I’ve Been Shooting B&W Film

I’ve been struggling on where to start with this topic. At first I was going to go into all the reasons WHY I got back to shooting film but ultimately decided that it would be a long and boring read so instead, we will make it a long and boring episode of The Two Hosers Photo Show (take that Schwartz).

The first couple of drafts sounded like I was trying to ask for your permission. I’m a grown man darn it. I don’t need your permission. In short, film is FUN. This is supposed to be fun. The end.

So instead, let’s take a look at the process.

A couple months back I attended Chris Marquardt’s Absolut Analog Film Workshop. I wrote about it here. I had been meaning to get back into processing film for quite a while and this provided a nice jumpstart.

I got on the internet and ordered a developing kit, some film, a change bag, and the necessary chemicals (Rodinal developer and some powdered fix).

The first thing that surprised me was how cheap it was to get started. The dev kit and change bag were probably the most expensive components and they were well under $100. The developer was around $10 which should yield around 75 rolls of film. The fix was a couple of bucks per bag (makes 1 litre). Will find out how many rolls I can do with one batch.

Depending on the film you buy it is also pretty cheap. I picked up a bunch of rolls of the cheaper Agfa 100 ISO B&W film for a little more than $3/roll. That loosely translates to around $3.50 to shoot and process a 36 exposure roll of B&W film. (Keep in mind those are real meatball numbers. I didn’t calculate the precise cost of each frame I shoot. My wife will do that. She’s German)

Now that I was all set, it was time to get out and shoot. I dug out my trusty FTB and 50mm 1.4 lens, loaded up the first roll and set out.

NEXT WEEK- How shooting 35mm differs from Digital.