How to Find Your Developing Time for Any Black and White Film

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How can you find development times when you find yourself with an urge to develop your black and white negative, but no Internet network and no access to the Massive Dev Chart? Or how about when there is a brand new film on the market which is not available in the development chart at all? Or perhaps it is, but not with your preferred developer?

We got you covered! Here, you can find a useful method to calculate your developing time safely to work on your black and white film. All you'll need are some tools that you usually have when you’re self-processing your film.

Materials Used

For this tipster, we used Lomography’s Lady Grey 400 for the strip and Kodak HC-110 as a developer.

Other tools you’ll be needing are:

  • a graduate cylinder
  • stopwatch/timer
  • gloves
  • clippers
  • thermometer

Procedure and Calculation

The Dilution B is what we used from Kodak, and I have cut the ratio from 300 ml total to 150 ml total to minimize the waste of the developer. The measurements are as follows: 5ml of HC-110 and 145 ml of water.

Once you have all of your tools ready, you proceed with dipping your piece of film halfway into the solution; while simultaneously starting your timer. Stop the watch as soon as the film strip becomes dark.

Divide the time you got into three. This will indicate the number of minutes needed to develop the film.

The Results

We ran this test three times. The most accurate time was the first that we got which was 17.02 seconds. When divided by 3, this gives us 5.6 minutes. The developing time we officially recommend for this film is 5.5 minutes. We also got 18.16 and 19.00 seconds with previous tests: this difference is still minimal and it won't affect your results. It could however increase the contrasts.

Here, you have an easy and quick way to find your developing time just in case you'll end up with no chances to check the charts, or if you are in possesion of a brand new film. We hope you enjoyed this tip, and find it handy for your next film development.

Did you find this tipster useful? Share your thoughts and question in our comment section below. If you'll like more of this content, send us an email at elisa.parrino@lomography.com.

written by eparrino on 2021-12-22 #tutorials #videos #developing #tipster #black-white #massivedevchart

7 Comments

  1. leisuresuit
    leisuresuit ·

    This was really quite helpful thanks

  2. stereograph
    stereograph ·

    Thanks, great idea!
    this sounds very interesting! never thought about that.
    i'm doing a lot of dev's with unkown developer conditions,
    this could help! i already do this for the fix, same thing!
    Put a strip in the Fixer abd start the clock and wait untill the strip is completly clear,
    stop the clock, double the time and give 30sec safety extra on top. done!

  3. eparrino
    eparrino ·

    @stereograph Awesome! thanks for the fixing tip as well :)

  4. stereograph
    stereograph ·

    @eparrino You're Welcome! I'm always happy to share the knowledge!

  5. philmco
    philmco ·

    Very interesting! Did the amount of ambient light have any influence on the times?

  6. digimech
    digimech ·

    HC-110 is ultimately very forgiving. True story - I used to work for a newspaper and we used Tri-X (400) and a thick mix of HC-110 (B) in a tank that could hold 7 reels. One afternoon I shot 2 rolls at a track meet, came back and dropped them in the developer. I went to write the story and forgot all about the film - it was in there for 45 minutes! Film ended up pretty muddy but I got a useable image.

  7. eparrino
    eparrino ·

    @digimech Wow! that's a looong time! Glad there was an happy ending!

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