Regardless, it also means using half the developer on a per-roll basis, which is even more economical since your burn rate in milliliters is obvious halved. I chose Dilution H, which is half the chemical per roll of Dilution B, and provides more margin of error with timing since times are basically doubled, being a little imprecise with timing doesn’t make much difference to the outcome - and I prefer that flexibility. I currently use all Kodak chemistry, and I decided on HC-110 developer because it can be mixed easily on a per-roll basis, and used economically as a “one-shot” developer (used for one roll and discarded). But with some operating experience under my belt, I now know both the costs, and the yield, and the overall cost per roll was less than I expected. The consumables (the required chemicals) also have a cost associated with them, and trying to figure it all out ahead of time was tough. Like the scanner, that requires investing in a spiral tank, graduated cylinders, a decent lab thermometer, and other things I’ll cover in an article later. Step two was doing the film processing at home. Scanning 80 rolls of a film is a lot to reach break-even on the scanner investment, but I’m much farther along on that than I expected, much sooner. Having a scanner immediately dropped about US$10 per roll (round figures) from the overall cost, changing the cost from US$1.83 per image to about US$0.42 per image - a non-trivial difference. I labored over the choice a bit, but decided I didn’t want any compromises, and went for the V800. The latter is US$800, and the former is about US$220. Epson is about the only viable option remaining on the market these days, and while they have several models, the most popular seem to be the V600 and the V800. Step one for me in reducing costs over the long run was buying a scanner, and I was reluctant to bite down on the investment. I was having fun, but I felt constrained and limited, and I was holding back creatively. It discourages exposure bracketing, it discourages experimentation, it discourages any gratuitous shooting of any kind, and in the process, it sucks some (or a lot) of the fun out of it. Paying nearly two bucks per image means thinking twice about taking a shot. (See my notes above about the assumptions on that.) If you assume a roll of film averages somewhere around US$7, the math is easy: US$1.83 per image. (E-6 color reversal processing is higher.) That’s about the same pricing my local lab offers. They’re pretty highly regarded, but round figures, it runs US$15 per roll for B&W or C-41 if you get decent quality (what they call “enhanced”) scans. When I first got back into film, and wasn’t aware we even had local labs around anymore, I sent my film off to The Darkroom in San Clemente, California. One of the main drivers of wanting to start processing at home was cost. Everything you’re about to read is based on shooting primarily 120 film, and where it matters to the discussion, generally it’s 6×6 frame format, yielding 12 shots per roll.But the discussion and math in this post is for black and white only. I have a C-41 (color negative) chemistry kit waiting for enough rolls of film to justify mixing and processing, and an E-6 (color reversal) chemistry kit is on its way for those rolls that are piling-up. I only process black and white at home at the moment this article was posted.Let’s begin with a bit of a level-set here: After processing dozens of rolls at home (all quite successfully, I might add), I have the operational experience both to calculate and talk about cost, and to reflect on the benefits I’m seeing - some of which were unexpected. That led, of course, to processing and scanning film at home. Since getting back into film, I’ve slowly invested in the hobby with the aim of lowering the overall cost and having a bit more control over the creative process.
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