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Darkroom Luxuries

mgb74

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Jan 24, 2005
Messages
4,793
Location
MN and MA US
Format
Multi Format
Most items in the darkroom are necessities, but there are a couple that I view as luxuries. My two candidates are:

Thomas Sodium Vapor Safelight
Magnetic mixer

What's your luxury item?
 
Enough space to have a permanent set-up.
Intellifaucet.
Robust voltage stabilizer and surge suppressor.
Rotatrim cutters - in more than one size.
 
A color enlarger head. These were a real rarity when I learned to print.

I bought a condenser head with incandescent light for my Omega D2 planning to use a filter drawer to start printing in color, and literally before it arrived, found a D5 with color head on sale, near enough the shipping wasn't going to break me. The variable condenser provides a nice place for a filter drawer, so I'd have managed to get into color printing with that, but it's so much more convenient when I can just spin the wheels to set the color filtration. Makes multigrade and split-grade easy, too. And now I have a D5, with cold light and variable condenser head, that I can sell off to someone more or less local at a good price.

Well, sure, having two enlargers would be a luxury, too, but I don't think I'd use the condenser head enough to justify keeping the second machine, and anything I could do with the cold light, I can do with the color head, easier.
 
srmcnamara has a luxurious rock in his darkroom!

For me an LPL 4550xl enlarger (an object of joy) and an RH designs analyzer pro.
 
wyofilm said:
srmcnamara has a luxurious rock in his darkroom!

For me an LPL 4550xl enlarger (an object of joy) and an RH designs analyzer pro.
Click to expand...

As someone who has both of those, I'd absolutely agree.

One could also mention a Jobo fitting into that category, but its not always clear whether "film processing" and "print making" are necessarily lumped together. (though the Jobo can spin drums for RA-4 prints).

(Of course this hasn't stopped me from taking on a side-project to design a modernized replacement for the RH Analyser, but that's a topic for another thread.)
 
My Jobo Expert Drums are necessities, not wants. I do not have a dedicated darkroom capable of daytime darkness. Load them up in the evening, process any time. The Jobo Tempering Bath is a fine luxury.
 
I built my current darkroom right at the peak of 'darkroom apocalypse' when most of these 'luxury' items were inexpensive or given to me. One of the few things I bought new was the Jobo. The rest came from Photorama, ebay or the local photography shop used section.

Closed loop enlarger:

Jobo processor and tempering bath:

 
Sensitometers:

Densitometer:

Baseboard exposure meter

Laser alignment:
 
Last edited:
20x24 Archival washer ($25):

Electrostatic air filter:
 
That said, analog photography is by itself a luxury to enjoy.
 
-the Heiland split grade filter module that came as a free extra with the LPL7452 I won on a local auction site
- the Heiland split grade control unit + Comfort unit. The best investment I ever did.
 
Frank53 said:
-the Heiland split grade filter module that came as a free extra with the LPL7452 I won on a local auction site
- the Heiland split grade control unit + Comfort unit. The best investment I ever did.
Click to expand...

+1
Nova quad vertical processor
A good audio system
 
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