First time developing B/W in 20 years

And to think I envisioned you having a fully-equipped darkroom with labyrinth or revolving door, opening into a couple of hundred square foot of space lined with sinks, workbenches and several enlargers.

I seriously thought about it when I was adding on to the house. ;)

I have a tiny darkroom in the corner of the basement, built by the previous house owner.

 

It was some years after we bought the house that I tried using it, though.

 

Tiny but with four safelights. Actually five, it has an 8x10 inch #3, which I have never used.

 

Small, but big enough for film developing or printing.

 

That, and someone giving away an enlarger got me to start again after over 20 years.

I generally USE my D76 at whatever temperature it is from sitting in a jug on the floor of the bathroom, but I always MEASURE it(I use a mercury in glass lab thermometer) and adjust the processing time according to the temperature where it's actually sitting.

 

BTW, the typical temperature is 19ºC.

I used to think that when I retired (and that was 3 years ago for me) I'd have a darkroom. I don't, but the reason is that the world changed. I do have a very nice sunlit office with a Nikon Coolscan scanner though, as well as an old Epson Perfection V500 scanner. AND I have a ... well... cabinet with all my developing stuff including chemicals, developing tanks, darkroom guides, and so on that I use when developing, and a changing bag. So I "kinda" have a darkroom?

 

I miss the magical watching of prints appear in the developer as if by magic, but trouble is I wasn't that GOOD at printing anyway. And given that modern printers tend to need you to print all the time to keep the printheads working (and that takes a LOT of expensive ink) and there is really no place to USE the prints (except maybe rarely) I don't even have a good photographic computer printer. If only I could have one that would print only once in a while flawlessly.

 

Life doublecrosses your expectations.

I miss the magical watching of prints appear in the developer as if by magic, but trouble is I wasn't that GOOD at printing anyway.

 

an additional sad enlightenment and self realization for many of us

I think it requires great patience and a meticulous attention to detail to be a really good printer. Probably also true with digital printing, but even without those characteristics, you can do pretty good work in a way that always eluded me in the darkroom.