As of last week, we have brand new photo processing chemicals in the lab. I have taken the liberty of mixing the fist batch of paper chemicals so you can come in and make prints. Please remember that the paper chemical needs to be diluted at a ratio of 1:1 in order to make it…
Remember! Tomorrow (May 22nd) will be the last day that we’ll be doing enlargements in the dark room for the Sweet Dreams Fundraiser & Art Show! I will be in the darkroom at lunch for those of you who want to come in to get some extra enlarging time; chemicals will be set up and…
Here are the couple of changes to the darkroom layout as of tomorrow. We will no longer be drying our negatives in the washroom. Too many people are developing film at the same time and we only have 5 drying hangers in the washroom. From now on, after you process your film and remove it…
Actually, that’s not a request. I need every one of you guys in class as soon as possible. For the next week or so, the school administration needs to run an equipment check on all our cameras and darkroom equipment and I need you guys (if you happen to be reading this) to return the…
After doing a bit of research and doing some experiments in the darkroom today, I think I’ve come to realize that the problem we’re having is that our chemicals have been sitting here too long. This doesn’t mean that they went bad, it just means that we need to decrease the water dilution a bit.…
Mike’s Quality Camera came through with our new stuff today. 24 rolls of Kodak TX-400 film, two steel film retrievers (the best there is), D76 concentrated developer, concentrated stop bath, and four 25-packs of 35-mm archive sleeves. Those of you who want to try your hand with another roll of film before we go into…
As you guys could see in class today (for those of you who showed up) the chemistry while being a reasonably exact science, is not very difficult. I realize that there is a lot of numbers to learn but we just have to make sure we read the directions on the developers we use. The…
Today we learned a very important lesson when doing our agitations with the film tank. For reference as to what I’ll be naming, here is a labeled illustration of the developer tank parts: A lot of these tanks are pretty old and some of them are downright cracked and leaky. So it should come as…
We have to be mindful that the film we are using is extremely photosensitive. When we are in the spooling dark room, it’s very important to remember to carry all our materials with us before beginning to wind the film onto the spool. Even a sliver of light entering the room can affect your film…
I have put together a detailed handout for you guys to read through. This deals with the parts of the development tanks, how to use and load them, and how to mix the chemicals. Always remember to wear safety goggles when mixing the chemicals and never touch your eyes until you wash your hands with…