developer hack

The do it yourself method of photography is very rewarding.  The advent of 3d printing has meant that a camera can be cobbled together out of bits and pieces that others are selling. If course these cameras lack some of the niceties like accurate focusing,  accurate framing and often use older styles of film with limited capacity for photos. A 6x7 roll film back allows 10 pictures on a roll of 120. That's not many.

One of the things that can be done  yourself is making your own developer.  There are lots of recipes for caffenol which works a treat.

I've been considering making the Kodak developer D23. This is made with 2 ingredients plus distilled water. Ansel Adams used Kodak D23 formula to develop his famous photo taken on Isopan film.

The recipe is

7.5 g of Metol

100g of Sodium Sulphite 

1 litre of distilled water.

I ordered the chemicals from firstcall photographic (https://www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk/) and they have arrived today.

So I've now actually made my very first batch of Kodak D-23 developer.  I'm looking forward to seeing what this developer will do for my photographs.

It was so easy to make the developer.

The method for making the developer is as follows

1. Heat 600ml water to 52 Celcius
2. Add a pinch of sodium sulphite to the water
3. Stir until the sodium sulphite has completely dissolved
4. Add Metol to the water
5. Stir until the Metol has completely dissolved
6. Add The remainder of the sodium sulphite
7. Stir until the sodium sulphite has completely dissolved
8. Top up with cool water to 1 litre

It is important to ensure that each addition of chemicals is in the order shown and that the powder has completely dissolved before adding the next chemical.

There you are a simple, low cost and more eco friendly developer that can be made at home.

This picture was taken on Fomapan 400 rated at EI 800 and developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 19 minutes