Konstantin's Adventures

• Disposable camera
• Changebag or completely dark room
• New roll of film
• Flathead screwdriver

This goes out to people who bought or want an entry-level DSLR, and wonder what’s the deal with interchangeable lenses. You really gonna buy that extra glass? It’s a beginner’s guide to growing as a photographer, preferably without going broke.

It doesn’t matter what brand of camera you bought—if it’s an entry-level DSLR, it was offered to you with an 18-55mm kit lens. I hope you took them up on that offer because no matter what you bought, that kit lens comes cheap, and is well worth it. Yes, of the five lenses covered here, that kit lens is numero uno.

• Bottle Opener (for cracking open metal film containers)
• Scissors (for cutting the film off of the spool)
• Developing Tank
• Graduated measuring cup
• Photo chemicals container
• Funnel
• Film Clips
• Stirrer
• Thermometer
• Timer or stopwatch
• Developer
• Fixer
• Wetting agent
• Film squeegee (optional)
• Patience

1. Find a completely dark room (closet, bedroom, bathroom,etc), it has to COMPLETELY dark. Test this by closing your eyes for about 20 sec, then opening them and giving them a chance to adjust to the darkness. If after a minute you can put your hand in front of your face and see it, it’s not dark enough. ANY ambient light will affect the film and it will get exposed. I used my boiler room in the basement of my house and just put a towel under the door to block all of the light from leaking under the door.
2. Acquaint yourself with your developing tank. I have an Omega Universal Tank with plastic reels. I find that the plastic reels are a little more forgiving but they supposedly don’t last as long as the steel ones, I haven’t had any problems yet.
3. To practice loading film, find some developed film or sacrifice some undeveloped film and load it onto the reels with the lights on. Get familiar with the procedure, and try it with your eyes closed. Once you’re good with that, you can do it in the dark. Finally, once you master that, you can move on to the real thing.
4. Set up the film canister, the reel, the developing tank, the can opener, and the scissors in a way that you’ll be able to find each of them in the dark.
5. In absolute darkness, pop open the bottom (opposite the side with the spool sticking out) of the film canister with the can opener. Then take the spool out gently and be careful not to scratch the film.
6. Still in the darkness, guide the film onto the reel and start loading it on by twisting the reel back and forth.
7. Once you get to the end of the roll, take the scissors and carefully cut it off the spool. Or you can try to undo the tape. I find that it’s easier to just cut the film off. Just be careful not to cut yourself.
8. Load the reel onto the rod in the developing tank and seal the lid. The tank is now lightproof so you can turn on the lights. The rest of the steps can be done in the light.
9. Find out how much liquid your tank holds. It could be written on the tank somewhere. If not, just fill it with water and dump it out into the graduated cylinder. Now you know how much liquid your tank can hold.
10. Mix the correct ratio of developer to water for the size of your tank. ie: my tank is 20 oz and my developer is 1+14 (1:14), so to do the math: 1/14*20 = 1.428 oz of developer and the rest water.
11. Your film should have instructions inside the box for how long to develop it. If not, you can look it up here: http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php by selecting your film and your developer and temperature.
12. Once you find out how long to develop it, stir the concoction and measure the temperature. If it’s way above the recommended temperature, let it sit and cool down. Otherwise developers are pretty tolerant within a few degrees. If you’re having trouble getting the correct temperature, I would mix both the developer and the fixer at the same time in separate graduates to let them get to the same temperature together.
13. When the developer is ready to go, get the stopwatch ready and pour in the developer into the top of tank. Cover the tank with the red (or black) lid and agitate it for a full minute by aggressively flipping it over back and forth. Then tap it against some hard surface to dislodge the bubbles from the film and put it down. Repeat the agitation process for 10 seconds every minute for however long your film and developer combination require.
14. Remove the cap on the tank and start pouring out the developer about 5 seconds before the indicated time. If it’s reusable, use a clean funnel and pour it into a storage container. If not, just pour into the sink.
15. Now comes the stop bath. Some people prefer to use a chemical stop bath, I use plain old tap water. It does the job and it’s cheap. Just fill it with water and put the cap back on and agitate it for about 1.5 minutes. Dump that out once your done.
16. Next, pour in the fixer and follow the instructions that came with it. Agitate it just as you did the developer. Usually rapid fixers will take from 2.5 – 5 minutes to fix the film or make it not sensitive to light. The fixer is reusable a few times, so you can pour into a storage container for another use later.
17. Now comes the fun part. You can finally unscrew the whole top to the developing tank. Leave it under cold running water for about 5 minutes to wash everything off of it.
18. For this last part, I would use distilled water because hard tap water is much more prone to leave water marks on your precious prints as they’re drying. Mix the correct amount of wetting agent with some water. I use 1 drop for 16 oz of distilled water. It sounds like nothing, but it’s a potent chemical. Screw the lid back onto the developing tank and pour in the wetting agent solution. Agitate it for about 1.5 minutes and pour it out.
19. Now you can take out your reels and inspect the negatives. Gently pull the film off of the reel. Attach the film clips, the weighted one, on the bottom and hang it in the least dusty place in your house. If you have a film squeegee, you can give the film a quick once over. Just be careful not to have any debris stuck in the squeegee or you will scratch the film.
20. Let it hang there for about 1 – 2 hours to dry.

1. we’re going to import the photo into Lightroom: File -> Import Photos from Disk
2. Go to Develop Mode
   
3. Select the adjustment brush, by clicking on it, or just hitting K
4. Slide the Saturation down to -100
5. Press O to turn on the overlay to see what you’re doing
6. Set the size of the brush
7. Begin coloring, and press Z to zoom in to get in to those sensitive areas.
8. Press O when done, to see the final product

• Don’t forget to adjust the size of the brush as needed to get closer to the outline of the subject where you want to leave some color.
• If only leaving one small part in color, start with wide brush strokes around the outside of the picture

Before: