Hello, I never developed color film myself, but I recently discovered this product:
Not that expensive and the solution has, according to the manufacturer, “a long lasting shelf life”, although analogue photographers talk about 3 months.
Could be fun to experiment with.
I can second that. I got a basic b&w development set after I bought an old folding camera on a flea market and had to learn that the normal labs here actually don’t do b&w development and the only option I found was rather expensive.
I don’t use it a lot (only did 4 or 5 films so far) but really enjoy the development step. It feels a bit like arcane magic, pouring various fluids into a container and shaking it in some defined pattern to finally take the film out and see the images for the first time. Also the tension as there are multiple ways to screw everything up and you’ll only know in the very end if it worked out 
I then digitalise using my digital camera but that part I find rather tedious and not much fun.
Not to sound like an advertisement, but the Valoi Easy35 has made scanning tremendously faster and more consistent for me. Probably not actually reasonably priced for the low volume of scans I do, but so very satisfying!
Note that a lot of flatbed scanners do a reasonable job with negatives (you have to research a bit before purchasing, but you don’t have to get the expensive “pro” models and you can easily find something used). 4000 dpi gives you about 20 megapixels for a 36x24mm negative, which is plenty for most purposes.
guessing youre talking something other than a cheapo home office small-in-one. I’ll also be using a DSLR, 1. cos its what I got and 2. bringing home more kit would bring with it harsh words…
Yes… they don’t normally have any light source to backlight the film. But I use a camera, 70-300mm and extension tubes with reasonable success - albeit helped by it being all rigged up in a classic slide copier set up.
Unfortunately doesn’t work with the 120 roll film used by my camera.
My current scanner is definitely too crappy, but it’s something I’ll consider if I ever buy a new one. I read that scanners don’t work so well for silver-based b&w film, though (but not sure how much of an issue it really is).
In principle scanning film requires a backlit scanner, but in practice people have experimented with putting reflective surfaces behind the film. YMMV.
A shame it doesn’t “wind” the negative the correct amount? For an effective workflow it seems to me that eyeing the neg for every shot is one tedious thing a purpose made device should sort out. Roll film is designed for it.
You are right, but: this is SO MUCH better than a copy stand or flatbed scanner, where you have to crop and rotate every single frame individually. With the Easy35, you can position the negative precisely enough so you can just copy and paste a common crop and rotation on all frames of a scan. At worst you need to move the crop window every now and then. It’s a HUGE improvement.
Also keep in mind that not every film camera advances the frame by the same amount. Some frames are a bit wider or shorter, with varying margins, too. At least that’s how it seems with my three film cameras.
I have a EOS 500 with exactly the same lens … it was my first SLR and I used it for ten years. I remember battery lifetime was awesome 
but I took also way less shots per day. Maybe I should also give it a try.
I managed to get a Yashica MG-1 rangefinder operating and shot a roll of film through it.
As per the cliche, I had to go out on the street and shoot black and white.
I gotta say, that was a surprisingly good shooting experience. For a near 50 year old camera I was pleasantly surprised with the results.
