Developing questions ;D

[Boogeyman]

Seeing as the only decent photography supply store is pretty far away from me (costs about 20 bucks in gas to get there), I decided I need to make a detailed list of what I need to buy before I go there. My question is that since I want to primarily shoot in black and white 35mm and not many places can develop it locally, should I buy what I need to develop my own negatives and prints? I looked into scanning negatives but it sounded kinda sketchy. Is scanning negatives in and printing with a photo printer a good alternative to developing prints in a darkroom? please let me know your opinions and/or past experiences with these processes. Thanks for reading and I cant wait to see what you have to say and as always any other advice is appreciated.

 

[Boogeyman]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. Im kinda new here

 

[ann]

Developing your own negatives is very easy. FIrst time is always "scary" but it is easy. Go to Iford's website and check out their PDF's on developing negatives, they have a list of equipment needed.

Learning to print is another story.

However, scanning negatives is a very common technique. Printing neutral black and white can be done with an inkjet printer and is very successful especially with commerical high end ink jet printers. With a consumer printer it is a bit tricky but can be done, especially if one dedicates the printer to all grey inks.

 

[KenC]

Developing is not really darkroom work, so it is much less involved (and cheaper) than making prints. As Ann said, many choose to develop, then scan and print digitally. For developing you need only a dark closet to load the film into the tank and a sink for mixing and pouring chemicals. There are a lot of choices of film/developer combination, so do a little research on that too. You'll have a lot of fun!

 

[Boogeyman]

Thanks for the help guys I had already planned on developing my own negatives just to have more control over the whole process but it looks like im going to be scnning and printing my prints instead of making prints in a darkroom. Could anyone reccomend a good (moderately priced) scanner thats ideal for scanning negatives?