Why did darkroom/wet printing die?

[Morca007]

Used darkroom stuff is so cheap these days why not just bite the bullet and DO it.

Sure, if you can find some locally, otherwise it seems you're looking at a minimum of $50 on shipping alone!

All of this is making going broke seem like a good idea though... 😉

 

[tbarker13]

For the past 6 months or so, I've been toiling away, finishing off the attic my home. I setting aside one corner for a darkroom (er dark corner). Have all the gear I need.
Hopefully, I'll be able to print again by year's end.

 

[JohnTF]

Used darkroom stuff is so cheap these days why not just bite the bullet and DO it.

Glad I did not just jump to the bottom and add this-- my thoughts word for word.

I think you may have over estimated the price though. ;-)

I think Igor may have been holding an enlarger in his garage for a year now for the guy who said he would pick it up. He wants to transfer it to my garage, but it already has an MG and an enlarger, box never opened.

At the last two photo shows, a guy was trying to give away a six foot stainless sink, and the next show several light tables.

They even help carry them out to your car.

John

 

[Al Kaplan]

For all practical purposes the Omega D-2V was the epitome of enlarger design for printing B&W negatives up to 4x5 and the Chromega head handled color nicely with a diffuse light source. This state of the art was achieved nearly half a century ago, BEFORE WOODSTOCK. Until digital reared its head you bought an enlarger and used it. And used it. And went on using it. A photographers biggest expense was a new bulb every few years. So boring!

I think that's a lot of the problem. There's no desire to "upgrade" to the latest product. The more recent Omegas have a Formica laminated base board instead of varnished maple and the aluminum column went from silver color to black. The negative carriers are black and white now too, instead of silver. The average pro doesn't give a hoot in hell about those things but the avid amateur wants to brag about his latest greatest, and you just can't do that when everything in your darkroom hasn't changed or been "improved" in half a century.

There's been a constant stream of digital cameras, scanners, printers, software, all big money and soon obsolete. A marketing dream come true. The photo mags need ads to survive. They go where the money is.

Hey, the camera makers got led down the same primrose path with zoom lenses. Why buy six lenses when one will do? Why buy and learn to use an exposure meter when it's all built in?

But back on track, Omega made a really nice reflected light meter on a little stand. You'd set in on the baseboard and aim it at a highlight area where you wanted a bit of detail. Push a button and the light stayed on just long enough. Portrait and school photographers loved them.

Maybe the solution to rekindling interest in the wet darkroom is by offering a service to strip and re-anodize enlarger columns in gold, and offer replacement baseboards in teak, mahogany, or burled walnut.

 

[wgerrard]

Hmm. Quite a thread. Very motivating. Here I've only barely started processing my own b&w, and I'm pondering the pros and cons of setting up a wet darkroom.

On the other hand, I don't see any convincing reason not to just buy a quality inkjet. As others have said, the learning curve for an inkjet is likely comparable to getting comfortable in a wet darkroom, but the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill inkjet operator may be better than the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill darkroom user.

What say you all? If I do a couple of rolls per week, at the end of one year, will I be getting better prints from an inkjet or a darkroom?

 

[Al Kaplan]

Darkroom if you apply yourself.

 

[wgerrard]

Darkroom if you apply yourself.

Thanks, Al. Frankly, I'd rather go the darkroom route.

 

[MartinP]

The wet darkroom will also be much cheaper, leaving more funds for film (which is itself the cheapest it has ever been).

 

[slm]

Hmm. Quite a thread. Very motivating. Here I've only barely started processing my own b&w, and I'm pondering the pros and cons of setting up a wet darkroom.

On the other hand, I don't see any convincing reason not to just buy a quality inkjet. As others have said, the learning curve for an inkjet is likely comparable to getting comfortable in a wet darkroom, but the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill inkjet operator may be better than the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill darkroom user.

What say you all? If I do a couple of rolls per week, at the end of one year, will I be getting better prints from an inkjet or a darkroom?

Here's some inspiration

Cheers
Steven

 

[Lilserenity]

This weekend I am going to have a bash at printing colour using my B&W enlarger with a colour filter pack I have bought, some Supra Endura paper and 5 rolls of Portra 160VC I'll be shooting at a big event on the seafront this weekend 🙂

Really looking forward to it. I bought room temperature RA4 chems from Nova. Much more exciting to me than fiddling around in Photoshop!

 

[sepiareverb]

C-Printing is easier than ever I think, the new Fotospeed chemistry I use isn't so finicky with temperature either. And color paper is even cheaper than B&W!

 

[Al Kaplan]

If you're getting paid to shoot the event this isn't the time to try your hand at developing color film for the first time. It's also a good idea to include a grey scale and set of color control patches in a frame because this gives you a fixed target for density and color balance. You might want to change both when making your final prints but at least you'll know.

The color of your set of filters might not be stable over long term storage or from a lot of exposure to light over the years. Any notes you take about the filter pack you use might not work for reprints a year later. When changing your filter pack using old filters, going from one density filter to another might not take you exactly where you expected.

Color paper is cheap these days, but not if it takes you five or six tries to get a decent print, and don't forget chemical costs too. That includes the left over chemicals in your jugs that you discard because you haven't done any color printing in the past few months. (I just dumped about 1/2 gallon of D-76 because I've been using HC-110 for the past 6 months or so.)

You need to run some tests of your film developing vs. lab film developing, and see if they print the same, using lab prints for both. You'll then need to try to match the lab prints. If all goes well then shoot an event.

 

[shadowfox]

As others have said, the learning curve for an inkjet is likely comparable to getting comfortable in a wet darkroom, but the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill inkjet operator may be better than the pix produced by a run-of-the-mill darkroom user.

So then it leaves a big question:

Do you aspire to be a run-of-the-mill printer? (be it inkjet or darkroom/wet).

😀

 

[shadowfox]

C-Printing is easier than ever I think, the new Fotospeed chemistry I use isn't so finicky with temperature either. And color paper is even cheaper than B&W!

Robert, I haven't yet attempted to do this, although my enlarger has a color head.

Maybe you can do a writeup on how you do this. I'd be most interested.

 

[wgerrard]

So then it leaves a big question:

Do you aspire to be a run-of-the-mill printer? (be it inkjet or darkroom/wet).

😀

No, not especially.🙂 Just trying to figure out if using an inkjet is a more rational direction for me than standing up a darkroom. i have plenty of space for an inkjet. I don't have much space at all for a darkroom. I'd need to use a rather small bathroom with counter space too small to accommodate an enlarger. That means the enlarger and everything else needs to fit on a board over the tub. That board would be about 18 inches off the floor, not a comfortable working height. Remodeling the bathroom to add shelves, etc., is not an option.

So, from my perspective, doing the darkroom is intriguing and has a certain romantic lure, but building and using it seem potentially problematic. On the other hand, going the inkjet route means clearing off a little desk space.

My "run-of-the-mill" comment was intended to reflect an earlier post that suggested that most amateur shooters aren't going to spend enough time in a darkroom to develop the skills needed to ensure their wet prints are consistently better than their inkjet prints. I.e., at the rate I'm likely to use either a darkroom or an inkjet -- once or twice a week -- my inkjet skills would increase faster than my darkroom skills. Of course, having done neither, I've no way of knowing.

 

[shadowfox]

... This state of the art was achieved nearly half a century ago, BEFORE WOODSTOCK. Until digital reared its head you bought an enlarger and used it. And used it. And went on using it. A photographers biggest expense was a new bulb every few years. So boring!

I think that's a lot of the problem. There's no desire to "upgrade" to the latest product. The more recent Omegas have a Formica laminated base board instead of varnished maple and the aluminum column went from silver color to black. The negative carriers are black and white now too, instead of silver. The average pro doesn't give a hoot in hell about those things but the avid amateur wants to brag about his latest greatest, and you just can't do that when everything in your darkroom hasn't changed or been "improved" in half a century.

There's been a constant stream of digital cameras, scanners, printers, software, all big money and soon obsolete. A marketing dream come true. The photo mags need ads to survive. They go where the money is.

Hey, the camera makers got led down the same primrose path with zoom lenses. Why buy six lenses when one will do? Why buy and learn to use an exposure meter when it's all built in?

Maybe the solution to rekindling interest in the wet darkroom is by offering a service to strip and re-anodize enlarger columns in gold, and offer replacement baseboards in teak, mahogany, or burled walnut.

Al, I get your points and for the most part I agree.

However I find that there is always some opportunities for a renewed interest if we take the time to show the new generation of people who have the potential to *not* give a hoot about "mahogany baseboard" -gears other than how to utilize them to realize their vision.

Sure, for most people it's a maturing process. It took me almost three years to get over my gear-collector-phase and gain enough experience to know what I really wanted from photography, and those experiences will continue to lead me who knows where to next.

So the target of this thread are those who has crossed the line where only camera brand/lenses matters to being comfortable enough with themselves (in terms of photography) to ask: "What's next?"

 

[Al Kaplan]

Projects for this weekend:

Lightly sand and put a coat of new varnish on the baseboards. It's been about 15 years now since the last time.

Go over the metal parts with some cheapy off brand "window and surface cleaner" to get rid of a bunch of years worth of nicotine and tar build-up.

Vacuum all the nooks and crannies and empty the waste basket.

Hang a clean towel by the sink and wash the AC filter.

 

[sepiareverb]

Robert, I haven't yet attempted to do this, although my enlarger has a color head.

Maybe you can do a writeup on how you do this. I'd be most interested.

Quite straightforward.

The chemistry mixes easily, after a lot of shaking. It is a powder in a liquid kind of affair, one shakes and shakes to dissolve the solids, then dilutes with water. Three trays, developer / stop (I use glacial acetic acid 60ml in 2L) / bleach-fix. Then a rinse tray (kodak tray-siphon). Room temperature is fine with this stuff- in my darkroom anyway which is 70°F most of the year.

I start with the filter pack listed on the Kodak box and run a test strip on half a sheet. Get my time, then fine tune color using the viewing filters (Lee makes them now instead of Kodak, but they seem identical to the Kodak I used in college). As long as one sticks with one film color varies very little during a printing session till the chemistry starts to go. A tweak of 5Y or 5M so usually does it. I can get a full day printing (4 to 5 hours for me these days) out of the chemistry, but I finish up with proofsheets after the color has started to get a little inconsistent. Fuji Crystal Archive paper has a set filter pack starting point, which is generally quite good with the Fuji & Agfa films I use most. I have a hard time with getting color right with Agfa Ultra on Kodak Endura, but it does fine on the Fuji paper. I've been doing 1620's lately.

I tend to print till the washer is full, then take a little break while they wash (like now- but I'm printing B&W today-it is too hot), then another round, and then profsheets.

Only real drawback some might find is working in total darkness, but I shot 810 and 1114 for years, and even did color composites on E6 film putting pictures in TV screens for Macy's color circulars years ago so I'm used to that. I guess the smell could be a bit of a drag too, my darkroom has good ventilation so it isn't so bad- but this is much less toxic smelling than years ago. I learned to print color in trays in 1982, but a machine was installed that semester, so we all made the switch right away. Trays then were a real test of one's desire to print color, but the fiber paper was absolutely stunning. I really wish that would come back- Imagine a nice Fiber Glossy surface in color! MMM!

 

[Lilserenity]

If you're getting paid to shoot the event this isn't the time to try your hand at developing color film for the first time.

Thanks for the tips Al. In this case I'm not dev'ing the film, I don't shoot enough colour neg to make it worthwhile buying the solution which works out at £15, but it'd have gone bad before I got to use its full capacity so I just get my colour done elsewhere on the whole.

In this instance I'm not being paid, just going along to do my usual thing and if the colour prints don't work out right away, I'm happy to scan and get done down the mini-lab at Jessops, Boots or wherever.

Either way it's not cost me a fortune to run this experiment and if it works out, it could pay off in a big way for me and my future plans (ie: selling prints) -- I can make a half decent black and white so the next frontier is colour 🙂

I shall be using Kodak Supra Endura paper.

Vicky

 

[dap]

Go over the metal parts with some cheapy off brand "window and surface cleaner" to get rid of a bunch of years worth of nicotine and tar build-up.

.

As a former smoker I will tell you that I am extremely envious of you right now. The mere thought of smoking in a photography darkroom (with an "old fashioned" within arms reach) makes me want to start up again. Ahhh - the good old days (although I still occasionally will carry a cocktail into the darkroom with me...remarkably bad form, but enjoyable none the less)