Darkroom lighting

Can I use an ordinary red light bulb in my darkroom while enlarging, or can that

ruin the photo paper?

Not really. The red darkroom bulbs are special made. I forget the name now, fire ball or something. Red will work, but it is not the most efficient color to use. VC paper can take a gold or yellow green safelight.

 

I do use a red bulb in the main light socket so I don`t lose the dark adaption of my eyes, but it is not safe for paper or film. Use it when you lose the dodging tool. Eyes take 10 min to adapt fully to dark.

 

Submarines used to use red light in the conning tower so the lookout crew could see immediately upon surfacing at night.

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?shs=safelight+&ci=0&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=RootPage.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t

 

The budget solution is the Delta from B&H linked above. $14.50

When I first started using my darkroom, I used an inexpensive red bulb as a safelight. In fact, I still have it and use it if I need to provide additional safelight illumination in an otherwise dark corner of my darkroom.

 

The bulb I used is readily available at hardware stores and home centers in North America - it's a 7.5 watt spherical bulb about the size of a golf ball.

 

Subsequently, I purchased a commercial safelight that uses an amber filter. Later on, I added a second safelight that I made from a coffee can and a commercial safelight filter - I simply mounted a lamp socket in the bottom of the can, attached the round filter on the open end of the can, and fabricated a mounting bracket from some scrap metal strapping that I had around the house.

I have a red and an amber LED bulb I use.....brighter, cheaper and "safer" than a real safelight. I think I spent about $25 on them, but I've since seen them on the internet as low as $10 on the internet.

There is a 5 watt amber bulb which costs about $2. It is round, with a diameter of 1 1/4 inches, and has a standard household base. It works fine.

There is no substitute for a proper safelight. Hardware store light bulbs don't work unless they are so far away from your work area and/or so dim as to be virtually useless. You can't count on these bulbs to NOT emit some light in a wavelength to which photo paper is sensitive. That's the bottom line truth, and if you want to risk an expensive box of paper on a $2 light bulb, that's your business. If you want to be safe, use whatever is recommended for the type of paper you use. That will be indicated on the tech sheet that comes with the paper. If there is no tech sheet with the paper, Google for the manufacturer and get it there.

 

Generally speaking, a proper red safelight filter (Kodak 1A and equivalent) will be fine for any type of paper on the market today, Kodak OC or equivalent safelights are safe for most variable contrast and graded papers, though there are a few brands that require red safelights. The Kodak OA or equivalent filter is greenish yellow in color and is safe only for some graded papers. These filters don't see much use these days since the vast majority of paper in use is of the variable contrast variety.

Lighting or lightning? I hope you don't have lightNING in your darkroom! :-)

 

Anyway, Frank is right. Use only a safelight designed for darkroom use. Lots are available on eBay.

That $14.50 "budget" solution that Ronald mentioned is about one third the price at a brick and mortar photo store. I just got a replacement off the shelf at Freestyle for about $4.50. Just checked their online price: $4.29. This is an actual safelight bulb designed for darkroom use, brand new. I doubt you will do much better than that.

 

Even so, I only keep it on to position things in the dark, or once I am in the stop. I also keep it on for test strips to see right away if they are grossly over or underexposed.

 

I got red because I work with litho a lot. I used to use 0C and had no problems with any paper I used.

 

Keith

I think Frank is absolutely right. You might get by with something from the hardware store but you can' count on it. I got lucky several years ago and found a pair of 10x12-inch Kodak OC glass safelight filters at a junk shop for about $5. I built a triangular shaped wooden box with cutouts for the two filters and a 25 watt bulb inside and made byself a very large and bright safelight for next to nothing. This is mounted on the celiing over my darkroom sink, with a standard Kodak 5-inch round OC safelight over the enlarger. No fogging problems and I can actually see what I'm doing after many years with just a couple of small OC lights. Should be tons of good safelights available cheap now that most of the world has gone digital.

<i>"Lighting or lightning? I hope you don't have lightNING in your darkroom! :-)"</i>

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Russ, you mean like this?<br>

<a href=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6637066492920320339&hl=en> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6637066492920320339&hl=en</a><br>

:-D

I have a 5 inch globular amber safelight bulb above the enlarger and developer tray area and a small amber bulb at the other end of the sink.I have my safelight system on a dimmer so I can turn it down as low as I want if I am doing extended development times and burning while printing to minimize and fogging of the whites. One of the paper developers I mix--Dassonville Black--takes three minutes of development.

Vlad...EXACTLY like that! ;-D