hkr4627@acf4.UUCP (Hedley K. J. Rainnie) (03/30/85)
I, too, am sick of the quality of commercial film developers. I am interested in learning how to do my own darkroom work. Can anyone recommend a good source of literature to begin this long (and probably very expensive undertaking?). (I realize that it's probably psycho to even THINK about doing your own development to "save money"). Thanks: -r-
ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (04/01/85)
> I am interested in learning how to do my own darkroom work. Can anyone > recommend a good source of literature to begin this long (and probably very > expensive undertaking?). > > (I realize that it's probably psycho to even THINK about doing your own > development to "save money"). > I don't think your psycho. I got into photography through the back door. My first equipment was a home darkroom kit. I got an instamatic just so I'd have some pictures to develop. My favorite reference is some book with a name like the "Photographers Handbook". I'll dig up the authors name later. I have a very fond image of that book, blue and smelling of fixer. If you want to do B&W work, doing your own darkroom work is the only way to go. One, it is easy and relatively inexpensive. Two, no lab around here takes black and white seriously. You can set your self up with a real nice black and white setup for under $300. Color used to be real messy and long. Without fancy equipment you'd spned hours developing test swatches and fiddling filters. Things have been neatened up a bit, both with the processes and the advent of resin coated paper. I would recommend doing type R work. This is print from slide work without an intervening negative. First, I shoot some film. Only a subset do I want to print. I take my slides (which I still send to Kodak for convenience reason) and load them into a tray and view them (oh, If I could only get a stackloader). Then decide which ones I want to print. With the slides, you spend a lot less time fiddling with the color correction. The processes for this have really improved. I've used Unicolor and some older one (I've been out of it for a while) and there are all kinds of newer ones in the last few years such as Cibachrome. You can even do it in the dark, it's only four chemicals and about 15 minutes, although a drum probably would be handy. Kodak even marketed a slide print developer about a year ago, but I've never investigated it. -Ron
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (04/08/85)
> I would recommend doing type R work. This is print from slide work without > an intervening negative. I disagree. Prints-from-slides cost about twice as much as prints-from- negatives (i.e., the paper costs twice as much; typically $.60/8x10 compared to $.30/8x10; likewise the developer is a good bit more, and requires an extra processing step), and it's a lot harder, especially if you are just starting out, to develop the film itself (film as opposed to prints) since if you make a mistake you don't get a second chance. With negatives you can recover from minor processing errors when you do the printing. Thus many people send the slides to a lab to be developed; depriving themselves of the enjoyment of developing the film. The only really hard thing about color prints from negatives is getting the color correction right, since you can't see the image in the final colors (or, I should say, an approximation to the final colors) before printing it. Thus you need to use a color analyzer (or a filter mosaic) to get the colors right, unless you develop a really intuitive feel for the effects of changes in color correction filters. But (to sum up this attempt at an alternate viewpoint), personally I find color prints from negatives to be much more enjoyable. Partly this is because I have more experience at it -- I only tried Cibachrome once, and was already somewhat biased, I'll admit -- but I think it is less expensive, and more tolerant of the small errors that occur in home processing, than is the prints-from-slides approach. -- Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642
2141smh@rduxb.UUCP (henning) (04/09/85)
> > I would recommend doing type R work. This is print from slide work without > > an intervening negative. > > I disagree. Prints-from-slides cost about twice as much as prints-from- > negatives. One thing to remember, if you want technically correct color, you can only get that from slides or if you use negatives, you must include a shot of a grey scale and density scale with each roll. If you only want to wing it and get pleasing colors, than you can use anything and a lot of time.
ralph@utcsri.UUCP (ralph hill) (04/10/85)
For those thinking of trying darkroom work, look into darkroom rentals. Looking in the Toronto Yellow Pages under Photographic Equipement & .. turns up a places that rents b&w and colour dark rooms by the hour, offers lessons, does custom processing, ... I know several people who have gone there for lessons, and later continued to rent time. It is probably a cheap and fast way to get started. Try looking in your local phone book and asking at photo shops.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (04/10/85)
> One thing to remember, if you want technically correct color, you can only > get that from slides or if you use negatives, you must include a shot of > a grey scale and density scale with each roll. I will agree (somewhat) with your requirement of including "a grey scale and density scale with each roll". Not entirely -- since all it will assure you is that your greys are grey and of proper density -- I'd include a photograph of some known color scale (e.g., a MacBeth Color Checker, etc.), and do it under each distinct lighting condition on the roll. I don't think that is really necessary, though, for everyday photography. However, your implication that slides somehow give "technically correct color" without including some method of checking that the color is correct does not make sense. As I mentioned before, you get only one chance to get the color right on the slide, if you are wanting correct slides; with negatives it doesn't matter since you always print the negatives and color correct them in the process. But slide film reproduces color as incorrectly (under nonoptimal lighting conditions, etc) as does negative film. If, on the other hand, you are merely claiming that the film available in stores for home use does not give "technically correct color", as compared to something like VPS, I will agree with you. Ultimately, however, such questions boil down to the typical fidelity-of- reproduction questions that also plague things like audio equipment. You can always get only an approximation to reality; and in photography, you may not even WANT that. Thus I don't think it is a very productive topic to debate extensively; my original point, and the one I stand by, is that it is in general easier, if you are going to do your own film processing as well as printing, to do it from negatives; and it costs less. -- Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642
kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner) (04/12/85)
In article <791@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: >> I would recommend doing type R work. This is print from slide work without >> an intervening negative. > >I disagree. Prints-from-slides cost about twice as much as prints-from- >negatives (i.e., the paper costs twice as much; typically $.60/8x10 >compared to $.30/8x10; likewise the developer is a good bit more, and >requires an extra processing step), and it's a lot harder, especially if >you are just starting out, to develop the film itself (film as opposed to >prints) since if you make a mistake you don't get a second chance. With >negatives you can recover from minor processing errors when you do the >printing. Thus many people send the slides to a lab to be developed; >depriving themselves of the enjoyment of developing the film. > >The only really hard thing about color prints from negatives is getting the >color correction right, since you can't see the image in the final colors >(or, I should say, an approximation to the final colors) before printing it. >Thus you need to use a color analyzer (or a filter mosaic) to get the colors >right, unless you develop a really intuitive feel for the effects of changes >in color correction filters. As one who made about 100 8 x 10 prints from color negatives before getting disgusted with the relatively low resolution of Kodacolor and switched back to using Kodachrome and printing the occasional good slide, I feel qualified to issue a partial rebuttal. First, a caveat. Color work, especially the temperature control, is sufficiently traumatic for a novice that I most strongly recommend doing black and white work until the handling of the equipment and materials becomes second nature and consistently good results are achieved. If one does that first, it will be discovered that color work is not quite as hard as it is cracked up to be. Now, developing the slides or color negatives oneself is not really an issue. Kodachrome, which in many ways is the most desirable slide film, cannot be processed by the user--no way! The catch-22 with home processing of Kodacolor or Ektachrome is that the solutions will go sour long before the average user can run through enough film to use up the processing kit. So, unless you split a kit with a friend, it is hard to justify home processing and the labs do a good job. Black and white is a different story entirely--you have more degrees of freedom as to how you process a roll, and those degrees of freedom are exercised only if you do it yourself. Next, printing. It is true that reversal printing has one more step than printing from a negative. But, consider the following. A color negative is a low contrast object, both in density and in color contrast. The paper on which it is printed has a compensating high contrast--about like that of a medium black and white paper. Therefore, exposure has to be quite accurate, i.e. 10% to 20% exposure changes in printing are noticed. And, small changes in filtration produce so much effect that a color head is virtually a necessity. The minimum density filter in most kits is a #5, and adding or taking away one of those usually makes more change in color balance than you bargained for. Reversal paper, on the other hand, has quite a low contrast to make up for the high contrast and color saturation of slides. If a print is too light or too dark, you have to change the printing exposure by approximately a factor of two to get a noticeable effect. Filter changes, to be noticed, must be at least a #10, which means that a color head is a convenience, not a necessity. For about two years, I was happily printing slides on Ektachrome 14 paper, made by Kodak/Pathe-France, and processing it in a Besseler kit. For temperature control, I used the "drift-through" technique: solutions at 75 F. and preheat the drum with 120 F. water; also a 120 F. rinse between solutions. Once I got the right filtration for one print, unless I was doing a very abnormal slide, I could just bang them out mechanically as long as I was using the same package of paper. Then Ektachrome 14 was discontinued in favor of an "improved" material called Ektachrome 22. Between some uncertainty as to differences in processing procedure, and difficulty in finding the paper in stores, I got disgusted with the whole business and decided to see if I could live with Cibachrome. Well, it is more expensive (I refuse to use their "pearl" paper; use only the glossy). I save a bit by taking advantage of the big price break on buying the chemicals in a 5-liter kit. It seems to be a shade more contrasty and color saturated than the Ektachrome 14 was, meaning that a slightly greater percentage of the slides will be "problem" slides for which printing shouldn't be attempted. On the other hand, Cibachrome calls for a processing temperature of 75 F., which is a totally relaxing temperature to maintain. And, the Cibachrome materials appear to be always available everywhere. Well, that's about all I have to say on the subject, except to repeat: please learn first with black and white! -- Herb Kanner Tymnet, Inc.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (04/18/85)
> As one who made about 100 8 x 10 prints from color negatives before > getting disgusted with the relatively low resolution of Kodacolor and > switched back to using Kodachrome and printing the occasional good > slide, I feel qualified to issue a partial rebuttal. Oh, very well, you win. No point in arguing further. I use Kodak VPS film, not Kodachrome, and use about 1 gallon of developer a month. If you do a sufficiently small volume of processing that your solutions "go sour" before they are exhausted, the advantages I cited probably won't hold for you. -- Full-Name: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642