Cheapest and Best Way for Developing and Printing 8x10s

[zenny]

Newbie to 8x10. I am just wondering what is the cheapest and best way to developing negatives and printing 8x10.

I am specifically interested in:

1) What are the cheapest, yet good in quality, 8x10 films you recommend?
2) What are the cheapest, yet good, developers and fixer that you recommend for film development and contact prints?
3) What are the cheapest, yet good, hardwares and accessories for film development and printing?

Please specify the brand or send the links to DIY stuffs. Appreciate it! :-)

zenny

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[Brian C. Miller]

I recommend two things: first, the home page has some FAQs and tutorials on how to develop film and print it. Second, Freestyle has some great deals on supplies. Check the Announcements section, as there is a fellow who has been doing some YouTube videos for beginners. There's lots of good info in this forum section, too.

(added) Oh, you are in Sweden! OK, never mind Freestyle. See if there is a photo shop in your local area, and ask them about chemicals, etc. For hardware, all you really need are trays and a sheet of glass. Really, paint trays large enough to hold an 8x10 sheet of film have been used by many people for developing, both film and paper. The sheet of glass is used to hold the negative firmly against the paper. Then turn on the room light for a brief instant, then develop the paper. So: three paint trays, and one sheet of glass (plastic works fine, too).

[zenny]

@Brian

Thanks for the input. And I would love to know the specific cases like which negative films (in terms of brands) are cheap yet with better results. I am not new to the film and darkrooms, but I am new to 8x10 film development, processing and printing. However, I shall once again go through the homepage if I missed anything.

In Sweden, it is pretty difficult to get stuffs around unlike in the US. And very expensive, too.

In the meantime, I welcome more inputs. ;-)

zenny

*** Support http://www.thehumanape.org ***

[Steven Tribe]

Are you going 8x10" or 18x24cm?
If you are only exposing large format at 1 - 5 sheets a time, I would recommend - with limited, but successfull experience - going for tube development etc. using the cheap Ilfochrome/Cibachrome drums which are surplus to requirements these days.
Film is probably cheapest from Berlin or London.

[Brian Ellis]

First thing you need to do is tell us whether you're talking about color or b&w negative film. Then we can go from there.

[Pawlowski6132]

I used to ask the same questions. But, really, don't get into 8x10 if you can't afford it. It doesn't make sense. And why would you want to? Is it JUST to have an 8x10 negative and a contact print? If it is, just go to B&H or any other website do your search for developers, paper, etc. and just sort by price and buy the cheapest.

But, if you're going to go through all the trouble, you might as well be able to do it correctly and not have all your decisions be based on, what's the cheapest way to do something. If you've committed to go down the 8x10 route your real question should be, what is the BEST (for your vision) way to do this. And then figure out how you can afford that in the most economical way.

[jeroldharter]

For cheap, buy Efke film, develop in Rodinal or a D-76 equivalent, and process in trays. Fixer is the most expensive chemical, so buy the cheapest rapid fixer available to you.

However, you might want to re-define cheap. Time is relatively expensive and 8x10 is time consuming. Ideally, film would be the largest budget item over time but in the beginning you still have to pick up camera, lens, holders, tripod, case, etc. With that in mind I decided to pick a high quality film from Ilford or Kodak, do testing for proper exposure and development, and in so doing have saved myself a lot of time and money (that is what I tell myself anyway!).

[CG]

Some of the less expensive films often have defects according to postings by people who have used them. I stick to Kodak, Ilford and Fuji for that reason. Economize by making up your own contact printing frame, by sourcing chemicals carefully and by shooting carefully. Low used camera and darkroom equipment pricing lately has taken some of the expense out of film based work. Good materials may in the long run be cheaper than poor materials.

Another thought. If you shoot an extra piece of film, with one extra stop of exposure, as insurance, you may find that you have more than enough work waiting to get printed and that you end up doing less shooting and more printing and getting more finished good results with less total cost. Why when shooting twice as much film? You don't have to go back, pay more for gas ands more film anyway... etc ... and do it all over again. Shoot once, save on all other expenses. You may find some other variant on that. It has saved me from underexposures and small defects of my own darkroom making and reduced the number of reshoots. Plus I end up feeling like I have a margin of safety. It feels less precarious.

[Jay DeFehr]

when shooting 8x10, there is so much forgiveness built into the system, just about anything you can use is capable of truly excellent results, and shooting 8x10 can be expensive, so choosing your materials and processes based on economy is a rational approach. If you pay 1/2 as much for your materials, you can shoot 2X as much, and experience is the most valuable thing you can buy when you're beginning. Buy the least expensive panchromatic film you can find; whatever it happens to be in your market, you will not be disadvantaged by it. Any developer will do, but some have significant advantages in economy and keeping properties. Rodinal and HC110 are among the best in these respects, but any developer that's convenient for you is fine. For printing paper, I recommend a Variable Contrast (VC), Resin Coated (RC) paper. These papers are less expensive than more exotic options, and more convenient and economical to process. After you've been through 100 negatives and 1,000 sheets of paper, you might decide you want to explore other options, but until then, you won't have a reservoir of experience on which to base your decisions.

There are no advantages to making things expensive or complicated for yourself; there are more than enough difficulties and pitfalls inherent in the process to keep you frustrated, and struggling. The important thing is to keep working. There is no substitute for experience, and experience costs money. Just keep in mind that your experience is infinitely more important than the brand of your materials, and this is where the value in your materials lies. When it comes to materials, think quantity, not quality. Even the lowest quality 8x10 panchromatic film you can buy is excellent film, and once you learn to print on VC RC paper, you can always reprint any or all of your favorite negatives on any paper you choose.

The cheapest way to process your film is in a tray, just like your prints. It's a proven method that is perhaps responsible for a greater proportion of history's great large format negatives and plates than any other. In time, you might find its limitations unacceptable, but by then you will have gained much valuable experience in film processing and printing.

The advice I've given you has nothing to do with my personal favorite materials or processes, but rather on my experience processing and printing a very wide variety of materials by a very wide variety of methods. Still, my opinions are my own, and others whom I respect and admire might not share them. Best of luck to you, and whatever you do, and however you do it, enjoy every minute of it.

[mikew]

Personally, I think that if you need to go cheap with large format photography, you're doing the wrong photography.

A developer and agitation cycle needs to be paired with a film...and that takes at least 6 months to tweak with testing. And all of those considerations are very personal choices...like picking a conventional grain film (Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP5) over a T-grain film (Kodak T-Max or Ilford Delta)...or going with a solvent developer over a non-solvent developer...and matching that with a specific agitation cycle. There's no cheap way to do it if you want to do it right. If I were starting with a film developer I would use D-76. It has a ton of latitude and when diluted 1:3, it changes from a solvent (fine grain) to a non-solvent (accutance) developer. Kodak Tri-X has a lot of latitude too. Efke is a cheap film but the emulsion is really sensitive and needs to be processed one at a time in trays - or at least that how I've done it.

Printing silver-gelatin prints is a whole other story - don't even bother using RC paper for anything other than contact sheets (I've actually done contact sheets without an enlarger and just flicking on the lights in a dark room - with testing) Developers tend to be the same Metol or Phenidone combined with Hydroquinone - Dektol (Metol and Hydroquinone) is by far the most commonly used but the Beers formula is more cost effective, gives you more contrast control than Dektol alone, but you have to miix it yourself. But again, that's a really personal thing...just like the type of paper you use...the type of light (diffused or condenser)...and your processing technique. For example, I use film strength fix (without the hardener) and fix for 30sec rather than using paper strength fix of two baths for about 1min 30sec each. I also two bath a lot of my work. So it's really personal.

I guess what I've been trying to say is that you really need room to experiment. The best thing to do is read and research as much as you can and then decide if large format photography makes sense for you. We all need to spend the time to learn - which doesn't stop - and, unfortunately, that means spending money to make mistakes and to rectify them.

Best of luck.

Mikew