Hi all APUG'ers!
I've been skulking around the site for a few months and finally joined - it's a fantastic repository of information... there's also some great 'characters' on here!
I've been involved in B&W processing and printing as a hobby on and off since I was a kid, using darkrooms at school and then at work (I used to work in research and we had great darkroom facilities - alas, all gone now in the digital age,) over the last year or so, the bug has bitten, big-time!
Whilst I do lots of digital work myself, and can really see the benefits of working digitally, I'm generally getting a bit sick of the digital world... sure, it's fun to go popping off 300 exposures over the course of a day, the laws of probability say that anyone who can operate the camera 'should' have a good shot somewhere in that lot, but having finite shooting abilities (i.e only two or three rolls of film vs. gigs, and gigs of digital storage space) makes you think so much more carefully about what you're photographing and why... and work harder on making sure that the picture is correctly composed, exposed etc... Nontheless, everything has it's place!
So... I have a reasonable amount of experience with B&W, and am starting to move in the direction of colour processing - I'm looking forward to lots of fun, and many darkroom-disasters!
To start with, I've treated myself to a new colour enlarger - a De Vere 504, with Dichromat Mk IV head and Colour 500s Mk III colour analyser (if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!) Also, colour chemistry and paper is on order from ag-photographic... almost ready to go!
Anyway... life story over, looking forward to chatting to you and sharing ideas, receiving advice etc... Ciao.
I've been skulking around the site for a few months and finally joined - it's a fantastic repository of information... there's also some great 'characters' on here!
I've been involved in B&W processing and printing as a hobby on and off since I was a kid, using darkrooms at school and then at work (I used to work in research and we had great darkroom facilities - alas, all gone now in the digital age,) over the last year or so, the bug has bitten, big-time!
Whilst I do lots of digital work myself, and can really see the benefits of working digitally, I'm generally getting a bit sick of the digital world... sure, it's fun to go popping off 300 exposures over the course of a day, the laws of probability say that anyone who can operate the camera 'should' have a good shot somewhere in that lot, but having finite shooting abilities (i.e only two or three rolls of film vs. gigs, and gigs of digital storage space) makes you think so much more carefully about what you're photographing and why... and work harder on making sure that the picture is correctly composed, exposed etc... Nontheless, everything has it's place!
So... I have a reasonable amount of experience with B&W, and am starting to move in the direction of colour processing - I'm looking forward to lots of fun, and many darkroom-disasters!
To start with, I've treated myself to a new colour enlarger - a De Vere 504, with Dichromat Mk IV head and Colour 500s Mk III colour analyser (if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!) Also, colour chemistry and paper is on order from ag-photographic... almost ready to go!
Anyway... life story over, looking forward to chatting to you and sharing ideas, receiving advice etc... Ciao.
