My first home-developed film

[Buckster]

I had SO much fun last night! I finally started developing my own film, and these are a few from the very first roll.

They were all shot with my Mamiya C330 medium format twin-lens camera wearing a Mamiya-Sekor DS 105mm f/3.5 "blue dot" lens. I metered with my Sekonic L-558R, and shot them on Kodak TMAX 400 120.

Scanning the negatives at 4800 dpi on my Canon 8800F produced 44" square "prints", and the detail and tones are just incredible on them, to my eye. These reduced shots show it well enough, and I'm really happy with my first results here!

Frame #1 on the roll:

2

3

4

5

6

 

[Derrel]

Pretty doggone good for a newbie! (with 40 years of photography experience under his belt). Yeah,man, pretty good work for your first-ever developing work! I like the way you composed these within the square frame of the old warhorse Mamiya TLR. The portraits, especially of the man and the little girl, look quite good. Both are a little bit different in their "look". The shot of the man has a gritty, 1970's avante garde portrait look; if you had included a black-out border around it, it would have looked truly awesome!

One tip I might have is to consider using some in-camera filtration, like a yellow or orange filter, to build some more drama in the sky tones,and to increase contrast a bit. FIlters for B&W is one of the areas where the TLR is actually handier than the SLR--you can pop a deep red #25 over the taking lens--and still have a big,bright viewing lens finder image. Long live the TLR!

You did a bang-up job on these first effort shots.

 

[Randall Ellis]

Very nice job - good contrast, no processing errors that I can see, Congrats! It's a whole new world of fun!

- Randy

 

[Silver Halide]

The third one is my favorite. I really like the detail and texture of the image. Wonderful job.

 

[Big]

#4 Is definitely my favorite, so simple but it tells a story and makes you think of the people who use it. Nice job on all of them for your first attempt. :thumbup:

 

[Buckster]

Thank you kindly, folks!

 

[porkphoto]

Am I too late for this post? Number 3 does it for me...makes me think I'm about to be twisted into a pretzel. Great takes. There's something about B&W.......

 

[Buckster]

Am I too late for this post? Number 3 does it for me...makes me think I'm about to be twisted into a pretzel. Great takes. There's something about B&W.......

Never too late, and thanks much! That's my nephew, Greg. Hehehe... he's been known to be a scrapper at times, but he loves his Uncle Buck.

 

[IgsEMT]

Grrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaattttttt

 

[stephen]

I've been planning to learn how to develop black and white medium format this year and you have inspired me.

I'm already doing some dark-room bag work spooling film onto cameras it wasn't designed to work with. But so far letting others do the developing before scanning on my cannon.

Guess I need to buy the tank and other items and get to it.

You choose some nice subjects for black and white.

 

[stephen]

I'm torn for favorite between number 1 and number5.

In number one I'm reading a lot into your models face, imaging who she is, her relationship with you and support of you etc.

Number 5 just seemed to offer a good range for the film.

 

[Buckster]

Thank much for the encouraging words folks.

In number one I'm reading a lot into your models face, imaging who she is, her relationship with you and support of you etc.

That's my sister, Trudy, always ready to help out.

 

[SoonerBJJ]

You think developing the negatives was fun... just wait until you start doing your own printing!

I bought a nice scanner with the intent of shooting film, developing my negatives and just scanning them.

My new scanner is gathering dust after I spent a few sessions in the darkroom.

I'm using the darkroom at a local art center but I'm planning my own for the house. Get thee into a darkroom.

 

[Jeremy Z]

Very nice. #5 is my favorite. #2 is great too, and probably even better if you know the model.

I love spending time in the darkroom, developing & printing film. I think it will be a good while before digital can really capture the tonal range of B&W film.

 

[Johnny C]

Lovin your work!