First-timer needs help & advice

Cheryl, invest in time, paper, and chemicals. Those will teach you the most. Learn how the different contrast filters affect the print also. Later you can buy the fancy equipment that makes life easier.
Shoot, shoot, shoot. Print, print, print.

Mike

Thanks for all the responses. I have definitely been working in that darkroom a lot... have gone through quite a lot of chemicals, and over 100 sheets of paper already. Yes, I've been working with the contrast filters too... and I have been getting excellent results. The only thing that was getting me down was that I realized just how lousy the images get when enlarging from 35 mm to even an 8x10. So... instead of buying any kind of analyzer... I put the money into a MF camera instead (Mamiya RB67 Pro-S)! Wow, now I'm gonna need even MORE help and advice. And maybe I oughta buy a gym membership and start working on my upper body strength.

Hi Again. Congratulations on the MF. I use MF as well. It is qualitatively different in all respects to 35mm. However, if you really can't get a decent enlargement to 8x10 from 35mm maybe you need to have a look into your film choices and negative processing. They shouldn't be _that_ bad. I am enlarging 35mm routinely to 9.5x12 and sometimes to 11x14 using 400 speed film and I would not say the prints are lousy. Grainy perhaps, but not lousy depends what you mean by lousy I guess.

It's not a grain issue, because I don't even notice the grain. It's more a loss of definition that bothers me with the larger prints. Taking pics of my dog and family, like I've posted above, is great with the 35mm setup I've got. But, my real interest lies in landscape photography, and getting pics that I can enlarge to 20x24 or so to frame and hang on my walls. I am a fan of Clyde Butcher, have been to his gallery (I used to live in South Florida) and have a few of his prints in my home. Seeing his work made me fall in love with photography more than ever. Now that I can develop my own prints, I am hoping to travel and get some of my own that I would be proud of, with a similar look (though I don't expect them to be in that league, but the closer the better). Since I now can see that would be impossible to achieve in a 35mm format, I made the leap to MF. I know Large Format is not for me... not in my budget, won't fit in my car, and I wouldn't be able to carry it around. So, I am hoping to be able to learn to use the Mamiya well enough to get the type of prints I want.

My camera hasn't arrived yet, but I've been reading the manual, and I realize it's going to be a lot different. I will hold off on asking questions until I get it in my hands and start using it... but I'm sure I'll have many soon.

Hi Cherryhill,

It's great that things are going well for you. Didn't take all that long from- how do I do this- to- I want to do more/better etc. You may have fallen down the rabbit hole congrats!! enjoy your new camera!

One thing that makes a big difference shooting landscapes is to use a sturdy tripod, not that cheapo WalMart stuff. If you have one try it on your 35mm and see if that definition issue improves any. It will be a must with the MF camera as well. I only shoot without a tripod when the situation demands it.

Cherryhill -- I'm new to the forum and read your posting re darkroom with great interest. I too live in Brentwood, have had a home drakroom for about 20 years, and would be happy to work with you one-on-one, if you still feel you need help. My equipment is simpler than yours: enlarger (Chromega dichroic), electronic timer, trays, tongs, timer, and chemistry. I very much recommend starting with RC paper and making lots of test strips.
Please reply via forum and we'll figure out how to hook up.

jpb in brentwood, tn

Cherryhill, my advice would be to keep it simple... very simple... and avoid working a bunch of gadgetry into your process prematurely. 'Tis a gift to be simple, I truly believe that.

I have a timer, that's it, and half the time I don't even use that. When I get a new pack of paper, I sacrifice one sheet for test strips.

What may be useful is to team up with an experienced printer who has some ideal and some not-so-ideal negs; the biggest source of fiddle and frustration in darkroom printing, in my [admittedly limited] experience, is negs which aren't optimally exposed and/or developed. Sounds like you are already getting hands-on advice in this regard.