I'm about to start developing my own negatives and am picking up a scanner instead of shipping my film out to be developed. Any words of advice any of you would like to offer? Things to avoid? Anything I need to keep in mind? Going with Kodak D-76 for black and white and Unicolor C-41 for color. I mostly shoot Kodak Tri-X400 and Fuji 400 for color
Don't fear to fail. It'll take some time to "feel" it - both developing and scanning. For me scanning is the hardest part, to be honest :P
Good on you! Personally while I shot film for the most part of my life I never processed it at home. When I shoot film now though I scan the negatives at home. I use an Epson v700 which is fine for what I do. You can practise your scanning on old negatives and transparencies you can find and also don't forget prints in the family archives.Good luck!
I bought an Epson V800 and have been pretty happy with it. Only advice would be to scan lots up front, trying different settings, software etc. to figure out how to get the most out of the scanner. I'm impatient, and now want to go back and scan my first 25 rolls with the settings I eventually settled on. Just using the dust removal feature properly would have saved me so much time in photoshop.
Dust removal feature? I really should go back and read the manual.
Dust removal features generally don't work on black and white negatives as far as I know. Disable Digital ICE and just make sure that you're keeping your negatives clean. I use a brush and a blower once they're loaded in the carrier to minimize dust.
Expect to learn a bunch through trial and error and don't be afraid to try new stuff. It's not nearly as complicated as it seems once you've done it a few times.
If you're planning to scan, my advice would be to save yourself a ton of trouble and shoot Ilford Hp5+ instead of Tri-X simply because it dries way flatter. One of my biggest annoyances with Tri-X is dealing with the curling and cupping.
Take notes about your process—both shooting and developing—so that you can start to get a sense of how you are coming by your results and get an idea of what you need to tweak. Take your time to learn the film stock you are going to use and the chemistry by sticking to it for some time. It's tempting—especially now with so many film emulsions—to start buying this and that, but save that for later.
Once you begin to experiment, experiment with only one thing at a time. If you're changing your developer, your film stock, your lens, etc. all at once, it quickly becomes chaotic and you have no idea what is factoring into which part of your results.
Remember always that everything is just a guideline. The speed written on the box of the film is just the manufacturer's guideline. The times, temperatures, and agitation schemes written on the Massive Dev Chart or your film data sheet is just a guideline. They are starting points from which you will inevitably make adjustments to get the results that you are personally looking for.
Good luck.
I will second the observation that TRI-X curls, making it difficult to scan. I shot nothing but Tri-X for 50 years, but printed them using a double glass neg carrier.
I shoot only Ilford film now. I measured the film base thickness, and they are both exactly the same, but Tri-x appears to be more hygroscopic, making it a bear to scan.
In addition to my Epson V800, I have an old Microtek scanner with a double glass film holder for any film that does not behave.
If you can be patient, let your film hang for at least 4-6 hours before cutting it up. Overnight is better in getting it to flatten. I live in a low humidity environment, and my film takes at least two hours to fully dry (120), and another 3-4 hours to flatten.
As I recently started developing and scanning myself, I will share what I have found and is still fresh in my mind.
1. Don't learn with important shots. My first roll was wasted due to a mistake I made being new to the process. I then shot a few rolls of the same subjects around my yard. I used these rolls to practice developing. I was able to compare the results of developing using different techniques. Times, temperatures, agitation, etc. I documented everything on a spreadsheet and now have predictable results.
2. I started scanning with a Canon 9000f scanner but was soon discouraged by the lack of control and the poor results. Film curl was a big annoyance also. I switched to using my Sony A7iii and a vintage "Slide duplicator" to "scan" my negatives and the results were a huge improvement over my scanner. UNTIL...I purchased Silverfast Scanning software which allows much greater control over the scan process and yielded results similar to my Sony scanning setup but in batches. As far as film curl goes, I purchased ANR (Anti Newton Ring) glass for my scanner's film holders and it holds even my arched Tri-X film perfectly flat.
3. Take your time, expect to make some mistakes and enjoy!