Hi, I am a high school student, recently been getting into photography. I just got back from a trip to france with 20 rolls of exposed film. I already sent off the 13 rolls of slide film (sensia) to kodak, but now I'm debating what to do with my 7 rolls of TMAX 400. I have never done any darkroom work before, but this fall I'll have a chance to use the darkroom at my school (I have to buy my own chemicals). But these pictures are important, so I don't think it's a good idea to develop them myself, as the chances of screwing up would be very large. So, I have two options:

a) Send them to a drugstore, getting machine-made 4x6's. I could then play around with making enlargements in the darkroom. Also, I need to mention that 2 of the rolls were exposed at 1600, so they'll need to be pushed 2 stops. Can drugstores do this? How much more (generally) would it cost?

b) Send them a pro lab to get them developed w/ a contact sheet. This would cost more, and my only results would be a contact sheet until I got around to mastering the darkroom. At the pro lab, one 4x6 print is $6, a tad much (6x36=$216). Maybe I could then bring the negs to the drugstore and get them printed...

Any advice? Will the drugstore labs ruin my film? Or would the negatives be the same either way I went? Am I correct in assuming that I would probably screw updeveloping my first rolls? Any help is appreciated a ton!

peace -martin

-- Martin Ceperley (martin@ceperley.com), July 08, 1999

Answers

I don't think it's correct to assume that you will probably screw up your first rolls. Film developing, although intimidating at first, is really easy. In fact you'll probably have the most difficulty loading your film onto reels the first time or two.

Chemicals are cheap, so go for it. At the very least it's worth the experience.

-- Chad Jarvis (chad_jarvis@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.

You can always shoot a few test rolls to develop before you do the good stuff. Good luck!

-- James D. Steele (jdsteele@erols.com), July 09, 1999.

I understand your reluctance to develop these 'important' rolls of film yourself. Though the other responses I read are valid I'm assuming that you really would rather have this processing done elsewhere. My suggestion would be to have the pro lab develop and contact these rolls for you. From that point you can determine on your own time and within your own budget which images you would like printed, and yes at that point eveb the drustore variety will be viable since you will already have the negatives. Reprint charges are normally a bit higher than developing/print charges but again you will have all the options as to which images you would like to see printed. Just my.02

-- Mike Schlapfer (MYK@aol.com), July 13, 1999.

I don't want to complicate your life, but I'm compelled to comment that having the film developed commercially is not necessarily consistent with a better result than self-developed.

Most commercial labs do little b/w work and their work may not be as good as their color work.

For what it's worth, here's my experience when I was in your stage of the learning curve. I was just starting to develop and came back from Greece with a couple of rolls of TMAX 400 that I didn't want to foul up. Thus, being unsure of my own ability, I took them to a good lab in Chicago and in several of the shots I was particularly proud of the lab developed the film so as to block the highlights; that is to say, the whites had no visible details -- light colored fabric had no wrinkles, for instance.

I now develop all (b/w) film myself, and the more important the images, the more I'd avoid commercial developing.

My suggestion is to set the exposed film aside for couple of weeks and have someone at school give you a crash course in developing. When you've developed a couple of rolls to your satisfaction (including pushing for the 1600) then do your France film yourself.

Others may disagree, but I get best results with TMAX 400 if I develop it in undiluted D-76. That seems to work better than the 1:1 dilution I use for developing Tri-X.

Good luck. And remember that chemicals are cheap, and what you have on that film will help preserve your memories of France for a long, long time.

-- Paul Arnold

-- Paul Arnold (osprey@bmt.net), July 21, 1999.

I also just got into photography , But if they are very important pictures I would not risk it! I would get the negatives developed, and just enlarge the photos at school. But make shure you tell the store to be extra carefull with the negatives because mt sister got my cousins wedding pictures developed at the store, and she was going to develop them at school, but the negatives were all scratched so she couldn't use hardly any of them. Definatly use the darkroom because it's really cool! have fun bye

-- jo-anne (pj_sparkles99@hotmail.com), January 21, 2000.

i wouldn't risk it! Pro labs do a great job developing and you will learn how to print on your own soon i'm sure. Its definately worth the wait if these photos are important to ya!

-- Heather Summers (amethystorchid@hotmail.com), February 27, 2000.