developing at home

[giddings]

hey just wonderin wat a diy developing setup would cost approx

[giddings]

colour film that is ..

[TOM]

best bet is secondhand but you could get alot of film developed for the price of a diy setup and alot of headaches to go with it. ie, air purifier for extrating the dust from the room before hanging to dry (although with digital ICE, not as critical as b&w).

if you insist on doing yourself then look on eBay for 'jobo'. you should get a basic setup for about $300, plus a drying cabinet, air purifier and other associated epuipment the thing that i love about diy b&w is that you have the control to process according to your tastes for specific subject matter. not as essential in colour photography, especially e6. there isn't the latitude for errors as there is with b&w (developing technique i'm talking, not e6 vs b&w film properties).

[giddings]

sounds too expensive lol ... id rather pay for lenses or a new digital or watnot

[AzzA]

Most of that advanced/expensive equipment isnt needed.
You can develop your own C41 or even E6 film for relatively cheap.
It's simpler than b&w developing in many ways also.
Best place to start is something like this (theres other brands too but they're essentially the same). I know people who have developed 16 rolls from this one kit with success.
The biggest issue is temperature control. Luckily the development time is pretty short, so once you get the water temp right, it'll stay relatively level throughout the development period.
Most people preheat water over the stove to a couple degrees hotter than is needed, so by the time they get everything ready, the temp is pretty much spot on.
If you're temperature is out a little you may get slight colour casts, but these are usually very easy to fix in photoshop for example.
I know people who used to use kits like this in bathroom sinks when on assignment, so it's not as hard as alot of people beleive (b&w is alot more forgiving though)
Theres some more indepth explanations around the net with pictures etc, and plenty of flickr groups with extra info if you want to look into it more.
Most people dont do colour developing themselves to save money. It's mostly done for a bit of fun or if you want some more control over how your photos will turn out. It's good if you want to do some cross processing too as most labs wont do this for you on their machines.
have fun!

[Krzys]

sounds too expensive lol ... id rather pay for lenses or a new digital or watnot

I really cant see the merit in developing C41 (E6 is another story..) at home since a department store will do it for $1.80. B&W is totally worth it though.

[Analog6]

Lead me to the store that will do it for $1.80! Where do you hail from, Krzys?

I used to develop all my own B&W in the laundry (it was great fun) and colour at a local photographers co-op in Canberra, but digital colour actually has more latitude for error and I like controlling it myself from go to whoa. I would not go back to the messy and sometimes dangerous chemicals involved.

[hoffy]

Have you done B&W before giddings?

If not, I would suggest that you try that first. For around $100, including consumables, you would be ready to go (you could even do it cheaper, depending on how much you can buy a second hand tank and reel for. Base consumables for doing B&W film will cost you $70 from scratch. The fixer, if stored properly will last a while, the stop (if you want to use one) and developer will do around 20 films).

I would like to do colour in the future, but I am afraid of the temp issues as well. The good thing about B&W, is its done at around room temp and all you do is adjust development times based on this. Colour requires higher temps and should be kept within less then half a degree.

[Krzys]

Lead me to the store that will do it for $1.80! Where do you hail from, Krzys?

I am in Brisbane. Kmart will do it for $2.50 and BigW will do it for $1.80. Kmart's machines are faster but capped to 100-400asa. BigW can process any speed and (from my local store) the staff are much nicer, chatting about my experiments and throwing in free negative sleeves for my B&W work.