Response to process for slides from negative film??????

Reversal procesing of black and white films is a fairly old process that was used a lot back when people were making black and white home movies. It seems to be a dying art since the advent of video recording using magnetic media. The information on doing it yourself is scattered through the web and a bit of judicious mining will turn up many peoples favorite protocols. As a start, here is a link to the RIT PhotoFAQ 27 within which you will find a section on the reversal processing of Ilford's films. Keep in mind that the optimal first developer formulation and times depends upon the film you are using and there also seems to be a bit of witch craft in that one persons favorite may not work as well for another person and you will need to experiment to get the best results that you can for yourself.

For commercially available black and white slides, many people like Agfa Scala. This is a chromogenic reversal film that must be processed by Agfa labs. The other commercial option, mentioned above, is drwood's service (provided by AIM lab's I believe). Despite the small eruption that David and I had in the Alternative Process section of B&W World, transparencies produced with his process will more than likely fit your needs.

If you want to do the processing yourself but dont want to make up the reagents from scratch, there are two kits available to reverse process films. Kodak makes a reversal processing kit that uses their own proprietary formulations. The Photographers Formulary also sells a kit that is based on an article by Hans Detrich that appeared in Darkroom and Creative Camera Techniques in 1988.

The biggest thing that you will notice about purchasing the kits or sending the film out for others to process is the cost. It is orders of magnitude less expensive to make your own developers, bleach, clear, etc. But if you only want to do a few rolls or dont have the facilities to mix our own, they will do the job.

If you need more detailed information, feel free to email me off line and I can point you to more.

[ Previous | Next ]