making a photography darkroom

[Richard]

That was a worthwhile field trip and nice slide show too.

[Bob Eager]

Funnily enough, I did the transparencies for school as we were doing a lot and it saved money. I didn't buy a kit - just got all the chemicals (bar developer) from school.

[Dave Liquorice]

Good for her, encourage that willingness to explore.

The only point that you need the total abscence of light is transfering film from 35 mm canisiter to developing drum. A changing bag will do that, either a proper one or perhaps a heavy duty black garden waste/rubble sack.

Fold over a couple time the open end and tape closed. Cut the bottom corners of just big enough to get hand inside and use a couple of elastic bands well above the wrists to keep the bag in place and light out. Note heavy duty, ordinary black bin bags are semi transparent, check your choosen bag for transparency and holes!. Also do the transfer in darkened room not out in direct full sunlight... B-)

The dark room could be anywhere that has decent curtains and no street light outside by just waiting until it's got dark.

KISS... will that wall happen? See above about night and decent curtains. Or a frame and black plasic to fit the reveal.

[Thomas Prufer]

Once you've got that, have a look at pinhole cameras. These can use photo paper as "film", and that makes the dark requirement a lot less stringent. And it's something different from digital.

(I was impressed by some long-term exposures of the ocean -- the motion averages out over time, and the water looks perfectly flat.)

For chemicals, look at "nonstandard developers". Quick google gave , with suggestions such as cheap beer, coffee, beet juice and other developers which sound like they won't break the bank.

Thomas Prufer

[Cursitor Doom]

... and that is the single biggest reason why film photography is more demanding, instructional and rewarding than digital.

[tabbypurr]

less rewarding, more time consuming & more expensive

NT

[NY]

As well as developing and printing ordinary B&W film and printing from them (in a darkroom in the loft - hot in summer, cold in winter, kneeling on chipboard floor with enlarger in front of me on floor and dev/wash/fixer bowls for prints on floot) I also experimented with:

- Ilford XP5 film (B&W but developed as for colour film, uses dyes rather than silver grains for image on negative)

- printing on B&W paper from colour negatives - very muddy (and probably hopelessly non-panchromatic) prints

- printing from colour slides onto paper (yields a negative) and then contact-printing that negative onto another sheet of paper - rather contrasty prints, but a few looked superb.

XP5 was a bugger to get consistent results because the chemicals have to be warmer than for B&W so the cool more quickly - both times I heated them to the same temp and used the same timings for each stage, but one film was much denser than the other. However XP5 seems to have a large exposure latitude so prints from both films looked equally good in tonal range, even if I have to expose prints for longer with one than the other. Grain of XP5 at 400 ASA is much finer than for HP5 (conventional silver-based film) at same speed. And XP5 pushed to 1600 ASA, although much grainier, was far less so than HP5 with same push-processing - prints from latter looked like pencil sketches.

Photo club at school bought a bulk load of FP4 and teacher dispensed it to us all in reusable cassettes of 36 exposures. Unfortunately all the film was badly scratched with horizontal tramlines due to grid in the bulk dispenser :-( Easy to clone out on a modern digital scan from the negs, especially against plain sky where it is most noticeable, but almost impossible to hide on a photographic print.

I wouldn't go back to film now - I can be far more creative with digital camera and digital manipulation: adjust contrast, retouch blemishes, clone out unwanted details like lamp-posts, correct colour casts, correct perspective errors (ie rectangle becomes parallelogram if camera is not square on to something - which is necessary if taking a photo by flash of a reflective plaque etc and you don't want burnt out reflection of flash).

[Bill Wright]

It won't last five minutes. Do the minimum. At 14 they have very short lived interests. When my eldest came home from school (having been got at by some damn fool teacher) and demanded a darkroom I set her up in the upstairs bathroom. Blacked out the window after a fashion and told her to only open film cans when it had gone dark outside. I think she used the set up all of twice.

Bill

[Graham.]

Its worth mentioning that the next WPPD is on 24th April 2016.

[Graham.]

I've still got my Beta II in the garage. Try doing colour with that! (Not that I ever did).

I did plenty of Ektachrome X transparencies though, and nearly got kitted out to make Cibachrome prints from them, but I considered it too expensive.

[Nick Odell]

Just a flash in the pan?

When I came home from school, aged 14 and announced that I wanted to make an electric guitar, who would have guessed that it would just be a passing phase that would last fifty-two years (so far).

When, aged about 12, my eldest wanted to spend the summer holidays learning to paddle a kayak, who would have guessed that he'd turn it into a career that would take him everywhere from Nepal to the Grand Canyon (so far)?

Nick

[Tim Watts]

One shoudl be encouraging and pragmatic.

When my son asked to get a guitar, we got a cheap box'o'rubberbands off ebay and said, if he made progress, we'd get him a real guitar.

A couple of years or so later he's passed Grade 1 with Distinction (we got him a decent guitar within the first year as he was so so consistent about practising).

So back to the OP.

I'd go with what another poster suggested - start with film only which needs a few trays, bag and tank.

If that persists, go to black and white printing with a makeshift darkroom - B&W is a lot less fussy (red safelight, chemicals less fussy).

You never know...

[Bill Wright]

So, from what you're making out here, your kids didn't try anything else? Most kids have brief flirtations with a whole lot of interests before settling on one or two of them.

My point is that there's no point in the parents spending a mint right at the start. With most activities it's possible to buy equipment a bit at a time as and when the need arises. The other advantages of that are that each new acquisition is more exciting, and making do with interim stuff meanwhile is a good education.

Bill

[whisky-dave]

I used to put them in the bath and run water over them, I cut a bit of pipe to insert in the plug hole, drilled a few holes up the side so the water w ould go down the plug hole. I used some old net crutains on a wooden frame across the bath to dry the prints.

dirt might be a problem in a cellar.

[whisky-dave]

Using film gives an better apprecaition as to what real photography is rathe rthan just taking a snap shot.

Time is the cost and until you can tell the differnce between a good shot and a bad one how will you know which to delete.

That's what I did.

yes I agree and you don;t need the expensive dishes as cat litter trays works almost as well.

My first attempts, wer ewaiting until might time closing teh curtains and getting under the covers of my bed, it was certainly dark enough and worked but the problems of dust started to become apparent.

[whisky-dave]

you were rich then I remember them costing a small fortune, I used a plastic bag while under my blanket.

I did that, heard a warning from my physics teachig at the time. he told me when he fiorst did it he exposed the film in front of an old photoflood bulb, which got splashed and shattered in front of him. he was lucky he was wearing glasses.

[John Rumm]

ISTR mine was under a tenner... two bags inside each other with zips, and elasticated cuffs on the entry holes etc.

[dennis]

I disagree. It means you have to write stuff down and/or remember why you did a particular thing three days ago when you get around to viewing the results. While digital lets you see what works there and then and its easier to see why. It also allows you to experiment and produce different pictures which you would never do with film.

You learn from your mistakes and you can make more mistakes with digital.

[tabbypurr]

it gives a better appreciation of what obsolete photography was like, how bad it truly was compared to digital.

NT

[whisky-dave]

No problem, sure if you take 1000s of snaps how will you remmeber but iof you're limted to a few then you'll remmeber them, especailly when it's costing you money.

This is not what people tend to do though.

in theory but rarely in practice. Colleges are going back to film, you'll often here of schools and colleges askign about darkroom stuff.

But you have to realises they are mistakes first, and how will they know.