making a photography darkroom

[Chris French]

Eldest daughter (14) is very much getting into photography. Digital of course, but she likes the idea of having a play with film.

Someone on the local Freecycle was offering a load of darkroom gear, which I've acquired. And I've rooted out my old film SLR. So now need to construct some sort of darkroom space.

Never had one myself, though did do a little bit a few times with a friend many moons ago. But' I'm pretty sure plenty of folks here have done such things in the past.

So any pointers/suggestions for setting it up are welcome. something at least semi permanent would be preferable I think, and we have a few places that might be suitable. What is the essentials, what would be nice.

don't want to spend to much money as it might be a bit of a flash in the pan.

One possibility is the cellar - a bit damp, but ok plenty of space,- has power, but no water or drainage. There a few different spaces down there and only one small window in a light well that doesn't really do anything much except provide a little ventilation, so making it dark would be easy.

Another thought is that we have a dressing room that isn't really properly used. We I could use one end of that. It has two entrances, so I could partition one end off with black plastic say - no window at that end (power, accessible drainage and water. We do have plans to create an en suite bathroom, and a separate storage room with a a partition wall across dividing the room, so could potentially do the partition wall now anyway.

Thanks.

[Graham.]

I was 13 when I got my first darkroom. Is she going to do colour negs, reversal, or just black & white negs and prints?

Top tip,

get her something like this for handling film and loading the tank,

That way she can do it watching the telly in normal lighting and pretend she's got a job at Porton Down, and more importantly, you won't need to make the darkroom quite as dark as you would otherwise.

[fred]

Changing bag to load film in tank.

For printing all se really need is a sturdy table to hold the enlarger and another one to hold the developing dishes. A bucket of water underneath to drop the prints into until she is able to go where there is a water supply to wash them

I gave all my darkroom equipment to my sons school many years ago

Is it her that is really keen or daddy who wants to dabble again ?

[Cursitor Doom]

The problem with a cellar is drainage. Prints need to be fixed, then (ideally) washed for a LONG time under running water. Unless you can get a decent sized bath tub in there to collect the run-off, using the cellar could be problematical.

[Tim Watts]

The cellar seems a natural - collect the waste in a bucket or two.

Damp is offset with a dehumidifier but it's unlikey to be a problem if you store the dry chemicals and paper elsewhere. Once developed, the films/prints can be hung to dry anywhere suitable.

[Tim Watts]

My dad used one. For loading the camera and then loading the film into a developer pot.

The pot allowed you to add chemicals and flush out whilst keeping the light off the film so you can actually develop *film* without a darkroom.

It's prints that you really need the darkroom for.

[alan_m]

IMO, the best thing that happened to photography was digital. Your daughter is likely to abandon the idea after processing a few rolls of film and finding from the 70 shots she has only got a few usable images worthy off taking through the printing stage for an enlarged image.

With digital there is no cost in taking a 1000 bad shots and then deleting them from the SD card.

For film I used to go under the stairs in the dark for 5 minutes to load it onto the spiral for the developing tank. Afterwards developing etc. is in full light, usually at the kitchen sink.

For the enlarger and developing trays you need a flat surface. You don't particularity need running water in the dark room. By the time the photo needs to be rinsed in running water it's already developed and fixed so it can be transferred to the kitchen sink in full light.

Don't go to too much trouble until you find out that its a fad, or not. The first experiments could be done in the kitchen etc. in autumn/winter evening when its dark outside using minimal balckouts over the windowsnight

[tabbypurr]

Traditionally darkrooms are black, but I've also done work in one that was white, and it worked just as well. The main thing is to exclude every drop of light. If the door isn't rigid enough, a dark blanket fitted close over the frame helps.

15w red bulb needed for B&W prints. Yellow-green one for colour. Enlarger n eeded for prints of course. A few seed trays needed for prints. Label your chemicals effectively. A drum for film processing, and a lightproofed wardr obe you can stand in to load it. Some good paper, kentmere was my favourite when I last used it, but that wasn't too recent. Tray heater or any suitab le bodge job to warm the chemicals.

Optionals... A little iron something if you want sepia prints. Blueprints n eed nothing but excellent ventilation - best to process them outdoors. Epid iascope if you want massive zoom ratios. Splicing tape is handy.

NT

[Chris French]

Her, I've got no great interest in doing it.

I'm avoiding buying anything much at the moment, as I don't really know all of what I've got yet, and it might just be a flash in the pan.

Start off on B&W prints I guess and see how we go.

[Nick Odell]

Good for her: one of our local high schools is a Creative and Media Studio School and I know the photography people there plunge students straight into work with film cameras as a precursor to digital. If she decides to take it up seriously then all this interest in film will stand her in good stead.

One of my sons has gone back to film photography and develops his own b&w stock. The lightproof stuff doesn't take up much room in a drawer and is good enough to work with in the bathroom without too much fuss. After he has created the negatives he scans them into his computer and enlarges and prints digitally. I understand quite a lot of people do that now. The colour negatives he sends away to a lab in the USA (he lives just over the border in Canada)

Heck: I suppose I should say that I've gone back to using film too since I've just bought a second SLR, a compact and a couple of medium-format cameras to play with. It's like valve guitar amps vs transistor; vinyl records vs CDs: place them side-by-side and the differences are obvious but you can't say one is "better" than the other. And I still reach for my digital camera first.

Nick

[dennis]

Be aware that some of the chemicals are quite harsh and some (like me) develop rashes from them.

I used to put a board on the bath and black out the room with blackout cloth.

I would buy her a couple of rolls of film and have them processed somewhere so she can see how much harder it is than using digital before investing much.

If she likes it then you need a film tank and probably a thermostatically controlled bath if you go colour film.

Then you will need an enlarger, masking frame, dishes, timer, tongs, safe light for B&W.

For colour you really want an enlarger with dichroic filters. You can get away with gelatin filters but its a real pain swapping them and they do wear out.

Colour is much more critical of temperature control so you probably need a tank and water bath but I have done it with just a print tank you roll along the bench.

Its quite hard to actually find the stuff these days, google is pretty useless from what I have seen.

[dennis]

if it still works.

[tabbypurr]

Fancy modern stuff. I started with an old Gnome. He wasn't very happy about it.

NT

[Bob Eager]

I found a changing bag adequate for loading the drum.

My dad fitted out our bathroom with various things to make a darkroom on a temporary basis (he did part time professional photography). We had a close fitting panel for the window frame (bolts from panel into frame); enlarger table that fitted over the toilet, safelight on the end of the bath (!!), run from one of those Y-shaped BC things on the light fitting. Then a board over the bath for the trays, and we ran the developing tank rinse hose in the sink.

The most fun thing was playing with reversal of monochrome film, to get monochrome transparencies.

[Chris French]

I'm not planning on investing anything much at the moment

Actually, it's not that hard to get it free, it's come up our local freecycles a few times

Read my post Dennis, I've picked up someone's old darkroom stuff. I don't really now exactly what I've got yet (only picked it up this morning), but there is an enlarger, trays and other stuff.

I was just asking about suggestions on how to set something up.

[Chris French]

Quite :-)

No I'm quite aware that it might be a fad.

My best bets seem to be using the cellar or maybe the utility room - I could probably blackout the windows easily, and as we don't use the room for anything other than washing clothes and storing stuff etc. I could leave it up for periods of time.

[Graham.]

My original darkroom was in the cupboard under the stairs with only a light bulb holder for power, so, like you I used s Y splitter and bayonet adaptors for the safelight and enlarger.

Our class went on a geography field trip and me and a friend exposed a roll of FP3 and HP3 respectively. It occurred to me instead of making prints as I had intended, I would make transparencies using s kit that came in a yellow plastic box, and make a tape and slide show for the class. A few years ago I caught up with my friend and discovered he still had the slides and the tape.

[Graham.]

the advice I remember reading was paint the walls of a poorly blacked- out darkroom black to stop the leakage from being further scattered about, but paint a well light-proofed darkroom white, so the walls and ceiling reflect your safe-light around.

[John Rumm]

I used to do "half digital" processing - i.e. developed my own films but then scanned and printed them digitally from there.

As others have said a changing bag will sort the transfer of film into the developing drum. After that you can turn the lights on.

You may be able to pick up a s/h jobo rotary processor (preferably with "lift" if you can get one). That makes it easy to colour print and slide.

[F Murtz]

Laundry,(Easy access to water) roller blind of modern equiv to tar paper bit of hinged wood down each side that seal vertical edges of blind, top of washing machine or whatever for enlarger, arrange dishes on a board on sink. That is what I used to do.