Darkroom Wetside Viewing / Inspection Light

Would you share with me and others your Viewing / Inspection Light set up?
A photo would be great!

Lamp fixture type?
Bulb type?
Wattage?
Distance from bulb to print?
Does it vary by paper type?
Use a viewing stand?
Can an appropriate setup eliminate the need for dry down calculations / exposure reductions?

Lots of questions I know - so I want to thank all of you who will take the time to respond and an extar thanks if you have a photo.

All the best

Todd

A lot of it is getting used to what you have. I don't much like florescent light because it causes brightened paper to glow. I had switched to led light over my sink for wet inspection but it is not very good for me because I am used to 300 watt incandescent and because I don't quite like the color of any led bulb and I have gone through about 20 of them in search of the perfect type. I switched the bulbs back to 250 watt incandescent again. I wired my darkroom myself and set the 2 viewing lights over the sink at 45º over the fix tray. That way the light is bright and even. Also I wanted a brighter light over my dry counter space so I put an industrial clamp on metal reflector right above a spot with another 250 watt bulb. That way I can view my dry prints under bright light and I can turn the light off when not viewing.. to save electricity. I do have a 4 foot florescent double fixture light over another counter but I only use it on a rare occasion to inspect prints for stains... they show up better.

Way Beyond Monochrome has a section on these, including a specific recommendation on light intensity at the print surface.
Maybe Ralph Lambrecht (one of the two co-authors) will chime in with an excerpt from the book, because each time I look for the section, it takes me a while to find it .

I have two 3 lamp spotlights in my darkroom - like these.



I have one bulb pointed at the first fixer bath, another at the wash bath, the rest to other key areas like where I retouch trim and frame etc, They are about the same distance as you'd use to illuminate prints in a gallery. Currently they are halide bulbs but when they need replacing I'll switch to LED. These are on a pull cord switch that stretches across the darkroom so can be turned on/off by the enlarger of by the ewt bench.

The main lighting is a fluorescent 4ft tube but this will be replaced by an LED equivalent soon.

Ian

I turn on the room lights, but that is no substitute for seeing a dried print in daylight. Always a problem looking for a solution. [A solution to the problem, not a wet solution.]

I had a great Ansel Adams video on Betamax many years ago where AA used a microwave oven to dry his test strips, I've done the same in the past. I lent someone the video and it disappeared - I was more disappointed to lose documentaries on many other photographers (on the same tape),

Ian

I have an inverted V-shape piece of plexiglass to hold a squeegeed print and use a daylight balanced viewing light that measures about EV 7 (100 on meter) where the paper is placed. IIRC, I picked up this tip from John Sexton. But, when I'm approaching what I believe to be a final print I dry it in a microwave; to my mind, an actual dry print is really the only way to judge drydown.

I agree with Alan that viewing a dry print is the only reliable way to judge tonalities, especially in the highlights.

As for viewing stations and lighting: I have an incandescent (halogen) 50W flood over my fixer and rinse tray for evaluating wet prints. If a print is good enough, it gets dried and hung up on a magnetic white board on one end of my 10-foot darkroom. This is lit by track lighting that is a combination of warm halogen lighting and "daylight" incandescent flood lights (they're blue and are about 5000K). This is my best and preferred approximation of what I think is ideal gallery lighting. I'll make a few slightly-different prints and hang them up next to each other for evaluation. I believe in wasting time evaluating instead of wasting materials making lots of prints.

I also like to step outside and evaluate the prints under daylight, both in the shade and sun, keeping in mind that really bright viewing conditions open up the shadows a lot. If I just printed for the prints to be viewed in bright daylight, the shadow detail would disappear in dimmer gallery lighting. I try to find the best compromise for possible lighting conditions and often make a few prints on either side of center, i.e., a print for dim light, a print for really bright light and one that looks best to me on the white board.

One never knows how their prints will end up being displayed. I like a rather bright combination of incandescent and daylight for my prints, and settle on that. I hate fluorescents and daylight LEDs. Even warm LEDs are not really a continuous spectrum nor a continuous source (most mains LEDs are pulsed). Give me the more natural incandescents and the sun.

Best,

Doremus

I have a 25 watt diffused incandescent bulb at 1.4 metres above the fixer tray. This relatively dim light is calibrated (by trial and error) to give a fair match between the visual impression of a wet print and the same print after dry-down in good room light. The other inspection light is a very bright 50 watt spot in a snoot so I can't see the bulb directly and ruin my dark adaption. The spot light is used to look for defects, dust marks, etc. Using the bright light to judge a run of tones means over-printing every time and ultimately wasting paper.

Todd Barlow said:

Would you share with me and others your Viewing / Inspection Light set up?
A photo would be great!

Lamp fixture type?
Bulb type?
Wattage?
Distance from bulb to print?
Does it vary by paper type?
Use a viewing stand?
Can an appropriate setup eliminate the need for dry down calculations / exposure reductions?

Lots of questions I know - so I want to thank all of you who will take the time to respond and an extar thanks if you have a photo.

All the best

Todd

Click to expand...

The way I did it was to mount an interior reflector-spot in the ceiling with a reostat in the power line to control the brightness. Pointed this at the board that the print would be viewed on. Took my spotmeter into the house with a gray card and took a reading off of the gray card. Went back to the darkroom and adjusted the brightness of the spot to match the spot-meter reading. I am able to look at the print under the same brightness as the print would be viewed under. Doesn't take in consideration of dry-down, etc. DO NOT USE A PHOTO SPOT!......regards!

Ian Grant said:

I had a great Ansel Adams video on Betamax many years ago where AA used a microwave oven to dry his test strips, I've done the same in the past. I lent someone the video and it disappeared - I was more disappointed to lose documentaries on many other photographers (on the same tape),

Ian

Click to expand...

Check on ebay and you may be able to find a CD of that same program and don't lend any more. I lost two Fred Picker tapes that way. I now have all of Picker's programs on one CD and it stays hidden until I take it out to play it which is frequently..........Regards!