No more darkroom....

Sportera · Dec 3, 2005

I lost my darkroom in Hurricane Katrina. Many wonderful people have sent me equipment for free, asking only for prints in return. I am truly greatful for the help I have received, however I still have no place to set up a darkroom. The travel trailor Im living in has too many windows and is too small, my parents house that survived the hurricane was an option but too many of my family live there now and there is just no spare space.

If any of you know me, I am no fan of digital, however its beginning to look like a digital solution is emmenent. You see I have this shinny new laptop with loads of ram and speed and a "True bright" screen that looks pretty damn good to my eyes. I am thinking of getting an Epson 4990 and Epson R2400 printer. Its expensive and thats why Im posting here.

For some one used to printing Selinium toned Fiber prints, what could I expect from the scanner and R2400? Anyone venture in this direction. I would hate to spend $1400 and hate the results. It may be more than a year before we have a place to call home again, and Im still shooting and proocessing but the negs are starting to pile up!

Please forgive the digital question on APUG, but I wanted a traditionalist point of view.

Sam
www.samuelportera.com

bobfowler · Dec 3, 2005

The 4990 is an excellent scanner for the money. I'm probably in the minority, but I'm not a fan of Epson printers. I find that HP photo printers do a much better job, but let's face it, it still ain't going to compare to a FB silver print...

Bob F. · Dec 3, 2005

Sorry to hear of your disaster, hope you can get fully back on track soon.

Have you considered contact prints? You have 4x5 so that will work straight out of the box. Then you can consider digitally enlarged negatives.

I will go no further with that here, but I believe The Forum That Dare Not Speak Its Name ((there was a url link here which no longer exists)) elsewhere on APUG is a source of information on such topics (I don't know for sure as I've never visited there for fear that someone may hack my PC, read my browser history, discover I have been in there and threaten me with having my licence to bore people to death with the joys of wet photography rescinded)...

Cheers, Bob.

Curt · Dec 3, 2005

I do digital color and traditional b&w. My last trip in Paris I took 244 digital color pictures on a sony cd mavica and shot 11 rolls of 120 with my Mamiya 645. The digital photos are beautiful, I haven't developed the 120' yet. My son shot digital and took my Nikon with 20 rolls of 35. I have no problem with both. I have view cameras up to 11x14.

Aggie · Dec 3, 2005

I can understand your dilemma, but at the same time there are ways to work around this if you want to. Like has been mentioned there are contact prints, using a alternative method. That is what I'm doing until my darkroom is finally up and running. I have the problem of a computer geek hubby who wouldn't know which end of a nail to hit. I have not worked with wood so it is left up to the time my neighbor with 5 kids can spend to help make the things I need. As for the questions about the digi equipment, traditionalists are not the best to ask. It would be better if you asked those on a digital site. Just like would you ask a digitilist about film?

David A. Goldfarb · Dec 3, 2005

Just think, what would Carelton Watkins do, out in the wilderness with his 20x22" (or threabouts) plate camera? Well maybe he had something like this, which isn't quite what you need--

http://www.civilwar.si.edu/life_portable_darkroom.html

Or more likely something like this (scroll down)--

http://www.geocities.com/shioshya/kolb1.html

Here's a more modern option--

http://www.firstcall-photographic.c..._Protection/Nova_Temporary_Darkroom_Tent.html

I suspect you could build such a thing yourself for a little less money.

Print drums and a roller base are also a good solution for making big prints in small spaces.

WarEaglemtn · Dec 5, 2005

I recently purchased a 2400 and it has been more than worth the money. My fine work is all done in the darkroom. This is used to scan prints and for the quickie mailings as well as custom specialty cards for some clients. Really nice on printing in B&W as well as color.

I also use it for printing sports photos for the local HS kids & parents. Sure saves me a lot of time in the dark on step & repeat stuff that sells but doesn't do much for creative time with the contact printer & enlarger.

Shot a wrestling tournament this past weekend & on Fri night downloaded 557 pixelography images from the 10D. Chose four to print & did 11x14 color prints to take to the meet director for display near the bout sheets on the wall at 9am the next morning. No film processing/drying and printing. Saved myself a minimum of 2 days work this way... for production the pixelography works well and the printer was fast, easy and the print quality for the tournament was just fine.

There is a place for this stuff. I do prefer the fine B&W hand made print in the darkroom but the tradeoff here was being able to sleep overnight & still get the prints done for those interested.

The 2400 is fast & clean working and quiet.

David A. Goldfarb · Dec 5, 2005

Yeah, but will they be able to say one day, "here's what grandpa looked like when he was on the varsity wrestling team"?

Phillip P. Dimor · Dec 5, 2005

I do 4x5 contact prints, mostly cyanotypes using nothing more than a bathroom and a contact printing frame. It's an idea. Van Dyke Browns and Kallitypes can look great as well.

There are also vintage contact printing boxes with a lightbulb inside, you could print gelatin silver in a bathroom more than likely.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss though..

Lee Shively · Dec 5, 2005

Sam, I sympathize. I have no knowledge of anything digital so I can't help on that front. If you depend on photography for your living, digital is probably the way to go. If you are doing photography for the love of photography, there are some alternatives.

You can process film without a darkroom. You can load film onto reels or holders inside a changing bag and use a daylight processing tank to complete the process with the lights on. Unless you have a pressing need, there's no reason to print your negatives right away. You can hold onto them until you are able to set up printing facilities in the future.

Printing can be accomplished at night in an "almost" dark room almost anyplace. I don't think I've ever had a darkroom that was truly dark. Maybe you can find a place to store your equipment and be able to set up a temporary darkroom for occasional printing.

Since you have just come through a traumatic experience and your whole life has been turned upside down, tackling the learning curve of a whole new system of taking pictures could be frustrating. If there's no real hurry to get back into photography, don't rush it.

avandesande · Dec 5, 2005

I don't think anybody here can tell you if you will like the results. However you wont do so bad to mess around with digital for a few months and then dump it on ebay, epson printers will hold their value for a reasonable amount of time. Just be careful with the box and packing materials and you can sell it in mint condition.
Make sure to spend the money for a dust cover for the scanner because that is what will inevitably ruin it.

I went through this exercise a few years ago and I now feel informed in my choice to stick with traditional processes.

psvensson · Dec 5, 2005

Cyanotypes! Shoot 4x5 and process in a daylight tank. Coat cyanotypes by night and print them by day. The process does use quite a bit of water.

agGNOME · Dec 5, 2005

Hey Sam,
I'm living in Lafayette now, but will always consider New Orleans home. One option you may consider is doing your work at The Darkroom. I used to work there, here's the info:
neworleansdarkroom.com
1927 Sophie Wright Place ( where magazine splits)
New Orleans, LA 70119
504-522-3211
It's a community darkroom; requires membership and fees for use.
But, everything you need to do black and white printing is available to you from start to finish. The chemicals are provided so you don't even have to handle chemistry just soup your prints. If you tone your prints there's a seperate daylight room for that (common toners provided). Process your film, mount or flatten your prints with a press, use the mat cutter, hang out and talk to interesting people, raise your beer and toast to silver based photography .....it's a great place. Check the website, sometimes they have workshops or other events that alter access times.

good luck, Cameron

TomWB · Dec 5, 2005

I would spend the money at Home Depot or Lowes on an 8x10 shed (or make from scratch) that I would make into a darkroom at the parents' place, assuming they have a yard to put it in... I have the Epson 3200 and Nikon 4000 film scanner and got 1280 printer this spring. Compared to darkroom printing, the d*gital printing is kind of like an addiction like alcoholism , you keep coming back expecting more, but it never really satisfies you like the silver print...that's just my experience...

avandesande · Dec 5, 2005

I was always getting artifacts when I was trying to create a decent looking 'toe' in my curves.
If you really like the look of a silver print, the surest way to get that is to make a silver print.

bill schwab · Dec 5, 2005

Sportera said:
For some one used to printing Selinium toned Fiber prints, what could I expect from the scanner and R2400?

Complete and utter disappointment.

As one who has gone a long way, even to the point of helping develop carbon pigment ink set for the large format Epsons, I can tell you that you will never be satisfied if you compare the two.

Whereas the prints I am capable of digitally now are very nice in their own right and display no metamerism whatsoever (which is what you're going to find trying to print B&W with color inks no matter what ANYONE will tell you) it is my opinion that a silver print is always going to be more satisfying.

So sorry to hear of your situation and hoping you find an alternative darkroom situation.

Bill

celluloidpropaganda · Dec 5, 2005

The R2400 is an excellent printer, but if this is a temporary situation and you don't need huge prints, I'd look at the HP line. They've got a 13x19 printer for half the price of the R2400 and an 8x10 for much less.

I'm not sure exactly which formats you shoot, but I'd expect to be disappointed in the 4990's 35mm and MF performance more than the printer.

One option, for the same cost as a 4990/R2400, might be an HP printer and a used Artixscan 120tf (if you shoot much medium-format).

kwmullet · Dec 5, 2005

I've been darkroomless for a while since moving to a new house and have been working off and on at finding a recipe for making do with no temperature control, not a lot of space, low cost and only a changing bag for dark.

I've been experimenting off and on with Ansco 130 as a split developer, but I've recently found that I get nice results with Tri-X shot at 400 (instead of 1600 or 1200 as some recommend) and developed in Diafine. I use a piece of PVC, a scrap piece of wood, an old blow dryer, a bolt and some bailing wire for a nearly foolproof dryer that dries on the reel, so drying doesn't present a space problem. Next up, I'm going to start playing with Centennial printing out paper so I can do contact sheets. I suspect I'll eventually have a setup that would fit in a dairy crate that would let me process film and do contact prints.

Before you "cave" to the time, expense and diminished quality of digital, perhaps you might want to invest in a box of diafine and some printing out paper to see if you can get satisfactory results with 4x5 contact prints for a while.

Best of luck,

-KwM-

OldBikerPete · Dec 6, 2005

Sportera said:
For some one used to printing Selinium toned Fiber prints, what could I expect from the scanner and R2400? Anyone venture in this direction. I would hate to spend $1400 and hate the results. It may be more than a year before we have a place to call home again, and Im still shooting and proocessing but the negs are starting to pile up!

Please forgive the digital question on APUG, but I wanted a traditionalist point of view.

Sam
Dead Link Removed

Look here for a performance estimate of scanner.
http://largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/scanner-comparison-fallback.html

You're unlikely to achieve better than 1000DPI (~20lp/mm) with any flatbed scanner.

Sportera · Dec 6, 2005

Thank you all for the advice. I think I may explore the Public darkroom option before spending money that I really can't spare right now. I think maybe just a lower priced printer and forget the scanner all together. Fiber prints are what I love so I should stick to that.

No more darkroom....

Sportera

bobfowler

Bob F.

Curt

Aggie

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

WarEaglemtn

David A. Goldfarb

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Phillip P. Dimor

Lee Shively

avandesande

psvensson

agGNOME

TomWB

avandesande

bill schwab

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celluloidpropaganda

kwmullet

OldBikerPete

Sportera

No more darkroom....

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