I develop 4x5 and 120 out of the back of my Subaru on occasion. I shoot professionally, so I demand good results, and I get them. Everything I use can fit in a laundry tub from the dollar store.
My C-41 process is as follow:
- Heat up water to 120F-ish, pour into laundry tub.
- Put dev and blix chemical bottles into the tub, wait until they get to temp (102F).
- In the meantime, load film with a changing bag. I use hair elastics, roll the film so that the emulsion is INSIDE and not touching the elastics (Google: "taco developing for 4x5").
- Heat up more water, as close to 102F as you can get it
- Place film in the dev tank. I use a small Rokunar tank that just barely fits 4x5 film, 1 roll of 120, 2 rolls of 35mm.
- Remove dev and blix bottles once they're at temp. Dump water and replace with water at 102F. Do this quickly, within a minute.
- Pour any extra water at 102F into the dev tank. Shake it a bit, let the film get up to temp and the anti-halation layer wear off.
- If you manage to heat up more water to 102F or slightly warmer, pour it into the tank and shake it vigorously. Do your best to get rid of that anti-halation layer.
- Develop as normal, 3.5 min dev; 6 min. blix, 3 min rinse at 95-110F, stabilizer.
- Done!
- Bonus: Convince curious others are aren't making meth out of the back of your rig...
If you're doing B/W you can skip a bunch of steps. I've even had good luck using unfiltered stream water!
