What do I need to develop my own photos?

You need quite a lot of equipment, apart from the chemicals and paper, you also need a room, preferebly with running hot and cold water and drainage, that you can totallly blackout, not the tiniest chink of light. You need: Developing tank, say £8; Thermometer, say £8; Enlarger, say £300; Processing dishes, set of 3 for B/W, say £15, more if bigger than 10 x 8 inch prints; Safelight, say £20. That's the basics, there are a few other items which might total £30 to £60. Sorry if the list is incomplete, it's some years since I did any darkroom work, and that's for Black and White, you need more for Colour, and better temperature control. For a start see if a local college has any 'wet process' photo courses, it would be good to observe the process done by people familiar with it before commiting to the investment. I see a recommendation above to paint the walls matt black. That is so depressing and unneccesary, a light colour is easier to work in. Very few of the many darkrooms I have worked in had black walls.

everyone has great answers. I will just mention some often overlooked home darkroom considerations: 1. you need someone to take your used fixer!!! it is toxic and most jurisdictions it is unlawful to pour down the drain. and dont just toss it outside it will pollute your groundwater. developer can usually be poured down the drain though. 2. get a good safelight. I cant stress this enough. you will regret getting the cheapest one 3. paint the walls flat black. give yourself half an hour standing inside with the lights out to get your eyes accustomed to the light level to search for leaks. 4. proper ventilation and dust control is a must. I had no ventilation in my first home darkroom and the smell of the fixer would give me a headache. also if you have dust in the air it can settle on your film and mess up your images. 5. most enlargers will be condenser head, but look for an enlarger with a dichromatic head. It is so much easier to dial in your contrast with the color settings than to use those stupid VC filters which tend to get dirty, scratched, lost, etc. also a dichro head will probably have a builtin digital timer which is way nicer than an analog one. if I remember correctly more magenta = more contrast, more yellow = less contrast, cyan doesn't matter 6. take some time to adjust the enlarger so that it is perfectly parallel with the print easel surface. this takes some fine tuning but you will have edge-to-edge sharpness in your pictures as a result. This is more critical the bigger your enlargements. 7. don't skimp on your easel or your enlarger lens. they are the two most important things to get good photographs. I recommend the schneider componon-s 50/2.8 or the el-nikkor 50/2.8 if you're doing 35mm. stop it down to f8 for best results, try to always vary your exposure with time, not aperture. 8. you can get a big sheet of safe-light filter and electrical-tape it to a tv set and watch tv! that makes a fun distraction while waiting for the fixer or permawash. 9. if you want your pictures to not yellow, get and use permawash. you must be extremely careful with it to not contaminate it with fixer. Its not necessary but highly recommended. 10. if you use RC paper, be careful about prints sticking together while wet. they are easily ruined! 11. oh yeah almost forgot, I didn't see this mentioned. you MUST get a grain focuser! otherwise things will be blurry. also, try and set it up in a room with a concrete floor - you can get blurry prints from people walking around and making the floor vibrate during the exposure.

For b & w 135mm and 120 film sizes: for film developing changing bag...has holes with rubber bands to trap light out, has zippered portion for loading into light tight bag film, 133mm-36 exp , 120 roll film and 4x5 or 5x7 or 8x10 inch sheet film zip end and insert arms into unit to remove film and load into film developing reels, film holders affore mentioned 135mm, 120 format film developing reels, sheet film holders stainless steel or plastic developing tanks kodak, honeywell, bessler film developing thermometers film quality squeegee cloths line clothes pins and film hanging/drying line 1 gallon glass or plastic jugs for solutions/chemicals rubber gloves rubber apron for making contact sheets plastic sleeves in your film format pen for marking day, date, subject, photographer name, assignment 9x11 inch or larger for film size glass pane light or enlarger with exposure timer rig your own light, easy! a dark room, bathroom, closet for printing darkroom enlarger with analog or digital exposure timer print easel/holder paper cutter darkroom light print trays, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, etc. print tongs, 1 per tray, 5 required print dryer custom, you make print dodgers for controlling print darkness, contrast, image quality (wire and paper or tape) Chemicals film developing d-76, microdol-x, accu-fine film developers stop bath fixer hypo clear photo flo Chemicals, printing dektol print developer kodak stop bath fixer hypo clear print flattener

Development is relatively cheap to do at home. Definitely less than sending if off to the lab and you get more control. Colour films is a different kettle of fish, you should stick to BW films for now. If you're developing, small and medium format film you're probably best off using a small development tanks. Look at getting self loading spriral reels, they are save the hassle if you have annoying rolls that curl up tight. Next chemicals, you'll need a developer, try something like Ilford ID-11 or Kodak D76 which are general purpose developers, these don't keep too well so don't get too much. Also Rodinal keeps very well, and gives you plenty of grain always good to have some around. Now there are all sorts of different alternative developers, but start out with something conventional. You don't strictly need a stop solution, in fact some films prefer just water. The one chemical that you do need is a fixer. Try some Hypam or Rapid Fixer. You'll also need a measuring jug or similar, and lots and lots of water, a stopwatch and thermometer, wire coathangers, clothespegs and paperclips for hanging out to dry and a screwdriver to get the film out. You'll probably want some old bottles, or better proper containers that you can squeeze all the air out of to prevent the air affecting the chemical. Finally you need to prep a place to load your film. This needs to be totally light tight. Your bathroom is a good starting point if it has no windows. Just seal up the door frame and your away. The place to get all the stuff you need is: http://www.silverprint.co.uk/

Not with the "limited budget" that you stated. As the other two answers already made it clear that this is not a cheap hobby--chemicals, enlarger, and all the gears that go with it (plus a dedicated room that is totally dark when you do color) cost a fortune. What you can do is take a photography course at a local community college and use their laboratory (and you can use it on your own, pay as you go basically) instead. This way, you'll learn how to do it correctly so you won't be wasting anything.