Learning A New Skill - Colour Film Developing

 In last weeks blog I mentioned that I learned a new skill, it's a skill I have wanted to try for a while but never had the nerve. Until now. Back in January 2020 I took a leap of faith and began my B&W odyssey and since then I have been building my knowledge and confidence with B&W film and developing it at home. Emboldened with that confidence, at the start of 2021 I set myself a goal I thought I could achieve this year of learning to develop colour film.

That goal was tied into my involvement with the Frugal Film Project 2021, a year long challenge to shoot cheap film in a cheap camera. The first half of 2021 I shot Fomapan 200 and developed it myself. Now the challenge has moved to colour film and I wanted to at least try to develop a couple of rolls for the project. July and August's rolls of Kodak ColorPlus 200 were developed by the folk at my local Max Spielmann photo store. My September roll was developed by me in my kitchen at home with a Film Photography Project Unicolor C41 kit I bought from Analogue Wonderland.

With encouragement and advice from the folk on the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast and the Frugal Film Project facebook groups I was assured that developing colour film is relatively straight forward, but you do have to take certain steps in order to get it right. The Developer and Bleach/Fix (Blix) chemicals have to be at a higher temperature than those I use for my black and white film. This meant I had to invest in a Sous Vide water heater.

A Sous Vide water heater keeps water at a set temperature to cook food that is vacuum sealed in a bag and immersed in hot water. (Sous Vide is french for "under vacuum".) After a search online I found one that was at a price I could afford. I also needed some jugs for the chemicals, some storage bottles and a tub to use as my water tank. I got all those items for not a lot of cash at a local household goods store. Developing equipment doesn't need to be expensive, just buy what you can afford. It worked for me.

The C41 kit was a little harder to find as the global you know who caused supply chains to struggle and C41 kits were thin on the ground. I waited until Analogue Wonderland, my favourite retailer for all things film related, got some in stock and bought a Film Photography Project C41 kit in powder form. All I needed to do was shoot some colour film. I did this in early September with a roll of Kodak ColorPlus for the Frugal Film Project and a roll of Kodak Gold for the hell of it. As soon as I had everything together I got started.

Mixing the chemicals was a straightforward task as it involved getting water to the right temperature and mixing each powdered chemical stage according to the excellent instruction leaflet supplied with the kit. Word to the wise, wear gloves, a mask and make sure your kitchen is well ventilated. Colour developing chemicals are pretty nasty and can do you harm if you're not careful. After mixing my chemicals I placed them in my water tank so my sous vide could bring them to the correct operating temperature.

I loaded both films into a Paterson 2 reel tank and the first step was to give the colour film a pre soak in hot water to bring the film up to temperature. I just ran the hot tap into it for a minute whilst the water temperature rose to roughly the right temperature. My thermometer was definitely earning it's pay with colour film.

I measured out the volume I needed for developer and followed the instruction leaflet. 3 1/2 minutes flies by when your having fun and it was time to switch to the Blix stage. This is the stinkiest stage and the reason you need plenty of ventilation. Oh my, that stuff stinks! Another 6 1/2 minutes sailed by and in theory my film was developed and fixed. I poured the blix back into it's storage bottle before the wash stage.

After a 3 minute wash under the hot tap I took a peek at my film. I wasn't sure if it had worked or not so I was apprehensive to say the least. I needn't have worried, by following the instructions I had successfully developed 2 rolls of colour film! I saw images and quickly moved to the stabiliser stage before hanging my film up to dry. Whilst that was drying I cleaned up my colour developing gear, emptied my water tub and dried it off to use it as a storage tub for my gear. The next step was to scan my dry film with my Ion Slides2PC scanner, put my negs into sleeves and file them for future use.

I will talk about the scanning process another time, but until then here are a few images from my home developed Kodak Gold film. I really enjoyed the developing process, despite the stinky blix stage, and will be doing a lot more of it in future. I have links to Analogue Wonderland and the Film Photography Project below and of course a link to my Flickr album with a selection of shots at full resolution. I hope you enjoy them.

Analogue Wonderland

Film Photography Project

Flickr Home Developed Kodak Gold