This 16-clip clothes hanger from Ikea is great for hanging film up to dry. It has built-in clips that don’t slide, is heavy enough to stay balanced, and is flippin’ cheap.
Jabba clothes hanger, $4.99 USD.
And it kind of looks like the Nanerpus:
Tag: darkroom
Agfa Multicontrast Classic fibre paper to be reissued by ADOX!
It’s coming back, maybe in August [2008]! ADOX says:
The Emulsions for this paper are being produced on the original Agfa machinery which ADOX purchased together with former Agfa engineers from the liquidator of AgfaPhoto in Leverkusen.
They are identical in all measurable parameters with the papers formerly sold by Agfa under the “Agfa Multicontrast Classic” name.
This paper is among the technologically most advanced papers in the world. With its four separately made emulsions which are coated together it yields a range of achievable contrasts from 0 to 5,5. Other variable contrast papers, especially those with only one emulsion layer, reach at the outermost grade 4…
Continue reading at ADOX’s product page
Via Tom Persinger
Video tutorials: loading 120 film on metal and plastic reels
Check out these how-to videos by Luke Healey on loading 120 film onto reels for at-home DIY film processing.
Loading metal reels:
Loading Paterson plastic reels:
Solarizing developer
Solarization is overexposure to the point of tonal reversal, where areas on the film that would be totally black (the sun, for example) start to get lighter again. You can achieve the same thing printing in the darkroom by turning on the lights during developing. (Technically doing it in camera is called soliarization and in the darkroom it’s the Sabatier Effect, but the terms are used more or less interchangeably.)
I thought that was it, until Tom Persinger of f295 pointed me to this article by Ed Buffaloe at Freestyle—it turns out you can do it chemically with thiosulfate developer.
Includes recipe and examples.
Ilford announce campaign to "defend the darkroom"
Ilford press release:
ILFORD PHOTO has launched a campaign to enhance the position, standing and future of the UK’s darkrooms and associated creative techniques. Inspired by those involved in the analogue photographic industry, from manufacturers to the media, the campaign is designed to be a vehicle to establish a new future for darkroom photography.
By inspiring a new generation of darkroom users, raising the profile of darkroom on the photo-education agenda and redefining the relationship between analogue and digital photography, ‘Defend the Darkroom’ will establish a new direction for photography. The campaign will inspire a new mindset that will unlock the latent potential of photography’s heritage to inspire a bold future of innovation, creativity and diversity.
Howard Hopwood, marketing director at ILFORD PHOTO commented:
"Interest in darkroom photography isn’t waning, but it is certainly being neglected by various parties. Our campaign is a watershed moment for the industry, designed to inspire a future of photography that reflects the coexistence of digital and darkroom technology."The campaign will take many forms and is essentially an ever-evolving project to bring the world of darkroom photography to the attention of the digital generation and inspire new ideas, new enthusiasm and new skills amongst a new breed of photographers.
Howard Hopwood, added:
"For too long now, Darkroom has been slipping down the agenda of educational institutions, regardless of continued support from photo-educators and those responsible for establishing the photo-education curriculum. Our campaign will highlight these problems and make the case for darkroom education.
During the fast-paced digital revolution, digital technology has been seen, by some as a replacement for analogue technology – but through this campaign ILFORD PHOTO is keen to show how the two can coexist as complementary creative art forms.
"Darkroom photography is not standing still. It is not a relic of a bygone era, it is very much a part of the evolving world of photography. Our campaign will educate new and existing darkroom photographers about the technological developments from manufacturers that are shaping the future of darkroom
"The signature of darkroom is the physical control over the image; the art of the developing process. Skill and creativity in the darkroom is as much a part of photography as the taking of the picture." Added Howard.
Initial initiatives for the campaign include:
1. Development of a Photo Instructor Newsletter for UK educational establishments
2. A series of ‘Darkroom’ Master Class events to promote and inspire the creative process.
3. Continuing sponsorship of Red Eye, an Art Council funded project to provide a travelling darkroom to enhance awareness of black and white photography to schools, colleges, local arts groups and the like.
4. Sponsorship of talented students to support and promote darkroom enthusiasts.New initiatives will be announced on a regular basis all under the ‘Defend the Darkroom’ banner.
Already ILFORD PHOTO has invited twenty of the most highly regarded photography educators in the United Kingdom to the HARMAN technology headquarters in Mobberley, to highlight the campaign and learn about the latest advances in traditional photography. The event was organised by ILFORD PHOTO alongside Key Photo, the leading supplier of photographic products to education and the public sector. A key focus of the two-day tour and conference event was how the merger of darkroom and digital technologies is influencing a ‘new world’ of photography shaped by the coexistence of analogue and digital technology.
Matthew Finn, photography lecturer at Thames Valley University commented on the day:
"Since visiting HARMAN I can see they are committed to keeping black and white photography alive and it is up to me and other photo educators across the country to also make sure it remains a widely used medium and not just a mere specialist niche interest.
"If this was to happen photography would lose an entire dimension. I support ILFORD PHOTO’s campaign to communicate the dangers of losing darkroom, and the consequences of neglecting analogue photography."
ILFORD PHOTO believes that analogue and digital photography should have an equal standing in the photographic arena. By lobbying for equal recognition in generic industry debate and discussion, the campaign will help analogue photography, and darkroom photographers to gain the recognition they deserve.
Looks pretty sweet to me!
Piss as a developer accelerator
There’s a funny (and actually educational) thread at APUG about using urea, a component of urine, as an accelerator for film developers.
Adventures in year-old DIY C-41 chemistry
See what happens when alspix—the man who brought us the now-legendary matchbox pinhole camera—processes film in year-old, over-used C-41 colour negative chemistry from a DIY kit. The results are surprising!
Read about it at Alspix Stuff.
He used this Nova C-41 kit, which is available in the UK. For those in the US, check out the variable time, variable temperature Arista quart and gallon C-41 kits, as well as pint, quart, and gallon E-6 (slide/positive/reversal) kits from Freestyle Photo.
How to use your large format camera as an enlarger
Tim Haynes writes:
I was looking for a cheap and convenient way to make small enlargement prints, particularly from 5×4″ black and white negatives, but without the expense of buying a proper large-format enlarger (to say nothing of the space such a thing would occupy).
Does that sound like you? Sounds like me! Check out his set-up.
First thoughts on Jobo 2500 daylight processing tank
I’m helping my friend Jonathan get set up to do his own black and white film processing, so I made him a shopping list. I suggested the Jobo 2500 daylight tank because it looks good on paper, and I can’t recommend my Paterson Multi-Reel 5 Tank/Super System 4 kit.
The Paterson is a plastic tank and reel system that would be great except for the little BBs that grip the film to advance the film into the reel for loading. They’re not a problem for me with 35mm, because the film is so narrow that it’s still pretty rigid. Medium format is another story, though: if there’s even the slightest bit of moisture on the BBs, they tend to jam and not release the film while you’re loading. This means that you have to take the reel apart and start all over again, sometimes making crimping the film unavoidable, which makes a nice big white mark over your photos. What’s worse is that sometimes the BBs will fuck up the edges of the film, creating a place where it will jam almost no matter what you do. Not good.
I went over to Jonathan’s the other night to show him how to load everything up and got to play with the Jobo. Its reels adjust to accommodate 35mm, 120/220, and 127 just like the Patersons do, but they don’t have the stupid film-jamming BBs! They are larger in diameter, which may a problem for people with smaller hands, but they actually just work. No jamming, no ruined frames, just easy loading. Hell yeah!
The tank itself is nice, too. It’s part of a whole system, so you can get extension tubes should you need to increase capacity at a later date, or chop it down for smaller batches.
But wait, there’s more! There aren’t many options for daylight 4×5 processing, and as I’ve written previously in this review and follow-up, the Combi-Plan 4×5 daylight tank sucks. I’ve heard good things about the Paterson Orbital processor that does four sheets at a time and uses almost no chemistry, but they’re discontinued. Having been a UK product, they’re nearly impossible to get in the US. Jobo to the rescue again—you can get reels for 4×5! I haven’t handled them yet, but the idea of having a single, good system that can handle 135 through 4×5 is extremely appealing. I’m about to order a setup for myself and will report back on the 4×5 reels once I’ve tried them.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing… hopefully I’ve lost my last frame to crappy reels!
Sean Rohde’s darkroom experiments
Photographer Sean Rohde dug up and scanned a bunch of his darkroom experiments from the late 80s and early 90s. There are heaps of images along with explanations of how each was done. He writes:
Way back when, from 1988 to around 1992, I actually had a full darkroom. I currently just develop my own film and scan the negs onto my computer. That’s fine for straight "prints", and photoshop does have some nice controls that are difficult to duplicate with an enlarger. On the other hand, there are tons of things I can do in the darkroom that are impossible to replicate on the computer…
Continue reading and see lots of images at Rohdes’ blog, moominstuff. You can check out more of his excellent experimental and toy camera photography in his Flickr photostream.