I had placed an inquiry a long time ago about Safe-light filters and today I got a Response from Ilford Technical department.
Ilford is starting to make safelight filters again.
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Andrew O'Neill
Moderator
Good news! Thanks for posting, Charles.
Good news but not cheap. No mention of the housing so will this come as well eventually or have Ilford assumed that there are plenty of housings out there and just not enough usable filters? I wonder what it will retail at in the U.S and Canada?
pentaxuser
pentaxuser
OP
OP
I know I have a few spare safe-lights equipped with 20 and 30 year old filters that I no longer trust. Kodak was charging about 100 dollars for an OC filter but has discontinued them. (the 902 is a functional equivalent to an OC" Ironically I did put a new OC in my 8X10 Ilford safe-light. and the one I am suspicious of takes two 5X7 filters.
I can easily imagine a company reintroducing the production of an existing standardized filter, but not bothering producing the housing to use them in.
The filter is after all the part that is likely to be damaged over time, and is the hardest part to reliably fabricate to detailed spec on a small scale.
Anyone with reasonable skills and building anything can probably fabricate a reliable and working safelight lamp out of an existing filter and parts they can pick up at an average hardware store. [Or just pop a new filter in an old beat up safelight] But it would be far harder to make a reliable and trustworthy safelight lifter for an existing lamp...
The main safelight in the centre of my darkroom has a 12"x10" '902' filter facing the ceiling, and a 10"x8" '902' filter facing the floor. I can see only the smaller size on the ILFORD website.
OP
OP
the note I received did say to contact them and they would look into other sizes depending on interest. I plan to measure the size of the the safelight I am concerned about and get in touch with them.
This page of Ilford safe-light filters and their uses along with the Wratten (Kodak) equivalents might be useful.
Ilford use 902 filters in the safe-lights in their paper cutting area although at a far lower intensity than in a regular darkroom, they are the best filters for VC/MG papers. I bought a NIB Ilford 10x8 906 filter (Wratten 2) a couple of years ago, this is the filter recommended for Harman Direct Positive papers.
Ian
Ilford use 902 filters in the safe-lights in their paper cutting area although at a far lower intensity than in a regular darkroom, they are the best filters for VC/MG papers. I bought a NIB Ilford 10x8 906 filter (Wratten 2) a couple of years ago, this is the filter recommended for Harman Direct Positive papers.
Ian
Do filters need to be replaced by certain period of time?
from my testing, they last at least a decade.
Only after an awful lot of daily continuous use. Even then it will depend on the materials used.
Ian
the prices of filters has gotten crazy!
its a piece of plastic for gawds sake.
after seeing this i tested my 50 year old kodak darkroom lights by leaving a sheet of mg paper in the easel for a few minutes with some pocket change on it. no fog after developing it so my filters are still ok.
as for film darkroom lights, i have an old green but i dont do inspection developing or loading under the lights for my sheet film, i use a tank and load in the dark.
its a piece of plastic for gawds sake.
after seeing this i tested my 50 year old kodak darkroom lights by leaving a sheet of mg paper in the easel for a few minutes with some pocket change on it. no fog after developing it so my filters are still ok.
as for film darkroom lights, i have an old green but i dont do inspection developing or loading under the lights for my sheet film, i use a tank and load in the dark.
Ilford's safelight filters are glass & gelatin, sandwiched with another sheet of glass, that's how some Kodak safelight filters were made as well. They are (were) made on their plate coating lines.
Many UK members have seen the Ilford glass coating line demonstrated on Ilford factory tours.
Yes sure, in some cases there's coloured acrylic sheet that might work well for some safe lights, but not for all, unless specially made, that would ramp up costs.
Ian
Have you looked at the price of any decent glass camera lens filter? Nikon, B+W, Heliopan, Leitz ??
It is good that Ilford is expanding its market in photography!
MattKing
Moderator
Better late than never - this thread is 6 years old!
MattKing
Moderator
Equally important is the need to ensure consistent light transmission, even in higher volume applications like commercial production.
That test is only part of what you need to do.
The Kodak test is one example of the necessarily more thorough test, which also checks for affects on the contrast and sensitivity behavior that can come from more subtle changes. Given the price of paper ....
And yes, it is a really boring test to do:
https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Film/KODAK-A-Guide-to-Darkroom-Illumination-K-4.pdf
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