Yesterday I spent some time scanning, developing film and printing in the darkroom. While I was taking notes, I took the opportunity to re-evaluate my analog workflow.

Lately I’m more and more tempted to cut reliance on external services for developing color film. As for now, when I have color film, I send them to a lab, but the rolls consistently come back scratched.

It’s a recurring issue: I’ve pointed it out to them before, and their response is always that it’s Kodak’s fault. That’s hard to believe, considering when I develop Kodak black-and-white films at home (using the exact same canister, just with a different emulsion), I never encounter problems of this kind. 

This is seriously pushing me to consider making the leap and handling the C-41 process at home. The main issue for me is that for color film you have to be stricter with temperatures, and I’ll probably need to get some more gear, like an immersion heater to manage the water bath.

Yesterday I did some “freestyle” film development too, I loaded an AP Tank with 120 and 135 films. Since the tank didn’t explicitly mention the volumes for this configuration, I had to estimate the volumes roughly.

Knowing that the 120 format is about twice the height of 135, I estimated a volume of 975ml (135 is labeled at 325ml). Since I had slightly less ready chemistry than needed, I opted to extend development times by about 35% to compensate for the lower concentration. In the end, the result turned out to be good. The development came out clean and even, albeit with slightly more pronounced grain due to the dilution.

While traditional tanks (whether AP or Paterson) do their job, I still prefer the continuous agitation of the Lab-Box when I can use it. The perceived resolution and sharpness you get on the negative with that system offers, in my opinion, an edge over the traditional method. The only real limitation is that you can only process one roll of film at a time, not the best when you have a backlog of shots to develop.

I ended up printing 5 photos too.

It ended up being a three-hour session, even though I didn’t actually have much that strictly needed printing. I used the time to refine my technique for estimating paper exposure times without relying on test strips.

I just went straight for the final prints, and honestly, they turned out pretty well. I printed both 135 and 120 formats on relatively small paper size, but everything came out successfully.