Learing to Process Film

Learning to Process Film

By Chris Page LRPS

I have finally got around to something that I have been wanting to do for a while ̶ process my own film. Over the midterm break, I headed out with my father-in-law’s old Cosina CT-1G, equipped with a 50 mm Pentax lens. The camera is a well-travelled number, and in its day has been to Antarctica and back. For film, I used Ilford HP5 Plus.

Developing

Now I’m no expert at this, so please do not see this as a guide. I managed to mix the chemicals and followed a set of instructions found online. My wardrobe was emptied and turned into a darkroom for the fiddly part ̶ extracting the film from the camera and inserting it into the developing tank. Once the film was inside the tank, which is basically a light-sealed pot, I ran through the process of adding four different chemicals to develop and “set” the film.

Mixing old school with new school, I scanned the negatives and edited the photos in Lightroom. Perhaps one day I will go through the whole process in a darkroom and skip the computer completely. Click on the images below to see them in full.

Ditching digital?

I am probably not going to be ditching my trusty Sony anytime soon. However, this experience was fun; it slowed me down and taught me something new. I really like the final images, flaws and all. Having a fully manual camera certainly made the experience a challenge and is something I will keep working at. As they say, practice makes perfect, so take care and keep clicking!