Busy Darkroom! does this count as darkroom?

Stephen Frizza

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Ok this is the most crazy thing ive ever seen in my photographic life!
I would love to visit a place like this if there are any in existence anymore??
This is the most crazy laboratory Ive ever seen! is anyone else here as gob smacked as I am?

take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2f9kz0JTmU
 

tjaded

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Oh my God! That is unreal. I wonder when it was filmed?
 

sly

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I assume this is something educational made 10 or more years ago before digital took over. It is probably Canadian. Discovery is a cable channel here. I think the image at the very end is Perce Rock, on the Gaspe penninsula (sorry I don't know how to do the appropriate accents on perce and gaspe on my computer). The other side of Canada from here, but one of those iconic images that turns up frequently.
Sly
 

alannguyen

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i had to speed up my B&W darkroom, i think mine are toooooo slow
 

Akki14

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My uncle works in a lab like that (I think). He works at a very large photo lab that gets sent everyone's films (normally dropped off at supermarkets etc) and he works allllll night to get them printed and sent back. He's worked there for years and years and he's given me a mickey mouse camera that someone put in one of those envelopes (loaded with a film). He says that's getting fairly common, people just send the whole 35mm point&shoot camera off with the film in, they just don't care if they get it back or not.

I've never really asked him any specifics about it, though.
 

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Wow! That is just insane, but strangely compelling. I never actually realized that my drugstore prints were mass-produced that way.
 

MattKing

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My guess is that it is a little bit more than 10 years old, but probably not 20.

Probably from the time when the industry was switching more to one hour photo.

If you worked in a large lab in the 1970s or 1980s, this would look quite familiar.

Too bad they don't have a similar video of an early 1970s Kodachrome line .

Matt
 

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B-65 at Kodak Park was like that until they closed it down in the 80s (IIRC). They had big picture windows in the front of the building and you could stand on the street and see that kind of order sorting and transport going on. So, Kodak was doing almost that level of automation back then.

A non-computerized version existed in the 50s with all of that type of equipment, hand run, for B&W and color. I ran much of the manual version of this working my way through college. It took 2 operators usually. I was the film processor and the 35mm printer. My boss was the MF and LF printer and Enlarging person, and I also did chem mix from powders only in those days. He did QC of the prints, sorting and packing. There was also a delivery person.

We used a mix of Pako and Kodak equipment.

PE
 

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Just an additional few comments...

Did you notice that they were doing a lot of APS photos? The order shown up close was marked APS, and the large print rolls had several panoramic prints on them. That kinda dates it!

Also, her comments on sulfates doing the development were entirely incorrect. There are 2 chemicals + a wash in the print process with an optional stop and 4 chemicals plus two washes in C41. So the narration is only 'approximate'.

She did say that 'many people still prefer to use this tried and true method'. OOOYAH!

PE
 

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One more comment.

After seeing the size of the equipment and the extreme automation around 35mm and APS, you can see that this same automation is not possible for MF and ULF. They literally must be done by hand. In addition, the huge investment in equipment and its speed of operation are obvious.

Now, here comes the point of my comment. I've said before that slowing things down is difficult but can be done - to a point. Can you imagine slowing this process down by 90%? That is what is going on all the way from manufacturing to processing. Right now, the guy who owned that plant probably lost his shirt in the 'downsizing' of analog. I feel very sorry for the whole industry.

Nowdays, there is a rather busy digital kiosk in our supermarket and a small 1 hour minilab run by two teenagers who could care less (I suppose) and know even less about photography. They just press a button. No 120 or 4x5 here. And, my local photo dealer in town will no longer take any sheet film. The processing plant royally messed up my last MF rolls.

PE
 

dslater

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I agree - probably more than 10 years old - could even be 20 - did you notice the prints were not borderless? I think it's been 20 years since I got back prints with borders.
 

kman627

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I saw this on TV about a month or two ago. I think it was a segment on How it's Made in Discovery Science channel.
 

Akki14

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dslater said:
I agree - probably more than 10 years old - could even be 20 - did you notice the prints were not borderless? I think it's been 20 years since I got back prints with borders.
Click to expand...

Some of the photos on the rolls were borderless. White borders are still an option these days (dunno why people like them, though) so it'd make sense to keep them all on one roll if that was one of the magic tickyboxes.
 

PHOTOTONE

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kman627 said:
I saw this on TV about a month or two ago. I think it was a segment on How it's Made in Discovery Science channel.
Click to expand...

That is correct..a segment of "How It's Made" which is a Canadian produced show, that airs on the Discovery channel (cable tv) in the USA.

Just think, the video showing the inside of the film processing equipment had to be made with waste film, as it would all be ruined in the lighting required for video or film shooting.
 

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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I'll give them to you: Rocher Percé, which is located in the peninsula of Gaspésie, near the city of Percé.
 

Troy

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My sister in law worked 20 years at a lab like that. It was locally owned, then bought by Konica and then shut down. She gave me cases and cases of outdated color film and plastic frames. I didn't have the heart to tell her I only shoot b&w. I was years giving that cheap film away!
 

MattKing

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PHOTOTONE said:
Just think, the video showing the inside of the film processing equipment had to be made with waste film, as it would all be ruined in the lighting required for video or film shooting.
Click to expand...

Part of the process of calibrating and maintaining the large Kodachrome machines required the labs to run film leader through the process, until everything was up to spec. Those rolls of leader were very, very long. Although this is clearly C41, they may be using something similar in these machines during that part of the video.

Matt

P.S. I frequently order prints with borders at my local Walmart one hour photo. It doesn't seem to create any problem for them.
 

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
 

Peter Black

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Prints made with a burst of light that "is as strong as the sun"? Hmm, seems unlikely to me, but I'm open to enlightenment.
 

PHOTOTONE

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Peter Black said:
Prints made with a burst of light that "is as strong as the sun"? Hmm, seems unlikely to me, but I'm open to enlightenment.
Click to expand...


I think they mean a strobe (flash) light exposure. Strobe (flash) lights can concentrate light to equal sunlight in a small area, I'm sure you know.
 

richard ide

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Black
Prints made with a burst of light that "is as strong as the sun"? Hmm, seems unlikely to me, but I'm open to enlightenment.


I had an enlarger with 6000w pulsed xenon light source and they were far brighter than the sun. Just a split second glance and there was a residual image in your vision for a couple of minutes or more.
 
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