Hot darkroom, hot chemicals, hot water, hot allround

[tkamiya]

I live in Central Florida and the hot summer appears to be finally over. Now it's your turn... but please don't send it back when you are done... please...

 

[johnnywalker]

Hi Nicole,
Here on the west coast of Canada we had a particularly hot and dry summer with lots of fires (although not near as bad as the ones around Melbourne last summer), so I can't say I'm sorry to see the end of it. However, I'm not looking forward to dealing with the snow. Last winter had a very heavy snowfall and I spent at least half my time dealing with it.
Have a good summer! No matter how hot it gets down there, at some point you can count on us northerners being jealous.

 

[David Brown]

Hi Nicole!!

Long time, no see.

I just got off the phone (well, leaving voicemail) with my heating/AC "guy" about putting some kind of unit in my soon to be new darkroom.* It is, of course, going from hot to cold here in the Northern hemisphere, but our summers can get blazing, as you've heard. Got to get this thing built and cooled by next Spring!

* we moved - starting from scratch

 

[domaz]

Why not just switch to color development? Your ambient temperature is already almost 38C which is required for E-6/C-41. You should have no trouble raising your solution temperatures a degree or so, and color chemicals don't mind being hot.

 

[Anscojohn]

[ What are your best tips to keep your cool without airconditioning in your darkroom? (on a budget) My darkroom is a pretty good setup considering it's temporary until my big one gets finished out the back.
*********
Been there, done that.

A towel around the head so one does not sweat on the paper. Lots of towels to keep the hands dry.

Use a hardening stop bath for the film. Maybe a tropical film developer, also.

]

 

[Maris]

I agree with Claire Senft; air-condition the darkroom. Even the smallest cheapest unit will do the job. You will be in there for hundreds of hours and you will use up thousands of dollars worth of sensitive materials. If you are addle-pated with heat and humidity you and your work will both suffer in ways that cost more than a tiny air-conditioner.

Sure enough when I built my new darkroom the air-con was central to the design. When heat wave conditions prevail I actually contrive to spend the day in the cool darkroom...ah, sybaritic bliss!

As for hot tap water, I've given up the fight. Modern films are surprisingly resistant to high temperature processing. A favorite easy to remember combination I use is Fomapan 200 in Xtol, 32 Celcius, 3 minutes 20 seconds; works a treat and the emulsion never melts or floats off.

 

[PeteZ8]

Shoot color.

 

[Eric Rose]

Wish I had that problem. In the middle of summer the hottest it gets in my darkroom is 20C. But then again it's easier to warm it up than cool it down I guess.

In fact just turned on the heater in the darkroom so I can work in there tonight.

 

[dancqu]

I'm a night owl so it's a rare late night that's too
hot to work. Generally the coolest hours are
about three hours prior to and first two
hours after dawn. Dan

 

[gamincurieux]

I've never had a problem with it. Way back when in Brussels I shared a darkroom with another fella. It was in the roof of a 5-storey building. In summer is was DISGUSTINGLY HOT in there. Really, it was awful. But I printed, couldn't notice any diff from when it was winter (and then it wasn't tooooo cold). Now I'm here in Melbourne Australia with the darkroom finally set up, and the long hot dry summer is on it's way. I have wondered how it might be, but I reckon the fact that I'm on the shaded side of the building might keep things comfortable enough in the darkroom.... even make it a haven from the heat. And that's the thing, the main issue to me is comfort, because I'm simply using humble chems like Ilford Multigrade etc, which I find to be quite resilient. If anything it might exhaust quicker - so I just make a new lot, it doesn't exactly break the bank this stuff.

 

[Jarvman]

In summer I only wear boxer shorts in the DR (apologies for any nightmare visions!). It also helps to only work for 30 minutes at a time to can get some air through periodically. I also keep several litres of water on the bottom shelf of the fridge ready to cool chems.

Haha! and I thought I was the only one who blundered around the darkroom in underwear! You know you're too far gone when you're lith printing drunk at 3AM.