
How to build a darkroom for £100 or less - lelf
https://www.35mmc.com/06/04/2020/darkroom-technique-part-1-how-to-build-a-darkroom-for-100-or-less-by-sroyon-mukherjee/
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kqr
I can only chime in with everyone else so far: being able to turn a bathroom
into a darkroom is one of the finest privileges there are. Due to living
situations I cannot anymore, but I really miss having the opportunity to just
take an evening and get a print or two out of it. Watching it develop under
the safelight is as close as I've ever gotten to magic.

Edit: by the way, if you have older relatives, make sure to ask around if
anyone already has an enlarger. They are big machines that normally just
collect dust these days, so most people are happy to give them to you. (I made
the mistake of buying one on EBay for non-trivial money, shipping and delivery
was a big hassle, and two weeks later three different people had offered me
theirs for free.)

~~~
Finnucane
Some enlargers for 35mm only are not that big and can be had for half-nothing
used. I’ve got a 4x5 Omega here, which is a big beast, but you don’t need that
unless you’re going large format.

When you’re doing darkroom work, what kills you cost-wise is paper. There’s
not really getting around it: good paper is not cheap.

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quietdean
As an amateur and untalented photographer, my results have benefited a lot
from being able to shoot hundreds of photos and maybe get a single composition
I'm proud of. Exposure, contrast etc has always been flexible to a point.

However, I really miss my bedroom darkroom from when I was 16-19.

Sheets pegged over the window, rags taped roughly over the door edges. Good
enough for B&W print with a red dull light, but still had to load my rolls
inside a hot and sweaty duvet cover because otherwise the negatives would get
clouded in my ghetto setup. A £20 used enlarger bought from the local
classifieds, a rough bench built with planks and rough-cut legs, nails and
glue.

Got some great prints. Not many. Miss those days. I still have my Olympus
OM2SP, best Camera I have ever used.

There's something to be said for knowing you only have a limited number of
shots, and using another roll will cost money and real effort to develop.
Makes you stop and think, in my opinion.

On the flip side, my entire "career" with 35mm I got 4 prints that I still
love uncritically. My digital career has given me about 50 that I am happy to
pay to have printed and put on the wall.

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gwittel
I'm glad that film/print has seen a resurgence in recent years. For a while it
was hard (expensive) to get decent supplies. This is a nice ad-hoc setup.
Darkroom equipment is definitely like a gas; I think my enlarger timer was
around $100 alone.

I have a full darkroom packed away, but just don't have the time/space for it.
I miss it. There's something very special about seeing images appear.

I find some darkroom edit methods like burning/dodging more time efficient vs
software like Lightroom (much faster to 'mask' with your hand in many cases).
But dealing with spot removal -- no contest I'd rather just do that digitally.
I don't miss trying to paint chemicals on a negative :)

If getting started, I suggest a class or some good end to end books. Knowing
the basic principles is quite helpful (digital or not). You'll also learn a
lot about the decisions (+debugging) that ensue. Example -- RC vs fiber paper,
properly winding your film onto the dev reel (done by touch), over/under
agitating, weak/old chemicals, under fixing, washing, etc.

The more right you get it in camera, the easier time you will have in the
darkroom. On average, large sensor digital cameras can be more forgiving than
film. That said, there are tricks to fix your mistakes or work around
limitations (e.g. pushing/pulling film, printing contrast filters,
dodging/burning, exposing multiple frames onto single print, etc.).

If you don't print a lot, a vacuum or accordion container will help preserve
your chemicals' life span. Your paper usually likes a cool/steady temp; too
hot and it can get fogged. Check your city/county on how to properly dispose
of the spent chemicals; usually they don't want spent developer or fixer down
the drain.

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piffey
Darkroom printer here. This is one of my joys in life. Dumped all my digital
cameras because printing my photographs gets me off the computer and the
tangibility solidifies the work as important for me.

You can actually get away with printing without all of this equipment just to
give it a try. I used to print 4x5 contact prints with nothing more than the
light in the bathroom and a piece of photo paper.

To this day there remains nothing more magical to me then seeing the silver in
the developer slowly produce an image on a page. Happy printing to anyone
starting out.

Edit: Also of note that depending on your volume if you develop and print at
home it can actually be cheaper than chasing the latest sensor every few
years. I just barely crest what it would cost me with sensor upgrades to 2
bodies every few years this way because I am a pretty low volume shooter
(2-300 rolls of HP5 a year).

~~~
ant_li0n
When my first child was born, I packed up the darkroom because I couldn't
afford to set aside several hours in a shot for printing. Went to digital and
it basically killed the love of photography for me. It's just too easy to take
too many pictures, and then you're stuck spending hours and hours in photoshop
or lightroom. I still have thousands of images that I need to cull through and
sort. Probably never will.

While I've gotten rid of most of my equipment, I still have my old 4x5 and
I've been thinking of just making contact prints. Probably start this summer!
Wish me luck.

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i_am_proteus
For those who shoot 4x5 (or larger), it's reasonably simple to use a view
camera as an enlarger. In a weekend, I built a mount to hold a negative and a
light in place of the usual graflok back. Primary materials were laser-cut
wood, RGB LED strips, and diffusion paper. I built an Arduino-based controller
for use as a variable contrast timer (changing the blue/green mix on the LED
strips when printing). The whole rig was about the cost of a good set of
contrast filters and took 15 hours of my time.

The back holds the negative on the camera, which I put on an old aluminum
tripod and point straight down in a blacked-out bathroom. I develop through a
150mm Nikkor W 4x5 lens; held open. Since I use the timer for timing and never
touch the camera/enlarger while exposing the print, the setup is rock-solid
and vibration-free.

~~~
jacobush
Intrepid sells a kit which converts a camera to an enlarger.

[https://intrepidcamera.co.uk/products/intrepid-enlarger-
kit](https://intrepidcamera.co.uk/products/intrepid-enlarger-kit)

~~~
paulnechifor
Or print one for a 4x5 camera if you have a 3d printer:
[https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3145482](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3145482)

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klodolph
> If you don’t have a ticking clock, you can even play a ticking soundtrack on
> your phone – just keep the screen facing down.

Or you can just buy a metronome, or get a free metronome for your phone. Set
it to 60 or 120 BPM. I use a metronome and a footswitch. The hard part is
remembering to count from zero, instead of one.

I love working in the darkroom, but I’ve sworn off 35mm and haven’t touched it
in years.

There is an immense body of knowledge associated with darkroom work. If you
are interested, it’s not too hard to find people who will share all their
techniques. Everything from tips on how to most quickly find the correct
exposure and contrast, to chemical techniques for preserving prints in an
archival way.

Film gets a bad rap for being slow and

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frompdx
You could call me a serious amateur and I have done two very cheap set ups
similar to what the article describes.

First Setup: Windowless bathroom

What I learned from this is that you need a really rock solid bench or counter
to put your enlarger on or very small vibrations from focusing or triggering
the timer might cause blur in the printed image. Monorail designs like the one
in the article are very prone to this already.

Second setup: A basement

I went to an art supply store with a flashlight and inspected each piece of
cardboard they sold until I found one that the light did not shine through
(Elemer's, I think). I cut these to the size of my windows and then used
electrical tape to make a light tight seal. Electrical tape is just terrible
for this but it blocks the light. I had a nice bench for the enlarger and a
table for the trays. There was a utility sink already installed that I used to
rinse my prints and film. This was way better than a bathroom, but it was not
dark enough to change film because of the pilot light on the hot water heater.

Future:

My plans are on hold at the moment, however, I now have a basement with a
great room for a dark room with nearby access to water and sewer. I'm planning
to go the whole nine yards this time and install a dark room sink plus
dedicated lighting and ventilation. Not exactly a $100 project though.

~~~
tsomctl
Seems like panda poly and gorilla tape would work to stop the light. Panda
poly is available at your local exotic herb grow shop. Gorilla tape doesn't
stick very well at first, but after a week, is impossible to remove without
tearing the panda poly.

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GuiA
Seek out your local public darkrooms! (private is okay too)

Printing is a craft, and practicing with others is a great way to get better,
have fun, make new friends, all that good stuff!

In San Francisco, we are blessed to have Harvey Milk Photo Center
(harveymilkphotocenter.org), one of the largest public darkrooms in the world.
Once this is all over, drop by and make some prints!

(feel free to shoot me a line! i am a long time member there but otherwise not
affiliated)

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riedel
The english term darkroom is solely used in a sexual context in Germany [1].
If you read the comments coming from that perspective some really become
awkwardly funny...

[1][https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkroom](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkroom)

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lokl
If my local makerspace had a darkroom, I would be significantly more inclined
to join.

~~~
gwittel
This would be cool. I used to rent darkroom space at times and it’s very
costly per hour. I couldn’t justify the price and gave up.

Historically I’ve talked to rental darkroom places and the challenges after
staff and space costs have been chemical spoilage (lots), and staying busy
enough to be worth staffing on a given day. Some places tried to offset by
using dev machines (different costs). It’s possible a maker space could handle
this better since they scale differently and have a broader customer base.

