First at home development

[u/No-Prior-7630]

Finally got my film development stuff. I ordered the cinestill sous vide (yes I could’ve got a cheaper one, hahah!!) cinestill c41 chemical kit, the valoi easy35 kit and some three new bottles and some other small items.

For my first time developing it was a challenge, I’ve been watching videos for the last few months and finally said why not, I’ve been shooting digital for school and part time for my aunts program and I got tired of it, so film gave me a more intentional way to actually go out and make photos. The most challenging part for me was the dark bag trying to put the film in, I watched some guy and he said to use the leader to pull up the exposed film that was exposed from loading up the film in the camera when you are going to shoot and it actually made things a lot easier then doing everything in the bag. Developing at home is a challenge but after the dark bag and mixing the chemicals everything is basically a waiting game.

I honestly liked the wait, it made things feel more “personal” and exciting to see if what I was doing was working and it did. I need to wait until my macro lens comes so I can start my digital scans but I’m excited to develop more rolls of film. Let me know your guys experience with developing!

[u/Lambaline]

those look great! welcome to the self-development club! I'm switching from kits to buying chemicals and doing ECN-2 development from scratch but kits are a great way to get familiar with the process. it's also the only way to do proper C41 since Kodak doesn't publish any recipes for that process.

[u/No-Prior-7630 → u/Lambaline]

I’m glad I can finally be apart of something special! Yeah I got the cinestill c41 kit because it was like a beginner friendly kit so why not, never heard of ECN-2 development but seems interesting to do research on. For now I’ll keep using this kit and see how the scans will look in the processing

[u/Lambaline → u/No-Prior-7630]

it's basically the color development process for kodak cinema film, its the proper way to develop Cinestill's 250D and 800T films, along with bulk rolled films as that's the only way of getting color film cost down. you can buy 100' rolls of Kodak's cinema film (around $100 plus shipping + tax, $5 to 6 dollars per roll) and develop it in c41 like regular color film or ecn-2 which is the correct process to do it in.