My kitchen-table darkroom
People assume home developing needs a darkroom. It does not, at least not for film. Everything that has to happen in the dark happens inside a changing bag, and the rest happens at the kitchen table with the lights on.
The kit
- A Paterson Super System 4 tank with two reels. The reels are the only part that takes practice.
- A changing bag. Practise loading a reel with a sacrificial roll in daylight first, with your eyes closed.
- Three measuring jugs, a thermometer, and a kitchen timer with a loud beep.
- Developer (DD-X for most things), a plain water stop bath, rapid fixer, and a few drops of wetting agent for the final rinse.
- Two clips and the shower rail for drying.
What I would skip
I bought an acid stop bath early on and stopped using it within a month. Three changes of water do the same job for my developers and smell of nothing. I also bought a fancy film squeegee, which scratched the first roll I used it on. Fingers rinsed in wetting agent are gentler.
The part nobody mentions
Consistency matters more than any particular recipe. Same temperature, same agitation, same timer. Once your process is boring, the negatives start telling you about your exposure instead of your chemistry, and that is when you actually start learning.