Darkroom Portraits (Part 2)

[Daniela]

Presuming the room itself doesn't freeze between sessions, you can pick up a sous vide for as little as about $40 on eBay. Run a tub full of cold water, put your chemical bottles in, and start the sous vide -- go get a cup of coffee or hot cocoa, come back, and your chemicals will be ready to use. It's a compact, fairly lightweight device, smaller than a 2 liter bottle, so easy enough to bring with you or store in a locker if you keep your stuff there.

No, the room doesn't freeze, thankfully! As for the chemicals, sometimes it's hard to bring them up to above 15°C. I'll look those up! Thanks!

Where are you located? Does the water run really cold in the winter? I have used an electric kettle to heat up water and then immerse the chemical in beakers (like a bain-marie) to bring them up to 20º. You can do this for film or prints. I will usually use a large metal steam-tray pan for this so I can warm all the solutions to temperature at the same time.

The water/ambient temperature is cold enough to keep the chemicals at about 15°C, so yes, bringing my electric kettle would be a good idea this winter...I'm in the Paris region, btw. Thank you!

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Constantly adding as finances permit.
Three enlargers , the Durst sadly has to go as it won't go to 16 x 20"
The black film dryer is made from coffee cans with a filter and a fan.
I dry the negatives on the reel, that way the fan has only to push water off the width of the negative.
The dry side has a Seal press and a matt cutter.
A roll of unneeded Ektalure sits in the corner!
I would like to trade all the enlargers for an LPL 4500 .
As it is I like to sit at the Beseler and control the timer through a footswitch.
Not shown is a 7 ft sink and the old stereo on top of the cabinets.

Since retirement this is my favourite room!

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Just seems odd digital pic's of an analogue darkroom!

 

[Fujicaman1957]

I'm giving you bonus Brownie point for the film dryer ! Seriously outside the box thinking!

 

[ags2mikon]

This is my mini darkroom in my motorhome conversion. It does function. The shower doubles as the film drying cabinet.

 

[Renato Tonelli]

Constantly adding as finances permit.
Three enlargers , the Durst sadly has to go as it won't go to 16 x 20"
The black film dryer is made from coffee cans with a filter and a fan.
I dry the negatives on the reel, that way the fan has only to push water off the width of the negative.
The dry side has a Seal press and a matt cutter.
A roll of unneeded Ektalure sits in the corner!
I would like to trade all the enlargers for an LPL 4500 .
As it is I like to sit at the Beseler and control the timer through a footswitch.
Not shown is a 7 ft sink and the old stereo on top of the cabinets.

Since retirement this is my favourite room!

If you mount the enlarger on the wall, about 20cm above the table/easel, it will print 16x20.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

If you mount the enlarger on the wall, about 20cm above the table/easel, it will print 16x20.

It's a Beseler 45MXT with the large frame that also holds the baseboard. so cannot be done.
I can squeeze a 16 x 20 with the LPL if I use a single size easel; I just bought., have not put it under the Beseler yet.

 

[mshchem]

 

[mshchem]

 

[mshchem]

My 3rd sink 3x8 feet. I'm revamping and improving. Fun!

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Two ! Thomas safe lights.
Is that not too bright.
I had fogging with one in a 13 ft x 10 ft darkroom..

 

[mshchem]

Two ! Thomas safe lights.
Is that not too bright.
I had fogging with one in a 13 ft x 10 ft darkroom..

I have 4 of these safelights. All have the DUC color filters in the outer vanes. And yes you absolutely can fog paper, especially color. I rarely have more than two going, and open up the outer vanes about an inch. If the safelights are to close to the enlarger it's impossible to compose the picture.
My darkroom attracts this kind of stuff, mostly by 50 years of accumulation

 

[Daniela]

This is my mini darkroom in my motorhome conversion. It does function. The shower doubles as the film drying cabinet.

So, you have a traveling darkroom?! I dream about that, especially since I saw the wonderful work these people are doing.

 

[mshchem]

Progress, going slow. Trying to enjoy the project.

 

[Dock]

You have an amazing darkroom, one I'm sure that will be envied by many, including me.

Seeing your darkroom, I shudder at the amount of darkroom equipment and supplies I've thrown away in the past two years. Almost everything showen in your photos, except the enlarger is now history. There are still a couple items that survived the garage cleaning. That's what happen when you lose the desire.

 

[Steven Lee]

@mshchem am I seeing 8 JOBO tanks?

 

[mshchem]

@mshchem am I seeing 8 JOBO tanks?

There's a lot more than 8, the stuff seems to multiply.

 

[PRC]

Well, I basically finished this new darkroom (my 6th) about five years ago but I've been improving and refining it ever since. It's located in a space formerly a coal room in my 80 year old house. I've had larger darkrooms in the past when I was a working commercial photographer but now I'm just a hobbyist and its 10' x 13' footprint is cozy and fine with me. For ventilation I installed a surplus industrial clean-room filter/blower (.3 micron) that I found online for $105 w/shipping and vent it out through louvers I installed over the eight-foot sink. It keeps the room from feeling like a swamp and also keeps it immaculately clean. I have been using Jobo tanks and reels for film for decades but always regretted that I couldn't dry the film on the reels like I could with SS wire reels without getting spots and streaks. From another home improvement project I had a leftover large and powerful inline duct booster fan and I found that a large ShopVac vacuum filter fit perfectly tight over the intake end and the output was still powerful. A dollar store plastic pitcher fit nicely over the output end and with a hole cut in the bottom just slightly smaller than the reels it would easily hold 5-6 35mm size Jobo reels. It works marvelously well. I give the film on the reels a last one-minute bath in distilled water and half-strength Photo Flo after washing, shake the excess off vigorously, put them and the pitcher under the blower and it just blasts the wet off them and dries the film in a jiffy. So far, my finished negatives have been virtually dust and spot free. I splurged on an Intellifaucet and it works brilliantly - a huge time and labor-saving device that I wish I had back in my working days. A magnetic automatic stirring motor and a hands-free bottle washer and valve are two other really handy gadgets I found at a local home-brewer supply store.

 

[PRC]

...more pix...

 

[mshchem]

Looks great. The film dryer is quite nice.

 

[Chuck_P]

Well, my 11x14 easel did not arrive yesterday like it was supposed to, but my Darkroom Automation F-Stop timer with foot switch did arrive on Friday. Here is my darkroom after rebuilding the sink and remaking the window portal covers much as it appeared 10 or so years ago when I thought I was done with it....it is in a small 10x10 spare bedroom in my old house. It is meagerly equipped right now but totally at a level of functionality (minus the easel of course); I left myself short of some 8x10 trays and amber colored 32 ounce glass bottles when ordering, I really need a couple more of each but can do for now. I am familiar with TMX 100 and will try to standardize my processes with it in XTOL (unreplenished for the time being but will look into that in due time). I will get back into the swing of things as it relates to printing with 8x10 RC paper from Iford but will move back into FB, also in due time. Items that I sold years ago but will be looking to acquire again in the future will be a densitometer and a step wedge.......I'v never had a dry mount press but would like to get a decent used one. EDIT, will also be looking to put down some protection for the hardwood floor.

 

[Renato Tonelli]

Nice looking space - congratulations.

 

[PRC]

Well, my 11x14 easel did not arrive yesterday like it was supposed to, but my Darkroom Automation F-Stop timer with foot switch did arrive on Friday. Here is my darkroom after rebuilding the sink and remaking the window portal covers much as it appeared 10 or so years ago when I thought I was done with it....it is in a small 10x10 spare bedroom in my old house. It is meagerly equipped right now but totally at a level of functionality (minus the easel of course); I left myself short of some 8x10 trays and amber colored 32 ounce glass bottles when ordering, I really need a couple more of each but can do for now. I am familiar with TMX 100 and will try to standardize my processes with it in XTOL (unreplenished for the time being but will look into that in due time). I will get back into the swing of things as it relates to printing with 8x10 RC paper from Iford but will move back into FB, also in due time. Items that I sold years ago but will be looking to acquire again in the future will be a densitometer and a step wedge.......I'v never had a dry mount press but would like to get a decent used one. EDIT, will also be looking to put down some protection for the hardwood floor.

Nice-looking functional space. I put a functioning outside window in my darkroom too, but since the cover is shut most of the time the tendency is for spiders, cobwebs and dust to accumulate between the lid and the window glass so trying to open it occasionally requires a major cleaning. On my floor I use some 2' x 5' soft rubber anti-fatigue mats I found at a Home Depot for pretty cheap. My local home-brewing supply stores carry a lot of great products that can be useful in a darkroom - and much cheaper than the usual high prices for regular darkroom gear: amber, clear, blue and other tint glass bottles and jugs in handy sizes up to a gallon or more, many with attached rubber/porcelain stoppers; all sorts of rubber and plastic tubing, connectors, valves, and thumb-turn hose clamps; magnetic mixers; bottle brushes and cleaning supplies; graduated measuring containers in glass, plastic and SS from tiny to huge; digital scales; funnels and filtering equipment; and all sorts of other great laboratory equipment in a much greater range and variety than the comparatively meager offerings at photo supply retailers. For dry-mounting presses, keep in mind that you don't have to shell out for a huge one to cover the largest sizes - many of the more reasonable smaller sizes can mount larger prints in sections. Plus the larger presses require regular tedious cleaning of a larger platen to keep your prints spotless and mounting smaller prints like 8x10 in them is a lot more awkward.

 

[Pieter12]

require regular tedious cleaning of a larger platen to keep your prints spotless

I always sandwich my prints between sheets of archival mount board in the press. Wipe the sheets clean every session--no spots, no indents.

 

[rcphoto]

Well, my 11x14 easel did not arrive yesterday like it was supposed to, but my Darkroom Automation F-Stop timer with foot switch did arrive on Friday. Here is my darkroom after rebuilding the sink and remaking the window portal covers much as it appeared 10 or so years ago when I thought I was done with it....it is in a small 10x10 spare bedroom in my old house. It is meagerly equipped right now but totally at a level of functionality (minus the easel of course); I left myself short of some 8x10 trays and amber colored 32 ounce glass bottles when ordering, I really need a couple more of each but can do for now. I am familiar with TMX 100 and will try to standardize my processes with it in XTOL (unreplenished for the time being but will look into that in due time). I will get back into the swing of things as it relates to printing with 8x10 RC paper from Iford but will move back into FB, also in due time. Items that I sold years ago but will be looking to acquire again in the future will be a densitometer and a step wedge.......I'v never had a dry mount press but would like to get a decent used one. EDIT, will also be looking to put down some protection for the hardwood floor.

Looks great!