suppose

Photo Engineer said:

... and print them on my own version of Ilfochrome. That would probably be the only color material that could be coated in a home darkroom with any chance of success.

PE

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Don't forget tricolor gum bichromate or 3-color carbro.

Then there's also wetplate collodion for the monochrome negatives/positives and various alternative print processes (salted paper, albumen, van dyke, PT/Pd, cyanotype, etc.).

Joe

BruceN said:

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a Luddite there, as well: My favorite hunting bow is an English style longbow made from Pacific Yew, and I make the arrows from cedar and turkey feathers. I'll admit to being a bit modern in that I make my strings from dacron and use steel heads and plastic nocks on the arrows. Of course, I use modern film in my cameras, too. OK, you can have the thread back now.

Bruce

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Actually Bruce,

I use a O.L. Adcock take down longbow that was custom made for me with shield cust barred turkey feathers and cedar shafts, I also have a couple of English long bows made from Pacific Yew and I collect the older Fred Bear bows that I use every once in a while, I have not shot my Compounds for quite a number years, I pretty much stopped shooting them when I quit shooting for Martin Archery, I do have one flatbow, that I use wood arrows with and reed arrows with flint tips on, that one really brings out the people when I use it!

Dave

OK, that tears it. Next spring we are going to have to have a photo/archery camping trip.

Satinsnow said:

Actually Bruce,

I use a O.L. Adcock take down longbow that was custom made for me with shield cust barred turkey feathers and cedar shafts, I also have a couple of English long bows made from Pacific Yew and I collect the older Fred Bear bows that I use every once in a while, I have not shot my Compounds for quite a number years, I pretty much stopped shooting them when I quit shooting for Martin Archery, I do have one flatbow, that I use wood arrows with and reed arrows with flint tips on, that one really brings out the people when I use it!

Dave

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JHannon said:

I am more concerned about the level of Quality Control from the smaller film manufacturers once the big players are gone. We are used to opening a box of film or paper from companies like Kodak and Ilford and getting reasonable consistency from box to box.

I have not used film or paper from the smaller companies (like Efke, for example. Not to pick on them). Does anyone have similar concerns?

--John

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Indeed John, that is a concern.
Even when we would examine the lot to lot variation of all existing films, it is my impression, that even for famous films, there will be some greater diffferences to detect, then that we think or hope.

Fred

smieglitz said:

Don't forget tricolor gum bichromate or 3-color carbro.

Then there's also wetplate collodion for the monochrome negatives/positives and various alternative print processes (salted paper, albumen, van dyke, PT/Pd, cyanotype, etc.).

Joe

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I don't but I was just relating to multilayers not 3 color systems. There is also Bromoil and dye transfer along with Kodahcrome which can be done one layer at a time.

Of course, you have to know how to spectrally sensitize in all of these, and do a lot of curve shape adjustment. It isn't easy no matter which way you go.

PE

Satinsnow said:

I would hope so, Archery is one of the most highly developed sports on the planet now, the amount of high tech research that goes into ever new bow or arrow would amaze you, most of the companies designing new bows as well as materials and new arrows have PHd. in engineering and design.

Dave

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There are a lot of people doing a lot of experimentation with new developers and techniques with film too - I think B&W film is going to be around for a long time.

fred said:

What could I do for still doing the b & w work in the darkroom?
what about fiber papers?? Can I make a warmtone paper myself?

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There are a number of alt processes that produce stunning prints and come with the benefit of being able to coat all sorts of papers. Ahhh.. All the surface options...

Visit some alt process sites, read some books, sooo many options for recording images and printing them.

- Randy

Pick up a copy of "Primitive Photography". Inside you'll find instructions for building your own cameras and film holders, sensitizing your own paper negatives, making your own contact prints, and even assembling your own lenses from optical components. Even if every supplier shut down tomorrow, I'd still be making B&W prints for the rest of my life.

But so far, I've had extremely good luck with the stuff I've purchased from the smaller suppliers (Foma, Efke, etc.) and will continue to support them along with anyone else who's making B&W supplies. I expect in time film and silver papers will become a "boutique" items, but I doubt that they'll disappear in my lifetime. (Of course, I'm not looking forward to another 50 years of life any more, so if you're young you might want to study up on alternative processes...)

Mongo said:

Pick up a copy of "Primitive Photography". Inside you'll find instructions for building your own cameras and film holders, sensitizing your own paper negatives, making your own contact prints, and even assembling your own lenses from optical components. Even if every supplier shut down tomorrow, I'd still be making B&W prints for the rest of my life.

But so far, I've had extremely good luck with the stuff I've purchased from the smaller suppliers (Foma, Efke, etc.) and will continue to support them along with anyone else who's making B&W supplies. I expect in time film and silver papers will become a "boutique" items, but I doubt that they'll disappear in my lifetime. (Of course, I'm not looking forward to another 50 years of life any more, so if you're young you might want to study up on alternative processes...)

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Beautiful answer Mongo.
What are the references of the book?

If 56 is young? ..., I think it's very young....
At 60 I will go to the university of life for studiing "alt processes"...


Fred

fred said:

Beautiful answer Mongo.
What are the references of the book?

If 56 is young? ..., I think it's very young....
At 60 I will go to the university of life for studiing "alt processes"...


Fred

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The full title of the book is "Primitive Photography : A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses, and Calotypes". It's by Alan Greene, and the ISBN number is 0240804619. I picked it up based on the description I read on amazon.com; even if you don't intend to start using his processes immediately you'll learn a whole lot about the basic theory behind photography (even though the book itself isn't terribly theoretical; it tends to be more descriptive and only delves into theory when necessary). It's an easy read, and I especially enjoyed the section on lenses (which did lead me to build a few lenses of my own to experiment with).

Amazon's selling it for $21.09, which is a good bargain. The film holders that he describes will only work with the cameras that he describes, but if you were forced to start over from scratch his cameras look very workable and pretty easy to build. (In fact, it would be pretty simple to adapt his camera models to something like foam core board for real experimentation purposes.)

His sections on making paper negatives and contact prints are well illustrated, and he gives a number of formulas for the emulsions depending on your tastes in image tone.

All in all, I think it's one of my most read photogarphic books, even though I've only actually built lenses based on his book. He's basically re-discovered a bunch of very old processes and updated them for modern chemistry and paper, created very workable models for cameras (which are easily scaled to whatever size you wish to use), explained basic lens theories and provided a few simple lens formulas that give surprisingly good results...basically taken the information from the early days of photogarphy and made it available in a useful fashion today. For the price, I think it's an exceptionally valuable book.

(As to what the definition of "old" is...I have no idea. At the age of 45 I still feel young, but I really don't expect to see another 50 years. )