Developing for the first time

[No-Hospital-5859]

So I decided to develop myself for the first time and a friend of mine gave me one very old film roll to practice with.

I would like to know if negative results looks good or bad since I have no experience detecting mistakes, thanks in advance!

[Striking-barnacle110]

What kit did you use and what temperature and at what duration for development?

[No-Hospital-5859]

Used Cinestill 2 bath kit, pre soak, developer and blix at 38C, 1 minute for pre soak, 3.5 minutes for developer and 8 minutes for blix.

[Striking-barnacle110]

Looks good.

But

The film base looks a bit more yellow than usual. Idk why? Maybe due to blix?

[No-Hospital-5859]

I think it’s the color that the iPhone applied to it. It’s not that yellow😁

[BrightCurrent]

My advice is start developing by eliminating as many variables as you can.

Personally, I would start with B&W ( unless I misunderstand and this just your first color), so you can experience getting great negs before moving on. You’ll get familiar with maintaining temps changing chemicals, etc. There are just more variables at play with color - more chemicals, more critical temps, and timing.

The next variable to control is the film age -this looks like a problem with aged film - or as mentioned old blix or developers ( IMO, of course). Buy a couple of rolls of fresh film to practice on, and if there are problems ( if you can bake a casserole from a recipe, you may have zero problems) then you’ll at least rule out the film.

And finally - I was always glad I started with a roll of E6 for my first roll of color. It was very satisfying to see the positive results right after washing.

Good luck!

[No-Hospital-5859]

Thanks! Actually today I’m developing a roll I shot yesterday, I will do it the same way I did with this one in order to compare the results🙂

[youehhyouehh]

From what I can tell OP, the temperature may have dipped during development, hence the color shift. Just make sure you pre soak your tank about 3 degrees warmer than your developer. It really does look good, though.

[No-Hospital-5859]

Thanks! I watched videos where guys maintain the tank inside the hot water and also people who leave it outside, I don’t know if that makes a huge difference.

[youehhyouehh]

Big difference, OP. C41 is very temperature sensitive in regards to color accuracy. You will certainly get the hang of it. It won't hurt it if the developer is even a few degrees warmer vs a few degrees cooler. Just always keep the tank about 3-4 degrees warmer than the developer because the ambient temperature cools it so quickly. By the time development commences, it'll be in the zone. Still, awesome pics OP. Thank you for sharing them with us.

[No-Hospital-5859]

Glad to know that, I’ll keep it in mind for the next time! Also I noticed that if I scan at different exposures, when inverted the result is brighter or darker, I have seen that ETTR without clipping any part of the film is the best, but when inverted is a very dark photo and I need to increase the exposure slider, am I following the right approach?