r/FilmPhotoZA

I have finally got around to revamping my darkroom - a project I was hoping to get to much sooner this year. It took me about two weeks to clean up the room, and build the workbenches and basin I wanted.

The first thing was obviously to design the layout of the room. The room is about 2.5 x 2.5 metres so really small, and it needed a dry side and wet side. I decided to take up the whole wet side with a basin big enough for four 20 x 24 inch trays, hoping that one day I'll actually develop at this size. For now, good enough for all my 8x10 printing as well as print washing, film developing and so on. I wanted both my enlargers on the other side - I like the Focomat iiC for 35mm though I have a Leitz V35 as well so might spend more time using that one now as well. The Chromega is for 120 and 4x5 though I can print 35mm on that one too. I also managed to fit in a tiny workbench where I can put my lightbox, guillotine, do filing etc etc.

The first step was to fix up the room. It had a door leading to my workshop and last year it was the washing up area of our little sourdough bakery which was based in this space so needed a bit of TLC. I drywalled the door closed and repainted the walls, going for a dark grey around the enlargers to reduce light bounce.

Then I built the benches out of steel square tube. I have planned for print drying racks under the basin and drawers under the workbench. I still need to do the drawers but will get around to that at some point soonish. I painted the frames and checked fit and fortunately the fit was exactly right.

Next was the basin which I made from shutter ply. I got some design ideas from the internet but the main thing was depth and length. Also, because of the current drain plumbing, the basin bench can't go right up to the wall so this gave me space for a small shelf on the top of the basin. Fortunately there is a wall mounted geyser in this room so that gives me access to hot and cold water. I've installed two drains in the basin - chemicals and dirty water will get diluted and go down the main drain but water from rinsing will go into a bucket for redistribution to the garden. I sealed the basin with two coats of epoxy resin and then added a white swimming pool topcoat. This will need a second coat which I need to order and apply.

I added a shelf above the workbench and installed my LED safe lights, which have passed a 7 minute fog test. It's nice and bright in there with the safelights on, though I think I'll be doing another fog test just to make sure. The room is pretty light tight now - I will put up a curtain in front of the door but there is very little light leaking in around the foam seals I have installed on the door frame.

One last thing I did was to ditch the base board of the Chromega which has seen better days and mount the enlarger chassis directly to a trolley I made last year. It is bolted directly to the metal frame under the wooden board now and is very sturdy.

Time to order some fresh chemicals from Ricky and get back to printing! I'm very excited to have access to this space again.

There is more to do. I will definitely need ventilation. I have a feeling more storage space will be a good idea. I'll need a drying line for negs and possibly prints. As I use the space I'll definitely get a feel for improvements.

I've been learning to repair/CLA Pentax Spotmatics recently, and decided to build Ben Pirt's shutter speed tester (https://github.com/bjpirt/shutter-tester) for the A part of CLA.

It's attached to a fresh body in the photo as the one I'm learning on is still in pieces while I let re-cemented curtains settle. Works pretty great!

And of course, this Spotmatic has a slow second curtain.

I made an F-Stop timer for darkroom printing and have hosted it on Github. This can be run from a browser or installed via Chrome or Safari as an applet on your phone.

https://dotkomrade-dark.github.io/Darkroom-F-Stop-Timer/

F-Stop timing is a useful way to visualise adjustments made in the printing process in terms of stops rather than seconds which is how we approach photography. If you need to dodge or burn, it's easier to imagine adding or subtracting a stop of light than to estimate a number of seconds that will hopefully give you the outcome you're after.

Additionally, if you need to scale a print up or down (ie move the enlarger head) it's much easier to reproduce earlier results because all you need to do is figure out your starting point again and then any further adjustments will match because of F-Stop timing.

More info and a guide to F-Stop printing: https://www.analog.cafe/r/f-stop-printing-the-complete-darkroom-workflow-aujf