Good September morning camera lovin’ geeks! Here’s a photo recently developed using the methods shown in my previous two YouTube videos.
The camera used was a Rolleiflex 3.5F 75mm f/3.5 Planar lens, film was Ilford HP5 Plus, developer was Ilford ID-11.
I’m pulling together the rest of the roll as well as some from a roll I developed tonight for the next video.
As seen in the YouTube videos, I’m not always textbook when I comes to developing. Perhaps I’ve gotten sloppy and I’m certainly not advocating you get sloppy.
Many years ago when I started developing film again, I was always by the book. The exact amount of developer, fixer, the exact number of minutes.
But over the years, and not on purpose either, I began to get off the books. I would sometime miss a minute of agitation here and there. Sometimes I would forget and leave the stop bath for an extra two minutes. Sometimes I had little fixer left but used it anyway with an extra dilution of water and extra minutes.
To my surprise, my results were almost always the same as when I did it by the book.
So when I say black and white film development is not an exact science it’s from my experiences. It’s not an excuse to be sloppy and for the absolute beginner I do advise going by the book. That said, black and white film developing at home is very forgiving of variations in time and temperature.
Of course if you do more esoteric b&w developing like stand development or cafeinol you might want to follow the recipe more closely.
Now C41 color film development I do find to be much more of an exact science when it comes to time and temperature. This is what I want to explore in the coming months.
As for the above photo, I do love any chance to have the girls stand still for a photograph and while I’m happy to have this portrait I was testing for something very specific with regard to the Rolleiflex 3.5F. I will share this with you in upcoming posts. Why not today? It’s not because I’m trying to build anticipation lol but simply because this would take up a whole article in itself! 😀
Thanks for your time and happy Tuesday good peeps!
Camera Legend 
They are getting so big. Zoe is now quite the young lady! 🙂 Happy to see you messing with one of my favorites, the Rolleiflex! I’m looking forward to your words of wisdom on this camera. Best bro.
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Thanks Bro!! I love the camera, the lens is razor sharp but I used an attachment on it that softened the lens. But you don’t need me to tell you about the 3.5F you know it better than I do!! 😀 Hope all is well, regards to Mrs. B thanks! 😎📸👍🏻
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Hehe i love your explanation about your attitude to the BW home developing process.
Somehow i’m trying to stay very close to the developing scheme as possible. I write down everything to my notebook before the process is starting and working with a stopper application on my smartphone, so it helps me to be correct and exact.
Will wait for the post with the whole role images. This one looks full of life and joy,
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Hi Victor you’re doing the right thing, it’s always best to follow directions! Don’t become lax or lazy like me lol. I was just making the point that for most b&w developers I have used, there is some leeway and if you find yourself off course, ie, a few minutes late or slightly too much developer/fixer your results may still be alright.
C41 development is another story altogether and I find I have to be much more stringent in following directions. Cheers!
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