watch now! detail...
for reversal development of bw-film to black and white slides or projectable bw film, 5 chemicals are needed. to be able to develop super 8 film and 16mm film, you ideally obtain 5 wide neck bottles. the bottles shown here are made for laboratories, take 1.5 liters (or a tad more) that is kind of an ideal amount to get even results. it is enough to develop two super 8 films at once
and, if you work carefully, even 100ft of 16mm film (certainly cut in two pieces of 50ft each). with one such 1.5 liter set of chemistry, you can easily develop 15 super 8 films. it depends a bit on what kind of films you develop, how many months you keep the chemistry – usually i use such a set for 6-8 months maximum. store the bottles dark, cool and without air to keep them that long. after that, your mileage may vary – better mix a new set then. to let the chemistry stay good for a long time, use distilled water. it is available for cheap in hardware stores, usually in 5 liter containers.
to make a full set of chemistry, you will need about 7.5 liters, so get two such containers or more. the mixed chemistry will last a lot longer, since distilled water is purer and cleaner. also helpful is a measuring cylinder with graduation marks, for 1 liter, or for 3 liters. the bigger one is useful, but its scale is less precise. i found it as "oil can" for a few bucks on ebay. i use the small one to measure exact amounts and then the big one to mix it all together. let's start with making "first developer". as first and as second developer, i recommend to use tetenal dokumol. it's a hydroquinone-rich, contrasty paper developer,
pretty cheap, about 10€ per liter concentrate. mix it 1+7 (1 part dokumol, 7 parts water) and you can use it right away. you do not need to add any other additives to get brilliant results. if you want, there are tweaks to modify the first developer even further, but today we leave that out. i am actually not quite exact with the 1+7 rule: to make 1.5 liters, i take 200ml of dokumol and top it up with 1.3 liters of water, so it actually turns out a tad stronger. most important is to always do it the same way, only then you will get reproducible, consistent results. so take 200ml of concentrate. this one is a bit brown-ish yet, when it's new, it is more clear – don't worry.
use protectan spray to protect the concetrate from oxidation. it's a protective gas from tetenal, nothing else then propane, so you should be able to use lighter gas instead, too. it is heavier than air and falls on the surface, and protects from harmful oxidation – thus the concentrate lasts longer! so, after we made two times 1.5 liters of this developer solution, we close both bottles tighlty, again using protectan spray. that's how they'll last long. i always label my bottles, so that i don't mix them up during development.
so step 1 and 4 are actually the same solution. nevertheless i recommend to prepare separate solutions, because the first developer gets protracted. this means the initially dry film soaks a certain amount of first developer into its emulsion, which lets the first developer become less and less solution over time. if i'd top it up with water, id need to adjust the first developer timings. in the same way, the second developer dilutes over time from washing water being carried into it. so you get better results with separate solutions for first and second developer, even if they are first chemically identical. down here, i usually put the date of when i made the mix, so that i know when my half year of shelf life is over.
down here, i put tally marks, for each developed super 8 film i make one mark, for each 100ft roll of 16mm film i make 4 marks. when i see 12 or 13 marks, i know that things might get weak and consider a test strip first – or make a full set of new solution. to make the bleach, i prefer the old, toxic formula based on potassium dichromate [k2cr2o7]. beside potassium dichromate you will need sulfuric acid, both available at local chemical suppliers. be aware potassium dichromate is really toxic, so you better know what you are doing. read the safety data sheet! i am not going into more security details here, i guess you know what you are doing if you watched this far.
if you consider this as too dangerous for you, you can make a bleach based on potassium permanganate [kmno4] formulas for that can be found easily on the interwebs. such a bleach is much less toxic, but it also lasts much shorter. it actually can be dead after a couple of hours, days or weeks, depending on the exact formula. i also find it harder to mix, the potassium permanganate crystals can take forever to dissolve. for some emulsions as the foma pan r100 i find it not strong enough, you need to work extremely precise to get good, consistent results. i also had problems with emulsions melting off or floating away... so the potassium dichromate bleach our grandfathers used already is really reliable
it just always works, lasts a long time, does not oxidize – but it's toxic. my favourite formula starts with 1200ml of distilled water... i'll top that up later, and then first add the sulfuric acid. we all remember it from school days: always do things as you oughta, add the acid to the water! i got 50% sulfuric acid here, that's how i get it form my chemicals supplier, you can certainly use other dilutions, just apply the rule of three. so for me it is 70 ml of 50% sulfuric acid... you don't need to be ultra precise, but these are approximately 70 ml –
be careful, this stuff is really highly corrosive. wear gloves, goggles and stick to all safety instructions! pour it slowly and carefully into the water. rinse the measuring cylinder right away. stir with a glass or plastic rod, no metal or organic materials here. now the solution is much less dangerous already. now add 15 g of potassium dichromate. to weigh the 15g, i use a micro scale, this is a rather simple model, avialble for little money in the electronics or hardware store.
precision is approx. 0.1 g, which is good enough for this case. wear gloves, goggles and face mask! avoid spreading dust - this stuff is really toxic! great color... [mumble mumble safety] ...here we are. wipe your table top wet after this. throw the wipes away. did i mention yet this stuff is toxic? now mix this, while avoiding to stir up dust, into the solution. stir until all crystals are entirely dissolved. this can take a bit, especially if your potassium dichromate crystals are big.
water a bit warmer than mine accelerates dissolving. my darkroom is currently 12â°c, use 20â°c water if you can. done? now we fill this into bottle #2. oh right, these aren't 1.5 liters yet, i started with 1.2... [squeeking chair] ...we'll top it up with distilled water, as earlier. [gulp gulp] top it all the way up, so that we have enough solution for two films. close the lid tight. take a sturdy chemistry bottle here, you don't want a container that breaks and spills this stuff.
add skull stickers and keep it out of reach of children and other clueless people! for recycling used bleach, contact your local recycling yard. however there is also a trick to make the toxic +6 chrome less toxic by making it +3 chrome: just do so by mixing the used up bleach with used up developer! the solution then gets blue-purple and white chunks flocculate. adjust the ph to ~2.8 if you fancy to and you should now have no problems to get rid of this. just don't pour it into the sink. as clearing bath, i use sodium sulphite [na2so3]. you could also use sodium bisulfite [nahso3], it is stronger, but tends to make a horrible smell when traces of the bleach get into it.
sodium sulphite is also dead cheap. for one liter solution you will need about 90 grams, so for my 1.5 liters i'll take 140g. these two bags fit exactly. 5g is tara for each bag, and the second bag is just half full since i split it last time. sodium sulphite is a white powder, which we'll now, as before, mix with distilled water... stir well until it is dissolved. once again, using warm-ish water helps big time. this was the first half... this stuff lasts a long time, definitely more than 10 films.
but after a certain time, it will age as well -- so i'll also mix new solution after half a year of shelf time. this will assure consistent results. all this stuff is so dead cheap, it's not worth to take any extra risk. plus, mixing a set of this chemistry is no big deal. this now goes into... ...our cleaning bath bottle. last but not least, we will set up our fixer. i use simple, cheap bw fixer, setting it up in the stronger 1+4 solution. that safes some time. so i'll need 300 ml of concentrate,
plus 1200 ml of distilled water. that will add up to 1.5 liters. i usually buy fixer in 5 liter canisters, that's the cheapest way. and this stuff doesn't go bad for decades. so now we have 0.3 liters... ...and we put this into our 1.2 liters of water. this makes a perfect 1.5 liters. stir briefly and put it into the last bottle: number 5, labelled "fix". and this is out just set up set of chemicals, ready to develop at least 15 super 8 cartridges to beautifully contrasty and crisp bw reversal films.
first, the first developer (fd) second bath is the bleach (bl) third, the clearing bath (cl) forth, the second developer (sd) and as fifth, the fixer (fix) certainly, in between those baths, you need to rinse carefully. you see the bw-reversal process is very time consuming, but it brings fantastic results. also it's fun, kind of relaxing... and you can listen to music while doing it! this numbering (1-5) makes sense to not get confused during development.
not sure if the two-letter abbreviations follow a norm or not, but "fd" is just shorter than "first developer". also, you recognize the solutions easily, since their color changes over time. for the actual processing, we gotta get these solutions to 20-21â°c (68-70f). i'll show just briefly here how to best get the film into the lomo tank. there are other detailed howtos for this. really useful is to have an old record player available: the turntable totally helps to load the film in the dark. the main trick is to have the reel spinning evenly, and a heavy turntable assures that best.
when i crack the cartridge open in total darkness, [crack] you can also use flat pliers or a screwdriver for this, get the wound up film out of it (this here is old film just for practicing) here it is... note it's usually a bit bigger than here, this practicing film is missing about 5 meters. hold it that the end points to top left. make a loop and wind it around the inner core of the reel. practice this in light and it will be easy! hold the film like this, emulsion down,
put on the upper lomo reel and tighten the screw, hold the film wind lose and upright like this, and spin... in the dark certainly... spin the turntable... add spice and let it go... you see: without any friction or complication, the 50ft of film wind up on the reel! thats the end... remove the core. if you want, load a second film the same way... in either case, add the third reel and the big screw to tighten the stack. put it in the tank, close the lid...
...turn the light on, and off we go! just to show how well the film winds up this way: (don't open a loaded reel like this, or your film will be horribly tangled) but to show: perfectly wound up 10 meters – a full cartridge would go to the outer end. in this water bath from ebay, i am keeping my solutions at temperature. really critical is only the temperature of the first developer that's why that bottle is totally immersed. now: first development!
i put my lomo tank into another water bath here, since my darkroom has only 12â°c right now. this helps to keep the solutions at 20â° during development. at 12â° outside, the temperature would considerably drop during development. a simple hotplate with a thermostat does the trick, just plenty of tempered water works too. the time of the first development is the most important step in the whole process. the correct time depends on the film. my standard time to start with is 7-8 minutes with this recipe. it depends on how you exposed, what camera you used, what film stock it is, how you agitate... you gotta find your own timings here, but 8 minutes is usually a good start. (that little lid here is just to keep the light away, there is spot lamp just above the tank here)
now we pour the full 1.5 liters of first developer into the tank. set off the timer, clean the spindle a bit to not get stinky fingers... now joggle and spin. in the beginning, joggle a lot to get any air bubbles off the film surface. spin 90â° and joggle again. and so on... never move the spindle up and down! this just foams up your developer. it would age faster and you would have more bubbles on the emulsion. joggle...rotate 90â°. joggle... rotate 90â°. and so on.
after about 30 seconds, let it sit. this makes sharper edges and more even grain. about every 15 or 20 seconds, give it a bit of joggle & spin – equivalent to the three immersions you would give to a 35mm tank. let it sit... ...then move again. and so on. oh, and only turn the spindle clockwise! otherwise, the film might wind off the reel. most films will get good results with 8 minutes... including
fomapan r100 (which i overexpose a bit though) plus-x likes 8 minutes, tri-x likes 8 minutes... ...it sure needs a bit more if you push it. the adox pan chs-ii (which is in here right now) needs 8 minutes too... adox pan reverso might get a bit more time, since that stock does not really have 100 asa in my opinion. it's older stock, probably agfa scala, if you shoot it as 50 asa, 8 minutes are fine, if you shoot it as 100 asa, give it 10 or 11 minutes to compensate for that. it depends on agitation, temperature, exposure... you will get a feeling for it. i used to move the spindle all the time and develop shorter,
now i agitate less and develop it a little longer – for better sharpness and grain. by the way, temperature should not be much higher than 20-21â°c, otherwise you will get more grain. au contraire, a tri-x developed at 16â°c with more time can come pit pretty fine grained! i stick with 20â°c though, since the most important thing is consistency. if you want consistent results, change a minimum of things at a time. that way you won't notice differences between multiple rolls spliced together. to show what the first developer actually does, i poured a bit of developer into this measurement glass: this is a piece of my bw film which i will throw it into the developer.
first you see nothing, but after a while, the chemistry gets into the emulsion and will turn this (exposed) piece of film to black. the developer reduces the exposed silver salt to actual silver. now, after just one minute, we see that the filim is black where it touched the developer! you might think developing has finished now, but it takes a while until the solution got into the deeper layers of the emulsion. your eye is fooling you, and that is why our first developmet time is 8 minutes. we are now approaching the end of our 8 minutes, the timer should go off any time now, and now we put our developer back into its bottle. we want to use this stuff again for future films! lift the tank carefully, losen the hose, pinch its end together,
hold it into the bottle and let go. you'll see that the solution comes out rather fast if you hold the tank high. wait for the lomo-burp! [burp] don't forget to make a mark (or two) on the bottle, since this solution will be good for 13-14 further films! now we will rinse the film, which also stops the development. use tap water, ideally around 20â°c as well, fill the tank fully up two, better three times.
when it's full, let the water out through the hose. now it's full. let the water out... top it up again... ...and later a third time. the better you rinse, the cleaner your solutions will remain and the longer they last. at the end, let all the water out, to not dilute the next bath. next step: bleach! this goes for 7 minutes, which is valid for all films.
you might think actual bleaching goes faster, but you can't really over-bleach and bleaching too short makes flat results. use gloves... ...when pouring the toxic potassium dichromate bleach into the tank. now we agitate as before. [timer starts] after just one minute in the bleach, we can conveniently remove the lid from the tank! this allows us to watch what actually happens. i'll rinse the lid off right away to have it clean for the next use.
you can see: the film looks very light, not as black as our test strip. to show why, i take our partially developed test strip, the black part is the developed part, and hold this loosely into our bleach. magic: it's no longer black! the reason is that the bleach etches the silver out of the emulsion. the undeveloped parts remain untouched, that's why this strip does not get clear. our brief 1 minute development only turned the surface of the emulsion into silver. but our actual super 8 film down there will have clean parts, since it was completely developed...
lets get the film out this one time to show this. you can see traces of film images – yellow on clear base! bright areas of the image are now clear, since we bleached out the silver there. everything that now looks yellow, will later be black. so first we created a negative image by turning exposed areas into to silver. the bleach now removes that silver. what remains are those parts of the image, that got no or little light. keep agitating for the whole 7 minutes. after that, return the bleach into its bottle. bleach also lasts for 15 films or more.
after that, rinse 2-3 times or more, until the rinsing water is no longer yellow-ish. the bleach has a really bright, toxic color... and makes great results. when emptying the tank, i always wait until only single drops come out of the hose. return the bottle... ...and rinse with ~20â° water. i rinse this way when the tank is without lid, since then the reels don't float up and the film does not get the hard water jet directly. it's a coincidence that his fits so well under my faucet, but there are many other ways to rinse. tipping wash water out is much faster this way then through the hose. repeat three times.
next bath: clearing bath! (bottle no 3) it does not have a very visible effect. when working without the lid, you can pour in solutions very fast and easily. the clearing bath does nothing else than "neutralizing" the potassium dichromate leftovers in the emulsion. the only effect you can see is that the film is less yellow-ish afterwards. this stuff smells like ink eraser. film now looks more white. let it soak for 1-2 minutes. 2 minutes is the time it takes at 20â°c to let any chemistry fully soak into the emulsion.
that's why any solution should be used for at least 2 minutes. this assures even results. you can't really clear too long, either. after that, back to the bottle – and rinse. the next step isn't really a chemical one, it is the second exposure! take the reel... ...and hold it, especially from the bottom side, straight into the light. one minute or two right underneath such a bulb is needed to expose any remaining emulsion evenly.
as we worked without the lid since the bleach step, a lot of this second exposure has happened already, but still, for even results, we should expose the bottom part too and move the reels a bit under the lamp. this bulb has 70 watts by the way, so nothing fancy. after this, the forth step follows: second development! (bottle no 4) same recipe as first developer, but a dedicated mixture. just pour it on the exposed film. let it soak for 5 minutes, agitate every so often. 4 minutes would probably be enough too, but longer does not hurt and we want those super black shadows, no? as you can see, the white parts of the film now all turned black or dark grey.
but as we know, it takes a bit until everything is developed, also the invisible parts. so: develop it for 5 minutes at least. by the way: when developing without the lid, we can see very well how those air bubbles appear and how to best get rid of them. with this movement, we make a lot of them. they are bad. joggling sideways removes them. working without the lid is thus good to learn how to use the lomo tank best! joggle, spin, joggle, spin... and your results will be even. when the 5 minutes are over, return the 2nd developer to its bottle and rinse. after rinsing, our film is actually ready for projection.
you can see, the beginning is totally clear, then pictures follow: beautiful, well-exposed and crisp black & white positives! the only reason why we continue is the preservability. some people say: we turned everything into silver, the remainders where bleached out -- what is there that could be fixed? unfortunately, every emulsion has "dead" silver halides, which can't be developed into silver even though they were exposed. these would become brown spots over the years. to avoid that, we fix them out. fix for 4 minutes. to show what fixer does, we us our bleached test strip again:
dies ist der unentwickelte teil. fixer does nothing else than turning the silver halide into a water-soluble state. as you can see, the film now gets clear! this fixer is fresh, that's why its so fast. making the defect halides soluble take a bit longer, that's why you should fix for 4 full minutes. the molecular silver is not affected by this, black remains black. when 4 minutes are over, the fixer is returned to its bottle – and if you think we would now be ready, we still aren't!
the fixer only turns the silver halides into a water-soluble state. [burp] it does not get it entirely out of the emulsion. also, we want to get the fixer itself out of the emulsion, because it turns brown over time as well. to achieve this, the film needs to be rinsed in running water for at least 5 minutes. don't take too cold water, the necessary diffusion os faster with reasonably warm water. too hot isn't good either, or the emulsion might tear off. this is now 22-23â°, which is good, 20â° do the trick as well. at 10â° or below, you might see the emulsion reticulating, which is ugly. very useful again is that the lomo tank has the hose mounted at the bottom,
so you can simply keep the water running. the fixer leftovers are heavier than water and sink to the bottom, usually that requires to change the water entirely regularly, but the bottom-mounted hose of the lomo tank takes care of good rinsing. let it sit like this for 5 minutes at least. after these 5 minutes, we are almost there! final step is a wetting agent. this is "mirasol antistatic 2000" from tetenal, i have this bottle since ages. kodak photoflo is the same. some people take a drop of dish washing soap.
(lost some water since the hose wasn't fixed) take a minimal amount, like 1-2 ml, this stuff breaks the surface tension (you can see a little foam) and is also fungicidal. let it soak in for one minute. this extends the preservability of the film, and it also accelerates the drying. you will have no spots from water drops or chalk. it will look perfect in projection! now let's dry the film!
let the water out of the tank and carefully shake the water of the reels. you can hang the film over a clothesline, e.g. over some paperclips, with big loops up and down. more practical is, as you can see here, a simple drying spindle made from scrap wood and heating insulation. most important though in either case is to not unmount the reels to get the film out, since it will be horribly tangled. better is to uncoil it. this is the beginning... emulsion side is out... we fix the beginning with a piece of tape (fold the film for this, wet film is really slippery) now turn the drying spindle...
[remounting and ranting] after one wind, it gets easier. what i hold in my hand here is a simple holder for the lomo stack, consisting of a ball gearing and a grip. you can read about how i made that in another article. my thumb is the break here, so that i can get the film of the reel to the spindle smoothly and without any problems. when i wind tighter than i do here right now, 60 meters of 16mm film fit on this spindle. very useful! or eight super 8 films, thats the same amount. no tangling, no scratches, no dust, no emulsion tear-offs.... and i can already see this one was perfectly developed, perfectly exposed, very even... it will be a pleasure to run this through the projector soon!
you see, 15m are not that much on a spindle... now one final but important trick: the film shrinks a bit while drying. to compensate for that, i losen the last wind a bit... [fighting with gaffa tape] (that's a better loop length...!) ...and now i turn the spindle back! the loop assures that the film is no longer wound tightly. as you can see, the loop travels from right to left.
now the film has space to breathe everywhere! this makes it run smoother through the projector. now you gotta wait.. an hour, or three, depending on humidity, temperature, film etc. once fully dry, wind it on a projection reel (starting on the right end) and you are ready for projection!
