LED Safelight Findings

[zkascak]

I had a no plumbing ski locker turned dark closet of about 15 usable square feet from 2012 on, it was fun and hell at the same time and I managed to easily do 16x20's using a home made tray stacker and even 20x24's in Jobo 3063 drums. It was not perfect but it made me innovate within those limits and be 101% sure a real darkroom was what I wanted.

It took over ten years for me to finally arrive at what I am building now so instead of it appearing like the usual meth lab or cold war era morgue, the place is going to be a work of art in which to make art. And a big part of that will be to at first share this passion with who ever wants to make the trek to this magical lab at 7,300 feet in the heart of the Rockies, so come on out and hole up in the guest room and take a load off. Eventually I intend to do workshops in addition to move from my full time work as a commercial shooter to the making and selling of fine silver gel prints, but that will take a couple years after the place is done.

I expect the digs to be up and running around Fall and with three LPL4550 XLG / VCCE enlargers to round out the dry side, this darkroom will pretty capable. The westside will feature both a 16x20 and 20x24 print washer, either Patterson or SS tanks and Hewes reels or simply use the Jobo CPP3 from 35mm up to 4x5.

Due to my clashing with a particular person regarding how best to promote the health of film, I am limiting my posting on here quite a bit but I just wanted to extend a personal invitation to you once this fun house is ready to roll.

Keep the faith man, it is worth it.

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I have been moving back and forth between darkrooms fro a number of years. When I took the black and white photography course offered at my university I had access to our beautiful darkroom in the art department. Then over break I had to start working once again out of my basement. While going through our old 16mm film trying to salvage what I could for archiving a year ago I found a whole bunch of equipment and restarted our darkroom. I have rebuilt two enlargers out of the four enlargers that we had and have gotten one of our four moviolas working again for use in the archiving of strips of film left in the editing bins. What is really fun is that in the winter is that the cold water is never anywhere near cold. The other day I was processing a roll of black and white film and had to get a tray of snow from the loading dock because the cold water was coming out of the tap at 80°F and the hot water was about 115°F. That would be perfect for C-41 and E6 not so much for black and white.

I am lucky to have access to these facilities for another eight months, but it is at times a love hate relationship.

The last of the safelights in the the wet room have finally blown and came across this post and a couple others when looking for cheapish replacements. I picked up a pack of Philips led red sphere string lights the day after Christmas at Target on clearance that I am gong to test in the coming days.

 

[mgb74]

(big snip)
The last of the safelights in the the wet room have finally blown and came across this post and a couple others when looking for cheapish replacements. I picked up a pack of Philips led red sphere string lights the day after Christmas at Target on clearance that I am gong to test in the coming days.

It's been mentioned before, but these LED bulbs have been reported to work very well in the darkroom. Also, you did not mention what lights you had that "finally blown" but if Thomas Duplex, I have read of compatible "generic" sodium vapor bulbs that are compatible and cheaper than the ones marketed for the Thomas. Still a bit hard to find though.

 

[zkascak]

It's been mentioned before, but these LED bulbs have been reported to work very well in the darkroom. Also, you did not mention what lights you had that "finally blown" but if Thomas Duplex, I have read of compatible "generic" sodium vapor bulbs that are compatible and cheaper than the ones marketed for the Thomas. Still a bit hard to find though.

These were incandescent bulbs in ceiling mounted boxes with glass amber filters. As we are moving in about eight months I did not want to try and find replacement bulbs for such a short time, it was cheaper to buy a box of string lights on clearance than three 40 watt bulbs. Besides I now have the light where I need it as opposed to behind me where my shadow blocks everything.

 

[scheimfluger_77]

This is a topic that has received a lot of “ink” in this and the LFF forum. I just received an amber version of the G11 bulb from Superbright LED’s. In my unscientific test, the amber bulb by itself does not pass the CD test. Using a Premier 5x7 safelight and placing one each of the Rosco theatrical gels, 3406 & 3407 over the opening does seem to eliminate all of the blue and green end of the spectrum. This one is not terribly bright though. The red version is quite bright and though it passes the CD test, mostly, I have seen a little bit of blue from the bare bulb under certain distances/angles/ etc. One each of the afore mentioned gels over the red bulb seems to completely solve the problem and it is still quite bright. Of course this does not replace proper safelight testing in your situation.

I do not remember the name of the forum member but he swears by these bulbs (red G11) in his darkroom. I also do not remember the name of the person who told us about the CD test but again he says it has been a completely reliable indicator for safelight use.