tank. I also took my time mixing the chemicals for developing. It's important to use jugs that will not be used for anything else. You don't want to fill your kettle with a jug that has chemical residue in and I also made sure i clearly marked each one so I would not get the chemical order mixed up. Once that was done it's an easy task to agitate the tank by turning and tumbling it for 10 seconds every minute and used my mobile phone as a timer. Following the steps is easy, but I was nervous as hell doing the developing, stop bath and fix in order. It was only during the final wash that I could take a peek at my negatives and see the results. Success! I had images. It didnt take long to hang them in the bathroom to dry.
Now I was confident, I bought some Ilfosol 3, stop bath and fix from Ilford and cracked on with develping my FP4. I had asked for advice on using expired film from the good folks on the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast facebook group and shot 2 rolls at 100 asa and 2 at box speed, 125 asa. I developed the film as per Ilfords instructions and developed the 100 asa and the 125 asa seperately from each other. Again, I was successful and after allowing my film to dry thoroughly, I set about the task of scanning them using my DSLR and my Ion Slide and Negative scanner.
I used my Nikon D90, a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and some extension tubes for the camera set up. Extension tubes can be found for a reasonable price if you’re patient. I used a white image on my mobile phone as a light box with a piece of white opaque plastic to diffuse the light. I put my D90 on my tripod and used the negative carrier from my Ion brand negative and slide scanner. I wanted to have a bit of fun to see how it all works and find out what was going to be better, the cheap scanner or the expensive DSLR.
I set up my camera on my tripod, (it helps that I have an L Bracket and can easily switch between portrait or landscape), chose a strip of negatives I had developed a few days earlier and put them in the carrier. I chose one to use as my test subject and placed it on my makeshift light box. The Nikkor 50mm with extension tubes between it and my camera looked odd, but did provide a clear image of my negative once I had found the focus point. This involved raising and lowering the centre column on my tripod and was a bit fiddly to get right even with a handle to wind the centre column up and down. It’s one of the joys of discovery that teaches us how to do this kind of thing with what we have to hand.
To be fair to the DSLR method, I don't have a macro lens and was using a bit of a frankenstein set up, but it did work. I was able to capture a 12 megapixel image with my DSLR that I was reasonably happy with. To reverse the negative I used Adobe Photoshop Express, a free bit of software from Adobe I found in the windows store. Considering Adobe software is expensive compared to it’s closest rivals, this freebie is a welcome addition for times like this when I need a quick process that will give me a good result. A couple of clicks and a few adjustments later I had an Image I could use. It's never going to be the fastest method for the novice, it takes a lot of fiddling around to get it just right, but I will persevere with it. It’s one of the joys of learning a new skill.
My Ion negative scanner that cost me pennies on ebay is quick, easy to use. It is plug in and play tech, it has carriers for 35mm negatives and slides and has a simple interface you can play around with to adjust brightness and colours. It is basic, no nonsense tech that does exactly what it was designed to do. The built in software is a tad limited, but it gets the job done and gives you a 5 megapixel image suitable for posting on social media or printing up to A4 size with a decent level of quality. Neither will ever replace the awesomeness of the Fuji Frontier S3000 scanner at my local Max Spielmann photo store, but for the person who likes to develop their own film at home, the capability to scan your negatives into your computer is something we can all do.
Developing film is something I have not done for around 30 years. I tried it when I was still in my teens, but managed to splash a small amount on my arm and had a bad reaction to it. Dermatitis isn't fun, so I never bothered again until recently. I set my self 2 goals for 2020 and one of them was to develop my own film.
I had my first attempt at the turn of the year with an Ilford Simplicity starter pack that was designed to develop 2 rolls of 35mm film. I followed the instructions Ilford provide on their website and took some time to get the temperatures right to give me a decent chance of success. My first 2 rolls were Kentmere 100 I had used between christmas and new year and I soon learned how fiddly it is to load exposed film onto a developing spiral in a dark bag. They key was taking my time, there's no need to rush each step. With care and a fair bit of concentration I soon had the films loaded onto the spirals and in the light tight developing tank. I also took my time mixing the chemicals for developing. It's important to use jugs that will not be used for anything else. You don't want to fill your kettle with a jug that has chemical residue in and I also made sure i clearly marked each one so I would not get the chemical order mixed up. Once that was done it's an easy task to agitate the tank by turning and tumbling it for 10 seconds every minute and used my mobile phone as a timer. Following the steps is easy, but I was nervous as hell doing the developing, stop bath and fix in order. It was only during the final wash that I could take a peek at my negatives and see the results. Success! I had images. It didnt take long to hang them in the bathroom to dry.
Now I was confident, I bought some Ilfosol 3, stop bath and fix from Ilford and cracked on with develping my FP4. I had asked for advice on using expired film from the good folks on the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast facebook group and shot 2 rolls at 100 asa and 2 at box speed, 125 asa. I developed the film as per Ilfords instructions and developed the 100 asa and the 125 asa seperately from each other. Again, I was successful and after allowing my film to dry thoroughly, I set about the task of scanning them using my DSLR and my Ion Slide and Negative scanner.
I used my Nikon D90, a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and some extension tubes for the camera set up. Extension tubes can be found for a reasonable price if you’re patient. I used a white image on my mobile phone as a light box with a piece of white opaque plastic to diffuse the light. I put my D90 on my tripod and used the negative carrier from my Ion brand negative and slide scanner. I wanted to have a bit of fun to see how it all works and find out what was going to be better, the cheap scanner or the expensive DSLR.
I set up my camera on my tripod, (it helps that I have an L Bracket and can easily switch between portrait or landscape), chose a strip of negatives I had developed a few days earlier and put them in the carrier. I chose one to use as my test subject and placed it on my makeshift light box. The Nikkor 50mm with extension tubes between it and my camera looked odd, but did provide a clear image of my negative once I had found the focus point. This involved raising and lowering the centre column on my tripod and was a bit fiddly to get right even with a handle to wind the centre column up and down. It’s one of the joys of discovery that teaches us how to do this kind of thing with what we have to hand.
To be fair to the DSLR method, I don't have a macro lens and was using a bit of a frankenstein set up, but it did work. I was able to capture a 12 megapixel image with my DSLR that I was reasonably happy with. To reverse the negative I used Adobe Photoshop Express, a free bit of software from Adobe I found in the windows store. Considering Adobe software is expensive compared to it’s closest rivals, this freebie is a welcome addition for times like this when I need a quick process that will give me a good result. A couple of clicks and a few adjustments later I had an Image I could use. It's never going to be the fastest method for the novice, it takes a lot of fiddling around to get it just right, but I will persevere with it. It’s one of the joys of learning a new skill.
My Ion negative scanner that cost me pennies on ebay is quick, easy to use. It is plug in and play tech, it has carriers for 35mm negatives and slides and has a simple interface you can play around with to adjust brightness and colours. It is basic, no nonsense tech that does exactly what it was designed to do. The built in software is a tad limited, but it gets the job done and gives you a 5 megapixel image suitable for posting on social media or printing up to A4 size with a decent level of quality. Neither will ever replace the awesomeness of the Fuji Frontier S3000 scanner at my local Max Spielmann photo store, but for the person who likes to develop their own film at home, the capability to scan your negatives into your computer is something we can all do.
There are of course other ways you can scan
your negatives. Many folks use a flat bed scanner with a negative
carrier supplied with it to scan their 35mm and 120 negatives. Epson
and Canon seem to be the favoured items and come with Vue Scan
software to reverse your negatives and get your images looking their
best. There is also software called Negative Lab Pro that gives you
the capability to adjust the scan and get your image looking great as
a positive image with similar
quality to scanning equipment found in Photo Labs. It’s not cheap
at around £100, but it does get regular updates from the good folks
who designed it and continue to improve it. I’m
told by folks who bought it that Negative Lab Pro is worth every
penny.
Also available are high quality scanners from Nikon, Pakon and Optek that cost around the same as a flat bed scanner, both new or used. These will produce high quality scans of your negatives, but it is old tech. You will need a computer that runs on Windows XP, which does make your old tower, probably sat unloved in the cupboard under the stairs, useful again. It is a sad fact of film photography that once high tech solutions are now old hat and becoming rare. The advantage is you are recycling perfectly useable electronics and delaying their eventual deposition into landfill or rubbish tips around the world. Solid State Drives are also breathing new life into old and unloved computers and speeding them up. If you don’t fancy using Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux can be loaded onto an old windows pc and use emulator software to run your old windows programmes. Happy days!
As I said earlier, the best scanners are the ones in your local photo lab, my local Max Spielmann Photo Store has a Fuji Frontier 3000 that has been scanning my colour film since I came back to film photography in 2017. If you ask nicely, most labs will scan your negatives onto a disc or a USB drive for a reasonable price, and that is what it ll boils down to really. How much are you willing to spend to be able to digitally edit and print your images? It can be as little as a few pounds or as much as a thousand for the satisfaction of learning a new skill and truly making your favourite images all your own work. Here are a few images from the FP4Party I developed and scanned at home, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
Also available are high quality scanners from Nikon, Pakon and Optek that cost around the same as a flat bed scanner, both new or used. These will produce high quality scans of your negatives, but it is old tech. You will need a computer that runs on Windows XP, which does make your old tower, probably sat unloved in the cupboard under the stairs, useful again. It is a sad fact of film photography that once high tech solutions are now old hat and becoming rare. The advantage is you are recycling perfectly useable electronics and delaying their eventual deposition into landfill or rubbish tips around the world. Solid State Drives are also breathing new life into old and unloved computers and speeding them up. If you don’t fancy using Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux can be loaded onto an old windows pc and use emulator software to run your old windows programmes. Happy days!
As I said earlier, the best scanners are the ones in your local photo lab, my local Max Spielmann Photo Store has a Fuji Frontier 3000 that has been scanning my colour film since I came back to film photography in 2017. If you ask nicely, most labs will scan your negatives onto a disc or a USB drive for a reasonable price, and that is what it ll boils down to really. How much are you willing to spend to be able to digitally edit and print your images? It can be as little as a few pounds or as much as a thousand for the satisfaction of learning a new skill and truly making your favourite images all your own work. Here are a few images from the FP4Party I developed and scanned at home, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
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| Ion Slide and Negative Scanner |
 |
| Scanned with Slide and Negative Scanner |
 |
| Scanned with the DSLR |
 |
| Nikon D90 and Macro Tubes |
 |
| Scanned with Ion Scanner |
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| Scanned with Ion Scanner |
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| Scanned with Ion Scanner |
 |
| Scanned with Ion Scanner |
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| Scanned with Ion Scanner |
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