Get Excited About Film and Start Developing Your Own Photos
How to assemble a film lab that fits in a backpack.
(This article contains Amazon affiliate links throughout and a handy shopping list at the bottom, should you wish to build your own kit.)
If you’ve ever developed film negatives at home, or even thought about trying it, you’ve probably dreaded the inevitable mess of chemicals and supplies covering your bathroom surfaces. You may be under the impression that you need to dedicate a whole room of your house to developing and processing in the dark. And the cost of chemicals alone may be daunting when you’re not sure whether you’ll shoot film often enough to see the value.
I live in a small 600 square foot apartment. In college, I took a film photography course which allowed me to learn the process of developing negatives in a state-of-the-art facility, complete with large chemical dispensers and circulating baths. So after graduating and moving into my one-bedroom, I assumed my days of self-developing were over. I knew there were photographers who do their own developing, but I assumed they must be spending a lot of money to maintain a professional darkroom setup.
That is until I started researching film developer chemicals and found that there are products available that simplify the process down to a single bottle. I thought, how cool would it be to have a fully usable film lab that fits in as little space as possible? This sent me on a mission to design my own film lab in a backpack.
Quick disclaimer: this is not an advertisement for — nor is it #sponsoredby — Cinestill photo equipment. I do endorse their products, but they are only the starting point of my pursuit of an affordable small-home developing kit.
The Bare Necessities
Anyone who lives in a small space can attest that whatever hobbies you have, they must use minimal physical space. Whether storing or using equipment in your home, the tools must not limit your process, but they also must not be an inconvenience in your daily life. No one wants to look at a giant exposure unit next to the TV while binging The Office. And most people don’t have the luxury of a permanently installed revolving darkroom door. When you’re trying to replace professional-level darkroom amenities, you have to look for smaller, simpler alternatives.
So when designing my film lab in a backpack, I started with the basics. What are the absolute must-haves to take a roll from camera to scanner? Here’s the list I started with:
- Developing chemicals
- Somewhere dark
- Developing tank
- Thermometer
- Scissors (to remove the leader and tape from the film)
- Bottle opener (or another tool to open the film canister)
- Sink (or some other combination of faucet and drain for rinsing)
- Clips for hanging wet negatives
These are the things that I saw as non-negotiable. Without any one of these items, you would not be able to successfully develop film and get decent results.
The next thing I did was look for areas where I could simplify this list. Most of these items are straightforward and easy to use already. The two most complicated-sounding items on the list were what I wanted to simplify: the chemicals, and somewhere dark.
Finding The Right Chemicals
Cinestill Df96 Black & White Developer
As I mentioned earlier, the discovery of these chemicals was where the “film lab in a backpack” idea started. I was researching which chemicals are used in black-and-white developing and came across an interesting “experimental” solution: Cinestill Df96 Monobath. The term “monobath” is what caught my eye because the quickest way to reduce complexity in development would be to reduce the number of baths (containers of chemicals) you had to use. Unlike traditional multi-bath processes, Df96 combines multiple steps into a single bottle of chemical, greatly reducing the required storage space.
As a bonus, Df96 goes even further and makes temperature and timekeeping simpler by being a very forgiving developer. With more traditional processes, you have to be very precise in measuring temperatures and agitating your film for a certain number of minutes or seconds. With Df96, you can develop your film at whatever room temperature you store the chemicals at, and adjust the development time accordingly. Of course, the company provides “ideal” conditions and guidance for pushing and pulling your film, but in my tests, I have found the range of temperatures to be quite flexible.
Using this chemical is super simple. It comes in a bottle ready to go, just pour into your developing tank, agitate for the amount of time corresponding with the developer temperature, and pour it back into the bottle. That’s right, this stuff is reusable for around 16 rolls of film! This is easily the simplest, most compact way I’ve found to develop black and white film at home.
Cinestill Cs41 Color Film Developer
This one is a tad bit more complicated but still simpler than the traditional method. I suggest starting with the black and white monobath and then trying color film when you have a good setup going.
Cinestill Cs41 is a two-part color film developer. It ships in a box with half a dozen bottles of chemicals (alternatively you can buy the powder kit and mix with water), which at first looks intimidating, until you realize that you’ll be combining these bottles to form a simple two-step process. Buy a couple of Datatainers and you’ll have yourself a conveniently compact developing kit.
Color is inherently more complicated than black and white, so I doubt there will ever be a monobath solution for color, but the folks at Cinestill have done a fine job of making it dead easy for home-based photographers. After following the relatively short instructions provided, you’ll have one bottle of developer and one bottle of a chemical called blix. The kit also includes fixer, which stabilizes your negatives for storage. This is technically optional, as you will still get scannable negatives without it, but know that over time your negatives may turn dark and unusable should you want to rescan them someday. For my use as a hobby (read: not too serious) photographer, I’m not too worried about my negatives once I’ve scanned them and backed up the digital copies.
Overall, these two Cinestill products (again, not sponsored) are the perfect fit for my small-home film lab kit. I get to spend less time fussing with chemicals and more time shooting.
Light Is The Enemy
Next is the “somewhere dark”, which is pretty open-ended. This could be a professional darkroom, a dark bathroom, or even just a dark box free of light leaks. The most cost-effective and space-saving option I found was a film changing bag. These handy lightproof bags allow me to put all my supplies in, stick my hands through the elastic-lined holes, and load my developing tank at the dining room table in full daylight. Before I bought one of these, I would shut myself in the bathroom, shove towels along the door cracks, crouch on the floor of the shower, draw the shower curtain closed, and cross my fingers that I’d successfully rid the room of daylight. This thing is money well spent.
Completing The Kit
To round out the rest of my film lab in a backpack, I tried to use the simplest solutions I could find for the other items on my list.
Thermometer
A glass thermometer is relatively durable, takes up almost no space, and doesn’t require batteries. The downside is that your temperature readings are never perfectly accurate since there’s no digital display and you’re eyeballing the blue line. Not a big deal in my setup, since I’m using the very forgiving Cinestill chemicals.
Developing tank
There are multiple options for tanks out there, and in many cases, it boils down to preference. I learned using a Patterson multi-real tank system which included plastic reels. These are relatively easy to load film into, the tank itself is quite durable, and they’re about as simple and budget-friendly as you can get. A two-roll tank works for me, both because of the volume of rolls I process and the space savings I get with a smaller tank.
Scissors
I debated whether I needed to talk about scissors. They’re simple, everyone knows what they are and how to use them, and just about any pair will do. But one thing I will point out that is important in this particular kit: sharp-tipped scissors may damage your film changing bag. In an open darkroom, this isn’t so much an issue, as the only thing at risk of stabbing is your fingers. But in a changing bag, your hands have a confined space to work in, so small blunt-tipped scissors are safer both for your skin and for the lightproof bag.
Canister opening tool
I use a bottle opener for this one because, again, that’s what I learned with. It does the job and keeps things small and simple in my kit. There are specialized tools for this that make it really easy, like this Matin Film Leader Retriever that pulls the film back out so you don’t even have to open the film casing.
Hanging clips
After you develop and rinse your film in the tank, you’ll need somewhere for it to dry. In a professional lab, they have machines for this purpose, some look like large cabinets with heated fans inside. That’s not going to fit in a backpack, but what will is a set of clips that can be hung from just about anywhere. I use large black binder clips, and then hang those from a coat hanger hung on the shower rod. You’ll have to get creative for this part depending on your home setup. Again, there are clips specifically made for this, but I’m a bit of a renegade.
Scanning Your Negatives
If you’re just starting out and looking for the basic kit, reading this far will get you there. After that, there are a few more tools I’ve added to my kit.
Once your negatives are developed and dry, you’ll probably want to scan them. There are many types of film scanners at various price points, from cheap “smartphone scanners” that simply use the camera on your smartphone to photograph the negative against a backlight, to high-resolution dedicated film scanners that produce fantastic results, but cost a pretty penny and take up a lot of space (certainly more than backpack).
A method that is growing in popularity online is photographing the negatives close up with a DSLR camera and a backlight. This involves simply placing the negative in front of a light, perhaps a lightbox, and taking a photo of it using a relatively high-resolution camera at as close a range as possible.
For my setup, I chose to use an inexpensive drawing light pad and my Fuji X-T20 mirrorless camera. I set the light pad flat on a level table, and use a tripod to point the camera straight down at the negative. I’ve found good results with varying combinations of zoom lenses, as well as lens extenders to achieve near-macro focal ranges. This method is imprecise and requires a lot of adjusting, but it utilizes tools I already had and doesn’t take up any more space. Just make sure you’re focusing on the grain in the negative, and not on the physical edges of the negative or the sprocket holes. If your camera has manual focus peaking, that will be a huge help.
Archiving
Lastly, what are you going to do with all these negatives piling up? Here is where I concede, I cannot fit everything in my backpack. I keep my negatives in a somewhat bulky but protective archival binder. These are simple boxes with durable hinges that can hold many sheets of negative archive pages and keep them safe from light and most dust.
I wouldn’t call myself a minimalist, but I do look for the simplest way to do something rather than follow the standard method. This setup is, so far, the most simple collection of gear and methods I have found to enjoy film photography. Of course, I’ll continue to evolve this system as I find pieces that work better for me and update here as I do.
If you have a similar kit or want to build your own, let me know what you’d do differently or if you found this helpful!
