How-to Video: Daylight Black & White Sheet Film Development

**Michael Gordon** · 9-Nov-2009, 12:14

In this lengthy but detailed video, I explain how to develop your own large format black and white sheet film at home *without* needing a darkroom. This is an entirely ‘daylight’ process requiring only a few specialized pieces of equipment and patience. The instruction is 4x5- and Rollo Pyro-centric but can obviously be adapted to other formats and developers.

Enjoy! I hope you find it useful.

**Robert Hughes** · 9-Nov-2009, 18:34

Reminds me of a how-to video home darkroom video I made a while back. Every now and then you see a sliver of light from underneath the door, otherwise - blackness!

**PViapiano** · 9-Nov-2009, 20:48

The biggest drag of Vimeo footage is not being able to jump ahead...

**vinny** · 9-Nov-2009, 21:17

and I can't get it to play smoothly on my ibookG4!

okay, now it works. and I can skip ahead.

**Michael Gordon** · 10-Nov-2009, 08:51

Originally Posted by PViapiano

The biggest drag of Vimeo footage is not being able to jump ahead...

The biggest drag of YouTube is the ten minute limit. I decided that rather than split the video into multiple pieces, I would host on Vimeo and keep it full length. I'll eventually put a 'trailer' on YouTube since that's where the world goes....

**Harley Goldman** · 10-Nov-2009, 19:31

Did you include the part at the end about drinking a cold malted beverage to stay hydrated or did that end up on the cutting room floor?

**civich** · 11-Nov-2009, 07:51

Michael,
Thank you for this heads-up about your tank processing video. Though I'm committed to improving my (8x10) tray processing for now, watching your tutorial was an eye-opener to other methods. A wonderfully matter of fact, unaffected and clear look at one photographer's creative approach to film processing. Do you (or any others) know if this equipment and technique works as well with the 3005 jobo drum and 8x10 film? The reduced amount of chemicals required is more intriguing (to me) than the daylight processing aspect.
-Chris

**Michael Gordon** · 11-Nov-2009, 08:32

Originally Posted by civich

Do you (or any others) know if this equipment and technique works as well with the 3005 jobo drum and 8x10 film? The reduced amount of chemicals required is more intriguing (to me) than the daylight processing aspect.

Thanks for your input, Chris!

According to my Jobo and Bostick and Sullivan literature, YES. The minimum amount of chemistry required for five 8x10 sheets in the 3005 drum is 1000ml. All you need to do is DOUBLE the amounts of all the chems seen in the video. Assuming the B&S Rollo Pyro instructions are the same, they are written for developing five sheets of 8x10" in a Jobo drum.

Hope this helps, and good luck!