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.
Adventures in year-old DIY C-41 chemistry
See what happens when alspix?the man who brought us the now-legendary matchbox pinhole camera?processes film in year-old, over-used C-41 colour negative chemistry from a DIY kit. The results are surprising!
Read about it at Alspix Stuff.
...