New to darkroom photography. Recommendations for safelights?

Hello,

I am new to darkroom photography. I am setting up an enlarger in a spare bedroom, and developing trays in the bathtub in my only bathroom. Can anyone recommend what you consider a good safelight? I am only working in black and white, and with variable contrast papers.

Thanks,

Phil

Get a single red LED bulb, dim is better. You're going to need to test it if you are interested. There's no such thing as a perfect safelight. If you can stay in dim light between prints, your eyes will adapt to the dark.

Adox makes a red led one that I think is pretty good. I do keep it pointed at the ceiling as to get indirect light from it though. I am probably a bit too paranoid after having a different manufacturer’s safe light fog a few dry plates.

Welcome to posting on Photrio.
There are a few safelights still being sold by businesses that supply darkroom users, but they tend to be expensive.
The trick with safelights is that the spectrum of light emitted is as important as how bright they are.
Many of us have had success re-purposing other light sources, designed for other purposes, that just happen to be usable for a darkroom.
In my case, I've had a lot of success with LED rope lights that emit red light - in many cases designed as Christmas lights!
The challenge though is that you can't tell by just looking at the light emitted. Just because the light is red doesn't mean it is the right type of red.
So you have to be willing to test.
This link is to a very detailed and comprehensive test - so detailed and comprehensive that it is downright boring. But it is worth doing the entire test, because it helps confirm whether or not the safelight fogs paper and whether or not the safelight has an affect on the speed and contrast behavior of the paper.
https://www.kodak.com/content/products-brochures/Film/KODAK-A-Guide-to-Darkroom-Illumination-K-4.pdf

Recently I set up my small darkroom and bought darkroom safe red LED light for darkroom. They work fine for small room, since I only have a closet. They might be slightly dim if you have a large darkroom.

Welcome aboard @Premier!

Premier said:

Can anyone recommend what you consider a good safelight? I am only working in black and white, and with variable contrast papers.

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There's a difference between papers; some papers work OK with an amber safelight (they will also work OK with red) and others (esp. Foma) that really need a red safelight as amber will fog them. So the safest bet is a red safelight. I've personally used red LED strips shielded with an extra layer of rubylith. This has worked well for me for years. There's a limit to how bright you can make it before the paper starts to fog; this depends mostly on the paper you use. E.g. Fomaspeed will fog a a few stops earlier than the much slower Fomatone. So whichever solution you choose, be sure to perform adequate tests as @MattKing outlines above. Note that only testing for fogging of the whites is not adequate! You really need to determine as well whether there's an effect on the contrast, even if the safelight doesn't generate image tone by itself. It can still act as a contrast-reducing fogging exposure.

It depends very much of the paper. Dark red is always safe, but be sure there is no green in the spectrum. Verify it with the reflection at a CD which will show the light spectrum. Foma paper needs strictly dark red without any other content.

For me, I dislike the red darkroom illumination. I use Ilford paper, because it can be handled at bright and very comfortable orange safelight. The Ilford SL1 darkroom lamp is very bright and safe for Ilford multigrade papers.

You may find some old green darkroom lamps on the second hand market. Forget them. They are for fixed grade papers only.

Sanug said:

For me, I dislike the red darkroom illumination. I use Ilford paper, because it can be handled at bright and very comfortable orange safelight. The Ilford SL1 darkroom lamp is very bright and safe for Ilford multigrade papers.

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This is quite plausible, and to add a little theory to it: part of the reason why amber safelight is preferred by some is because it's just inherently brighter due to the sensitivity of the human eye. See for a brief explanation this page: https://light-measurement.com/spectral-sensitivity-of-eye/ You simply need a lot less yellow light for the same perceived brightness compared to red light.