Started by grainyday, 12 Jan 2026. 8 replies, 228 views
My lab charges $18 for dev and scan per roll and I'm shooting 3-4 rolls a month, so thats real money now. I already scan at home with the easy35, so really I just need the developing part.
Watched a couple of videos and it looks doable but the temperature thing scares me a bit. What kit do I actually need, and is it even worth it at 3-4 rolls a month? Not doing b&w yet, just color. Sorry if this has been asked a milion times
do it. paterson tank, a kit like cinestill cs41, a thermometer, some jugs, a changing bag. sous vide stick if you want the temp to be easy. i do it in my kitchen sink and its been fine for 2 years
Temperature for C-41 is less scary than people make out. 39 degrees, a washing up bowl of warm water to stand the bottles in, check it every few minutes and top up from the kettle. The developer is the only step that's really fussy about it, half a degree either way is fine. Blix and stabiliser are forgiving, you can be a few degrees out and nobody will ever know.
The bit people get wrong isn't temperature, it's agitation. Pick a pattern (I do four inversions every 30 seconds in the dev), and do exactly the same thing every single time. Consistency matters more than which pattern you choose. Pre-warm the tank with water at temperature first so it doesn't suck the heat out of your developer.
A kit does a fair few rolls if you add time as it gets tired (the instructions on the box tell you how much). Keep a little note on the bottle of how many rolls have been through it. At four rolls a month you'll have paid for the tank and the kit in a couple of months, and you get your negs back the same night instead of in ten days.
lucyinthedarkroom said:less scary than people make out
ok thats reassuring. how long does mixed chemistry last once its opened?
grainyday said:how long does mixed chemistry last once its opened?
Couple of months if you keep the bottles full with no air in them. Squeeze the air out or get the concertina bottles. Developer dies first, blix lasts much longer. Write the date you mixed it on the bottle with a sharpie and keep it somewhere dark. If the developer goes dark brown, bin it.
Or send it to a lab and spend your evenings shooting instead of standing over a sink. Just a thought.
I did my own C-41 for a year in the 90s and every so often a roll came out with a cast I could never pin down. The lab never once did that. You're paying for consistency.
k64forever said:send it to a lab
lab here is £14 a roll for dev and scan. im not paying that 4 times a month
The first roll you pull out of the tank and hold up to the window... nothing quite like it.
Mind you, the first roll I ever developed came out completely clear, because I'd managed to load it so badly on the reel that half of it was stuck to the other half. Practise loading with a dud roll in daylight first, then with your eyes shut, until you can do it half asleep. You will be half asleep.
update: ordered the kit and a tank, did my first two rolls last night. one came out perfect, one has a weird stripe where I think two loops were touching on the reel (thanks pete, you called it). still way cheaper. thanks all