Pretty soon after starting to do my own B&W film processing I started wondering about colour. Is colour film processing at home possible? How easy is it? Can I do my own films cheaper than the lab? Googling showed the questions had of course been asked many times before, but the answers given on the usenet groups/discussion boards varied a fair bit. The opinion of at least 50% of the respondants seemed to be "No". No, it isn't easy, no you can't get good results and no it is definately not cheaper than getting the lab to do it, the chemicals expire so fast you need to be processing many rolls of film every week to make it cost in. Reading between the lines though, these opinions generally came from those who'd never actually tried colour processing themselves. Those who had tried it weren't quite so negative. In addition there was much talk about not achieving perfect colour balance. At that time I'd been deliberately putting ancient film in my cameras to get shifts in colour balance, so I decided there was little risk in trying some DIY C41 - indeed, perhaps I'd screw it up badly, mess up the colours but get some cool results because of that!

There's not a lot of choice left in the market, far less choice than B&W, but at least this made selecting a product easier! Nova produce a dry "press" kit for around £12, with a stated capacity of 12 rolls of film. In March 2006 I ordered a kit, and started stockpiling exposed films so that I could process them all in a single batch, within the very short stated shelf life of the prepared developer and blix.

I decided I would attempt to split the kit into two batches capapble of processing six films. The chemicals were mixed, then divided. One half was placed in my film freezer for future use.

The first six rolls went without a hitch, the negatives looked fine and scanned with ease. With the kit now "exhausted" I decided to waste a little of my stash of cheap expired film to see how the results would change as I put more and fim through the ageing chemicals. Another six rolls. Six more films nicely developed, no real signs that the chemicals were loosing their power. The instructions indicated a shelf life of 2-3 weeks for part used chemicals. Mine were twice that age, dark and murky, had developed twice their maximum capacity and were still alive and kicking! I stopped counting the films I put through the chemicals at this point, but by the time I started using a fresh batch they had sucessfully developed at least 18 rolls of film of various speeds and types (including some cross-processing)

I didn't bin the old chemicals, but instead kept them (stored at room temperatures regularly >30C during the summer), ocasionaly testing them out on a test roll to see if they still worked.

Could the chemicals survive a whole year? In April 2007, over a year after first mixing the 500ml of 2-week shelf life chemicals, I tried again. My test isn't exactly ideal, I used ISO100 film which expired in 2004! To compensate for this I rated the film speed at ISO50 for the test roll, shot with a Praktica SLR.

The standard developer time is 3:15. To compensate for the chemical's age, I pushed this up to 5:30. No science behind this adjustment, just guesswork! The normal blix time is 3 minutes which I doubled to about 6 minutes. Perhaps this time the film would deliver some wacky colours? Nothing very exciting I'm afraid, just perfectly scannable negatives with a yellow cast.

The following examples are scanned using an Epson 4180 with everything at default, no enhancements or adjustments made.

I then scanned again, with the scanner's colour restoration feature checked, just to see the effect of simple colour correction:

Finally here's one of the test scenes shot with my Canon A70, default automatic setting.

So why am I posting this?

These days those photographers still using film, or coming back to it, are often looking in other directions than simply producing the ever sharper and more computer-controlled imagery that modern technolgies are enabling. The attitudes towards the difficulties of colour developing come from a time where, for most people, the sole aim was to strive for sharpness, correct colour control, repeatability. A time when the only way to get your colour image to paper was through the unforgiving world of the wet darkroom, where inconsistant negatives can cause big headaches.

If you're using a Holga,Lomo LC-A, Diana, pinhole, box brownie, etc etc, my guess is you probably won't be shot down by your editor if your colours and exposure aren't 100% spot on accurate. Otherwise you wouldn't be using that plastic lens toy camera, expired film, or cross processing, eh? So don't take too much notice of historical opinions on the practicality of home processing.

Perhaps my standards are too low, but I think the scans I've achieved here are OK. Certainly good enough for me. If you'd be happy with processing results like this then the following statements are all true:

It's easy. In many ways EASIER than B&W.

It's fast. Your film will be drying in less than ten minutes

It's VERY cheap

You don't need special gear - A cheap digital thermometer and a plastic washing up bowl on top of your existing B&W kit.

The stuff lasts FOR AGES!!

I've put the sludgy dark liquids back in their bottles and in the garage cupboard where they have been for 12 months. Let's see what they can do after 18 months.. maybe 2 years? With a bit of luck, the damn things will finally start producing crazy results, so far they have been a bit too well-behaved!

What DOES kill it !
Update, Auguest 2007: I left one batch in plastic containers that weren't full and didn't have all the air squeezed out of them.  In a matter of a couple of months the developer (I assume) became totally ineffective, because after processing the film came out with no image as if it hadnt been exposed, but without the sprocket area markings.  So make sure you use containers that can be squeezed to expel all air and make sure the lids are very tightly fitting !

Suppliers:

In the UK
www.novadarkroom.com Nova Prospeed C41 kit. Powder kit, 12 film capacity

Europe
Fotohuis Amaloco K54 C41 kit, liquid kit, 4x6 kit, 24 films in sperate batches of 6.

Here's a mod that will turn your Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim into a multi-exposure, low-light shooting, blur soaked Lomo killer!

The multi exposure mod lets you re-cock the shutter as many times as required without winding on, the "B" mod lets you leave the shutter open as long as you hold your finger on the "control"

All you need is:
- A Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim you don't mind hacking with a little
- A match (you may have some spare after building the matchbox pinhole ) and/or a scrap of plastic, about 1mm x 2mm x 20mm
- A small screwdriver, and some tools to cut a small slot in plastic...

First you need to get your Viv naked. There are five screws which hold the front of the camera on, positions shown below. Make a note of which screw comes from which hole as the sizes are different.

Seperate the two parts of the rewind lever and remove them from the camera.

The easiest way to sperate the case is to start at the shutter button end. Depress the shutter button so the two halves can be seperated at that end of the camera, then press in the little rewind button so that the case can be seperated at the other end. There's do need to pry at the case with a screwdriver, you'll only damage things - keep trying - it does come apart easily with practice!

The good news is we don't need to mess with the camera's mechanism, just the front panel!

This is a good time to examine what happens when the camera is wound on and fired, you need to understand what you're trying to do when operating the modded camera. To wind on with no film in the camera, open the back and turn the lower sprocket wheel to the left until it stops. Watch the mechanism under the lens at the front of the camera while doing this.I could try to descibe it, but it's best to watch it yourself, you'll get the idea.

All you need to do is cut a slot in the front panel so that this mechanism can be interfered with when the camera is assembled. The slot needs to be 10mm long, and wide enough so the match will move along it. The centre of the slot should be 18mm down from the centre of the lens hole, and start 5mm to the right of the centre of the lens hole.

Try to cut this slot as neatly as possible (i.e. neater than mine!!) Use whatever method you feel safe with to cut this, but don't sue me if you slice you fingers off doing it!!

Check that the match fits into the slot and slides smoothly up and down. Yeah, raunchy stuff, but don't get too excited here. It's time to get Viv's clothes back on!

Remember to press in the rewind button and start at the rewind button end when re-assembling, then push the shutter button down and re fit the two parts together. As with taking it apart, don't force it, be patient, it will go together eventually. Replace the screws and rewind lever.

Don't put film in just yet, practice operating the thing first without film.

Get your match. Use a sharp knife to cut a taper at the end, this will make it much easier to use than a square-ended stick.

For multi exposures, take one shot as normal. To re-cock the shutter, insert the match on the left hand slide of the slot. Slide across to the other side of the slot, you will hear the shutter being cocked.

Remove the match, and shoot again!

The match doesnt work very well for the "B" control, it's not flexible enough. Hence the plastic, which can actually be used for re-cocking the shutter too.

Cut a piece to fit the slot, about 20mm long, and taper the end as with the match. Bend the plastic slightly as shown.

For B exposures, wind on, then fire the shutter with your hand over the lens. Now insert the tapered end of the plastic into the right hand slide of the slot. It should wedge in place and stay there. Do this with care to avoid opening the shutter while inserting the plastic. To open the shutter, push the plastic to the left across the slot, you'll here the shutter slide open. Hold it there for as long as you like, then release it, it should spring back, closing the shutter! Watch out you dont get your fingers in the way of the lens doing this, it's very easy for your fingers to get in the photo with the vivitar's wide angle lens.

Make sure you remove the piece of plastic before winding on.

OK, so it's not exactly the most elegant solution - but it works, and triples the functionality of the already great Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim

Update: Here's some hastily produced example shots, expired 100ASA film and expired C41 home development kit!

Multi Exposure
There's three exposures in this one...

B Mode
I took a few shots of cars going by, not really very sucessful as the road was quiet and I undestimated the exposure time required with this old 100ASA film.

Multi exposure and B!!
What a mess! But it proves it works

The other day I thought I'd try a little macro experiment with my new Pentax dSLR. Many years ago I bought a M42 reversing ring for just such antics on my Praktica film SLR, and I'd just bought a pentax k -> M42 adapter, so sticking these two onto the camera body along with a 49/52mm adapter enable the standard lens to be reversed. You can of course buy a k-mount reversing ring, but the three seperate gadgets have other uses too!

The lens used is the standard 18-55mm kit lens, set at the 18mm position which gives greatest magnification

Spotted a gnat on the bathroom wall I thought would make a good subject. The lights were dim, tripods/flashes etc were in the other room and being lazy I popped up the internal flash, even though I knew it would probably be useless, flash is usually way too powerful at such close range.

However, things worked out quite well! The flash was blocked by the lens so the gnat was in shadow from the direct blast. The reflected light off the walls was just about right.

To control depth of field and get a bright enough image in the viewfinder to focus, adjust the aperture manually by holding one finger on the lever sticking out of the lens. This takes a bit of practice to get the right exposure!