In the loading room I cut the negative to have a flat end, removed it from the canister and loaded it to the spool, this must be done in complete darkness and proved hard and so help was needed. Once Andy had successfully loaded the spool we place that back into the developing tank and screwed on the lid and the cap. Once sealed this container is light tight and so can be taken anywhere to be agitated. (picture below shows the tank, spool and both lids)
In order to develop a film it must be submerged in developer, in this case - Ilford ID11. Stored solution of which kept in an air tight container will keep for 6 months and cannot be re-used. 300ml of this, enough to submerge the film, is poured into the tank followed by the application of the second lid. A table on the inside of the developer box lists developing times based on films - in this case Ilford HP5 400.
This is to be developed for 7:30 - 30 seconds of initial agitation and another 10 seconds for every minute thereafter.
However to save money I used a mixture of 150ml Developer and 150ml water, the table suggests that this must be developed for a total of 13 minutes to ensure full development.
At this point we realised that we had neglected the temperature of the developer and the packaging suggests that its optimum temperature is 20'c.
After 13 minutes the developer must be disposed of, websites suggest flushing used chemicals down the toilet or a drain as opposed into the sink if a designated chemical waste disposal is not available.
The film must now be fixed, the box states that at the optimum temperature of 20'c it will fix a film in 5-10 minutes, in the case of Ilford HP5 400 this is 5 minutes. Again this involves an initial 30 second agitation and a further 10 seconds for every minute thereafter.
Unlike developer, fix can be reused so this was then decanted back into the fix container.
The lid may then be left off the developing tank and the film left to wash for 20 minutes in cold water.
Once washed I hung the film with bulldog clips from my lampshade to dry, this is best left to dry naturally and with a second bulldog clip at the bottom to weight the film and stop it from curling. As you can see there are feint images on the film and it was successfully processed.
I also realised, at the end of the process, that ideally the chemicals are stored at a certain temperature of 20'c for optimum performance and so have invested in a digital thermometer for next time.
Evaluation
Again this is quite a straightforward process but one that I still need to refine. One of the most annoying things is loading the developing spool with a film, it is quite a fiddly process and doing it in pitch black doesn't help, however this is something that comes with practice and essentially not a problem. From this I have learned the appropriate times for developing a film and also that it should be temperature controlled for optimum results.
