Still have the darkroom?

[ted_white2]

<p>That's a great card, Maris. As for me, I've had a darkroom - one way or another - all of my life. I still have my Simmons-Omega B22XL that I bought new in 1971 from St. Louis Photo. I started out in black and white and I'll stay there. Colors tend to seduce the eye. I have a Leica M6, a beat-up black and brassy Pentax Spotmatic, and a Rolleiflex 2.8. I really don't need anything else.</p>

[rothelle]

<p>I still have a darkroom. I will always have one. I once set one up in my closet were I just did the printing and then put in a light tight tray to process. It was great and love the things that came out of it. now I move it into my studio were I have more room. I also have a Sidekick that help me to develop my negs and a nice scaner and I don't do digital prints with it only on canvas.</p>

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[leon strembitsky]

<p>Still have the gear for a full color or b&w darkroom good to 4x5 but it's been stored in the garage for about four years. Anybody want it? I'm still shooting and processing (Sidekick) b&w film and color transparencies but they get scanned and printed digitally. Took a while to get used to my b&w's looking more like platinum prints but the technology is moving along quicky and improving all the time. As soon as I can afford a digital camera/back that matches both quality and the ability to produce big files that are comparable to my scanned 4x5 then I'll happily go completely digital. Never liked working in the darkroom. It wasn't the process for me, as it is for a lot of folks, it was always about the end product. Right now I'm getting better finished photos with inkjet prints than I ever did in the wet darkroom. Just my two cents.</p>

[patrick_mont]

<p>I do not have one (yet)...but I have really been getting an itch to put one in!</p>

[russmarshall]

<p>Been shooting film my whole life - from the early 1950's 'till now. I think Tri-X was ASA 200 then. Processed it in FG-7. As to darkrooms, my first was in my parents basement on my Dad's workbench and I could only use it at night. At first I only made contact prints with an Ansco kit which consisted of square metal box, 8"x8"x8", a hinged lid on top and two light bulb sockets inside for white light and a safe light. Also 3 little 3-1/2" x 6-1/2" black plastic trays, packs of chemistry, a small safelight and wooden tongs. My first enlarger was a Bessler 23C, new in 1957. I've worked in school darkrooms, U.S. Navy darkrooms in Florida, Cuba and Puerto Rico, a couple of small commercial studio darkrooms and company darkrooms as an employee. <br>

I've rented a few at times and used friends' darkrooms. I had one set up in a studio apartment bathroom with the trays in the tub, an apartment kitchen with the trays on the sink and the enlarger on the dishwasher. My first "real" one was in a 3 room office space - the darkroom was 6'X12'. I built a 2' x 6' plywood sink for that one. Acquired an Omega Pro Lab 4x5 enlarger at this point. Moved to a rented house several years later and made a darkroom out of a former 10'x12' storage room in the basement. Built a new sink which I still have - 9'x3'x10' - 3/4" and 1/2" plywood and pine board. <br>

Am now in an old warehouse converted into loft apartments for the past 12 years. My darkroom here is a 17'x18' space that doubles as storage for chemistry and file cabinets for contacts and negatives. Really bigger than I "need". I've made most of the prints I'm most proud of here in this darkroom. I'm going to have to give it up soon. The building is almost completely abandoned now - just two units occupied out of 15 when I first came. The building owners have neglected to maintain it. I've had serious water floods raining down on me from upper floors due to poorly maintained plumbing but fortunately not near the darkroom or print storage areas. Frozen pipes bursting lately.<br>

I can't envision the day when I would give up the darkroom in favor of digital shooting and PhotoShop. I did buy a low price digital camera a year or so ago expressly for copying prints (16x20, 20x24) too large to scan on my Epson 4990. This, as a way to download to my hard drive and then up load to my web site - or is it the other way around? And I only got a computer and scanner 2 years ago because I wanted to put up a web site.I do not and can not think of digital ink jet prints as serious items of any value.<br>

This response is way longer than I expected to make. Just that the impending inevitabillty of loosing <strong>this</strong> darkroom makes me extremely sad and anxious because I may not find a place to set up again in the near future. I'm very mindful of all the negatives (all b&w) I have that may never get printed. There seems to be so much more to do. <br>

Due to the forums on Photo.net and others, my darkroom skills have fine-tuned considerably and I've learned more than I thought was out there to learn. I cannot imagine subverting and abandoning all that for another system so foreign to me and so seemingly plastic and "unreal" and gutless. <br>

I feel I have to say that I know that digital everything is really great and everyone has to follow their own Muse. But if it's not in your gut, I'd say forget it! </p>

[benny_spinoza]

<p>I still have all of my darkroom equipment, but since we moved 2.5 years ago, I have not set up a darkroom. There it sits...the enlarger in the garage gathering dust. The rest of the stuff stored here and there. I scan film on my Nikon 9000, and print using Adoramapix. Why have I kept my equipment?....because maybe someday when the kids are older, and the junk in the garage gets cleaned out, I'll put together a darkroom again. I recently compared a print from digitally scanning film to a wet darkroom print from the same negative. The two were almost identical, even though the processing of the wet print was done with room temperature chemicals. Interestingly, when looking at the prints with a loupe, the digital showed artifacts, but of course not the print from the wet darkroom. On the other hand, one can do amazing stuff once a negative has been scanned. Color adjustments can be made to selected portions...etc.</p>

<p>Has anyone tried the portable darkroom sold by novadarkroom? It looks interesting.</p>

[raymondborg]

<p>I have leanrt a lot from my darkroom by developing & printing my work. Nowadays, I miss the darkroom a lot but one have to accept reallity. Technology have changed and we have to change accordingly. Now I am scanning all my negatives to transform them to digital file. I also purchased a digital camera and it's the only camera I am using now. No more darkroom work. It's something of the past.</p>

[wai_leong_lee]

<p>I use my darkroom regularly. Stuff is so cheap now I can get eqpt I could only dreamed of!</p>

<p>Scanning takes too much time, doesn't make sense to me. If I wanted a digital file, I would have shot a DSLR.</p>

[radek_hensler]

<p>Conrad, now you see you are not alone in this world.<br>

I also still use my darkroom for B&W. Just developing. I don't have any enlarger.<br>

I love fuji acros and neopan and nothing is going to change it.<br>

After short episode with digital I am also back to fuji reala (but procesing in commercial lab).<br>

Best Regards,<br>

Radek</p>

<p> </p>

[davidmorrow]

<p>Yes. But right now my darkroom is currently in storage until I can find a space to use it. I will not give it up. In the mean time I have been learning digital and color but am still not convinced that pixels are equivalent to grain. Or whether or not digital prints are as archival as silver ones. Time spent scanning many of my B&W negs is terribly tedious and time consuming.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I use my darkroom often. I love it. My learning curve in digital (mainly post-production) is still steep, but for colour I use digital a lot. On the other hand, I love film and darkroom B&W, and the potential the darkroom offers me for its creative application continually amazes me (my digital B&W results are less good, at least to date).</p>

<p>The on-going strength of B&W films, papers and darkroom interest are good news. You have to seek them out, but they are there, and will no doubt continue to be there, but perhaps at increasing price. I hope colour E-6 process film will continue also (Fuji has recently reintroduced its Velvia film and the Agfa paper process is being reintroduced by another manufacturer).</p>

<p>It's not a question of "either, or". </p>

[conrad_hoffman]

<p>Though unused right now, another reason I keep the darkroom is the remote possibility that somehow, someday, somewhere, I'll run across somebody who wants to learn traditional wet process techniques. I don't have much space, but just enough to show a person how to mix chemistry from scratch, process film using deadly chemicals like stop bath and how to dodge and burn and spot. Or, how to make negs good enough that you mostly don't have to. Fiber paper? When I started out that was the only kind there was. As local companies downsized some years back, the resulting surplus allowed me to equip my darkroom with equipment I couldn't have dreamed of back when I was starting out. No shortage of film cameras here either.</p>

[User_502260]

<p>I use part of my basement as a darkroom. I would also say that it isn't really suitable during daytime hours. Right now my only digital camera is being repaired but I mostly shoot film anyway. My first darkroom was the upstairs bathroom in my parents' house. The enlarger was an old Federal diffusion type. Later I built a table and some shelves in the basement and graduated to a Bogen 22A Special which I still have and use. I much prefer condenser enlargers. I lived in an apartment for 12 years and during that time I developed film but did not print unless I rented darkroom space. I had a darkroom in the basement of my first house. Th enlarger went on top of the washing machine, the trays went on the dryer and the sink was right there. I also had a neat shelf over the dryer where the mixed up chemicals I used most often were kept. In my current house I have enlargers and trays on a long table with the sink in the next room next to the washing machine. Eventually I will want to set up a sink near the table. I am back to developing the film in the kitchen again just like I did in my parents' house while President Nixon was in his first term.</p>

[aldo_ausiello]

<p>Dear Conrad, I am very happy of my dark room (only B&W). This is the third time that I have build one of those, due to transfer of my house. </p>

[35mmdelux]

<p>I have a Saunders 670 LPL for when I want to print fibre based paper. Wet printing is easy and you can get some beautiful hand-crafted prints. Prosumer scanners/printers do not achieve this level of quality nor the depth of tonality.</p>

<p> </p>

[golden]

<p>I love my darkroom, i have an omega DII. i have all the different neg holders but usually just enlarge from 4x5 and 6x9. </p>

[dweezil]

<p>I share a darkroom with the washingmachine the dryer and the boiler.<br>

As far as DR equipment I got a meopta 5 enlarger some tray's and and a FB dryer glazer.</p>

 

[sfcole]

<p>"Technology have changed and we have to change accordingly"<br>

No, we don't.</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>It's encouraging to see such a strong response to your question Conrad. Some of the "film is dead" crowd seem to be almost offended that a lot of us still use film and a wet darkroom. I just don't get that. From what I see, most film users are not anti digital and their continued use of an old process is not a comment against digital.<br>

To add to the other replys, yes I have a modest darkroom that has to be set up in the bathroom. A small Durst Reporter, some Nikor tanks and reels plus a Yankee tank for my 16mm Mamiyas and Minoltas, a few chemicals and trays and Ilford paper and I'm good to go. Can't make very large prints on the reporter baseboard, 8X10 is about it. have a Mamiya enlahead for the 16mm cameras. I'm not completely analog, I use a flatbed scanner to check my negs for printing oppertunities.</p>

[VKinCA]

<p>For B&W, I think a wet darkroom is the best way to go if you want to create a piece of art that is truly original from one handcrafted print to the next handcrafted print. Comparing Film vs digital is like asking someone which they would choose if they were offered either A) a handmade bronze statue, or B) an identical statue made from the latest high-tech plastic injection mold. I know what I would choose as a printer and a collector... (Hint) it's not B. </p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>I still shoot and process B&W film and my lab processes color. I have a hybrid aproach. All film gets scanned and printed on pigmented inkjet on cotton rag papers. After years making traditional silver prints there is no way I am going back to that method. The control offered in digital printing is just too great. The quality is there. No more dark, smelly room or hands in chemicals. I'm a traditionalist at heart but I'm NEVER going back to that!</p>

[bobcossar]

<p>OK, all you darkroom guys.....I see a lot of you use film and then scan the negatives. Well, a news flash for you.......the resulting images, very good though they undoubtably are, will absolutely <em><strong>NOT</strong> </em> have the film look that everyone seems to care about!<br>

That look comes from grain or dye clouds printed using a <strong>lens</strong> ......not a <strong>scanner</strong> . You scan it, you change it, simple as that. So, if you really want to be purists, it's <strong>wet</strong> ....all the way....regards...Bob</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1487895">Bob Cossar</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub4.gif" alt="" title="Subscriber" /> <img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" title="Frequent poster" /> </a> , Dec 29, 2008; 08:49 p.m. (<a href="../bboard/admin-edit-msg?msg_id=00RwS3">edit</a> | <a href="../bboard/admin-delete-msg?msg_id=00RwS3">delete</a> )</p>

 

<p>OK, all you darkroom guys.....I see a lot of you use film and then scan the negatives. Well, a news flash for you.......the resulting images, very good though they undoubtably are, will absolutely <em><strong>NOT</strong> </em> have the film look that everyone seems to care about!<br /> That look comes from grain or dye clouds printed using a <strong>lens</strong> ......not a <strong>scanner</strong> . You scan it, you change it, simple as that. So, if you really want to be purists, it's <strong>wet</strong> ....all the way....regards...Bob</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Nothing like a bit of pointless provocation to stir up the old film versus digital hornets nest, hmm, Bob? I'm pretty sure we already got your answer the first time:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1487895">Bob Cossar</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub4.gif" alt="" title="Subscriber" /> <img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" title="Frequent poster" /> </a> , Dec 26, 2008; 11:13 p.m. (<a href="../bboard/admin-edit-msg?msg_id=00Rugp">edit</a> | <a href="../bboard/admin-delete-msg?msg_id=00Rugp">delete</a> )</p>

 

<p>Never....spent too many hours in the dark, smelly room. Never would go back to the chains of film.</p>

 

</blockquote>

[henry_alive]

<p >I took my first serious photo in May 2003, when my wife gave me a Nikon N55. At that time, I did not know anything about photography, so I decided to take classes. Two years later, I built a Darkroom at home, and since that time I have been taken only Black and White 35 mm. Today, I have an Opemus 6 magnifier, a Saunders Easel and an Analyzer Pro (RH Design), the best tool in my darkroom. It is as big as 3 m x 2 m, and there is running water, cool and hoot. I am working with TX400 and HC110, even though I had worked with HP5 plus and Rodinal. I do not have the Nikon N55 any more. Instead, I have a F100 and FM3a. Some of my lenses are: 50 1.4 AFD, 105 2.8 AFD, 180 2.8 AFD, 28-105 AFD, 70-300 AFD and 80-200 2.8 AFD. All these products have been bought second hand, except my Analyzer Pro.</p>

<p >I am simply an amateur, but Photography has become in something more than a hobby. I am always studying about B&W, and sometimes I think I started too late. I do not have Digital Cameras, even though my children have a lot. I spend many hours in my Darkroom, and I hope I will be able to do it for many years.</p>

<p >Henry Alive.</p>

[larrydressler]

<p>Photography is a Hobby that turns benefits at times I will never give up my day job for it but I will be put in the grave with at least 1 camera and a roll of film.</p>