12/05/2016

Essential Principles On Darkroom Equipment And Set Up

By Amy Davis


Photography is just so much fun that it is a hobby and art that people invest on. This have been around for a long time and the equipment has continued and continues to evolve. For those who have tried to take up any sort of art, you would know that any type of hobby would cost some money, especially if you want the best kind of equipment.

These days we have the benefit of using different digital means to produce a picture that can match the quality of that developed in a darkroom. Thank you, technology. But more and more people have been trying to take up more organic ways to go about photo development. Getting the right darkroom equipment and processing images in such a method brings back the novelty of the art.

More vintage way of consuming art is making quite the come back. This may be caused by how people want to feel the genuineness of a certain hobby and experiencing its roots. Image development from film has been so much easier since the start of the computer age. Even now, there are phone applications that can process photos as if they were developed in a dark room.

Looking at the matter as an art, knowing how to develop these pictures without the help of a software takes a lot of skill and discipline. In hindsight, it makes you appreciate the presence of these digital solutions while learning a thing or two about the roots of photography. There are a good number of things that you would need to assemble your own darkroom.

Making your own darkroom can be quite the investment. But think about it, the room can be rented out for other enthusiasts too. Being able to successfully develop film negatives in such conditions should bear that satisfaction only artists who have made their Obra Maestra can have. If you are considering making one, be prepared to shell out some cash.

Firstly, the place is called darkroom because there has to be no light, to get in the room when working with the film. Even the smallest sliver and exposure to it can ruin the negative. Just as it would happen, if there are no crevices for the light to come in, good ventilation may then be an issue. There is a work around for this and it works a lot like a chimney.

Four kinds of lighting is needed to setup the perfect darkroom. These would include the safelights, enlarger, white and no lights at all. When you start working with with minimal vision, that is when you would start to appreciate programs such as lightroom. The attention t detail and meticulousness needed for the process can be daunting.

While, in essence the place is supposed to be dark some forms of lighting is still required. The three most commonly used are safelights, enlargers and white lights. The fourth mode is no light at all. Whitelight is obviously for being able to see the final results for the prints and cleaning up after the mess. Trying to clean up without this vision is plainly absurd.

Enlarger lights is a special device that helps enlarge, thus the name, the film and make a print out of the photo. Remember that there is also a special kind of sink that needs to be used to soak the photographs in. The water used is also under temperature control. Over all the whole condition of the darkroom requires so much delicate care that even the temperature needs to stay at a certain range.




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