Almost ready to take my first LF picture

[Zach In Israel]

I have a camera, with a lens, and a film holder. I have a box of Velvia 100F defrosting. I have a nice landscape waiting outside my back door. I just have one problem, I need to figure out where to get the film developed. The lab that I was pointed at is only open Sunday - Thursday (Normal israeli work week) and I work no where near there. The frustrating thing is hat the place that I used to work is around the corner from there.

I may just get some B&W film and learn to develop it at home.

[Clay Turtle]

Either that or find a some E-6 chemistry as like B&W it is only 4 steps & it is a bit more feisty about temperature deviations. I used to develop my own 35mm rolls in the same tank that I used for B&W. Generally I use photo processors to develop chrome because the shelf life & lack of volume is prohibitive but the 4 step kit is practically as easy to use as b&w developers.

[Scott Knowles]

Why not use the film to learn the camera and field work side of LF photography and the box of undeveloped film accumulating in the fridge will give you reason to solve the development problem? Nothing like the anticipation of knowing how well you did to resolve the issue. I only started in 4x5 photography this last January and waited until March and had two dozen sheets (all my film holders) to take to the lab before going. I had to do something to take more photographs. And the group of exposed sheets provided some good insights into what I am doing right and wrong. Good luck.

[Walter Calahan]

Don't forget a tripod.

Why not send your E6 to the lab from work via courier? It's extra cost, but . . .

[Zach In Israel]

Oh I have a pretty hefty bogen tripod, mostly it gets used for my 15x70 binoculars (Astronomy).

As for the courier, I live in the middle of no where and work from home. (I also don't have a spare film box yet). I may try to get some E-6 Chemistry, but I'm worried about the temperature control.

I also only have one film holder, though a friend has some old ones he may pass on to me.

[Ted Harris]

Get some Polaroid T55 and a Polaroid holder. It produces an excellent, easy to scan negative that will yield very nice prints with minimal fuss and no worrying about a darkroom and temperature controls.

[Jiri Vasina]

As for the temperature control, with C-41 that I develop myself, I use large water bath (bathtub and a large box of some 20l) - slows the temperature change - and a thermometer with 0.5°C precision. Works reasonably well for me...

[rivermandan]

I am in the same boat as you but I am using b&w, just waiting for the film to arrive then I am good to go. I was originally going to get a roll pack and shoot on 120 so I could get it developed locally, but decided that developing myself would be a rewarding experience. post your results when you are done!

[Jiri Vasina]

Home developing of C-41 is not difficult at all (and I think E-6 won't be different either). Just today I had my run of 10 rolls of 120 and 20 sheets, developed by inversion, tempered in the bathtub (as described above, I added either hot water from the pipes, or a bit of boiling water if I needed to raise the temperature more). Negatives came out nice (yeah, I need to scan them yet, but they do look very nice). The only downside is the time - it took me a bit more than 5 hours to process them all...

[Donald Qualls]

Actually, I processed two 35 mm rolls of C-41 yesterday, at room temperature, in Dignan NCF-41. Took me under an hour from mixing the Bath B for the developer to hanging the film to dry. The only chemical I use that might be hard to obtain in Israel is CD-4; sodium sulfite and bisulfite are used in swimming pools and winemaking, respectively (and you could adjust the pH with sulfuric acid -- battery acid will work fine -- after using only sodium sulfite, if bisulfite is hard to find), while sodium carbonate is a common laundry chemical (and what I use is laundry grade, White King brand) and potassium bromide isn't hard to come by (and could probably be substituted with a tenth as much potassium iodide, which is an additive for table salt).

I haven't made my own bleach yet, but potassium hexacyanoferrate (to choose the less "threatening" name for potassium ferricyanide) is easily obtained and safe enough for school children to use in making "sun prints", and a little table salt added in will make a fine rehalogenating bleach. The inexpensive Kodak Flexicolor fixer is slightly acidic, and differs very little from common rapid fixers sold for B&W use, while the Kodak Final Rinse is very inexpensive (but might be hard to ship internationally because it's a liquid); I don't know how (if at all) it differs from the wetting agents commonly used as the last step in processing B&W film, but based on price, there might be little more to it.