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i've got an urge to dabble a little in b/w processing, i used to do a bit many years ago in a darkroom my dad set up. but it was a long way back and all gone now.
i don't have any space to set up a dark room, and provided i can find some kit cheap, does anyone on here have any advice for how to go about it on a casual basis in a temporary clear up everything afterwards sort of way?
I used to use the kitchen.
Velcro around the window and patio door, black out material with velcrow one, lightproof in ten minutes. Constant water supply, warm, sink, plug hole. Sorted.
I then moved into the attic. Whilst it was dark at the flick of a switch, no running water was a pain it was cold in winter and boiling in summer.
Bathrooms make good places too as they usually have fans for ventilation, a bath to put the trays in, water, heat etc. sit on the lav, table in front of you with the enlarger.
Bathrooms usually have small windows to black out too making them fairly quick to turn into a darkroom.
BTW darkroom for prints don't need to be that dark either, certainly not as dark as if you were processing film. Get a dark bag and one of those spirals and dev tank for that. When you think about the sensitivity of the materials, it makes sense, film a fraction of a second to expose, paper, 20 or 30 seconds?
Years ago I had an internal bathroom which was easy to black-out. Made a table top that fitted on the bath for the enlarger. I was living on my own at the time so was easier to leave stuff out.
Bathroom setups are sometimes done, use blackout curtains
I use nova tanks rather than trays as they are easy to manage and store
put everything else in one of those tool boxes with wheels
film in the fridge
Cheers guys, kitchen is a good call. For film I was thinking light proof bags but for prints I was thinking at night and our kitchen is pretty big.
Hadn't heard of those nova tanks but I'll look into them further tomorrow, quick google seach looks interesting. Blows my 'cheap as' plan but when I went to uni and used kit like that rather than trays it was a revelation.
Gav,
Got a bit old kit you might want. Tank, thermometer, squeegie and some pots. Drop me a mail (mine is in my profile) and I'll send you a pic.
Don't want anything for it. May not work out but you're welcome to look.
Rich.
There must be stacks of kit on Ebay. I used to use the kitchen but it had a wood floor and I found that any movement upset the enlarger, so I tried the cellar, which was cold and damp but I was less disturbed.
At college I used to sneak across the road and use the darkroom at the Faculty of Art & Design - I was there so often that most people probably thought I was a photography student.
The way I've always done it is to develop my film and then scan it. It works particularly well as the film developing requires less kit and only a darkbag. I've not done any for ages though, but I do have an epson v750 sitting around if you're interested?
You can get grow tents for growing recreational drugs, by design they are light proof and make brilliant dark rooms that can be put up and taken down as required.
I used to do have a go at this. A light proof bag for transferring film to developing pot was not problem. The enlarger was under the stairs.