Since the shift to digital I suppose a fair amount of people out there have never used film, let alone been in the darkroom. I must admit that I was semi-inspired to write this by Brian’s post about older SLR cameras. Regardless, here’s the run down.

Film and Processing

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I shoot with Kodak Tri-X 400 film, rated at ISO 320 to give the negs a little more punch. Tri-X is quite possibly the best black and white film ever made. It has an amazing amount of detail even when printing 20 x 24 inches and larger, as well as a great deal of exposure latitude, which is good since I’m quite lazy with the light meter and tend to just guess. Tri-X can even be pushed as far as ISO 1600 with Acufine developer and the grain will hold up remarkably well. I normally develop with Ilford Ilfosol developer, which has a bit more acutance than Kodak’s standard D-76 developer, keeping the grain nice and sharp.

Enlarger

I have been printing for some time now with an Omega D2 variable condenser enlarger with a Nikkor 50mm f4 lens. The condensers and the standard hot lamp have both been removed and replaced with a Zone VI Cold Light head that sits directly on the negative stage above a diffuser. A cold light head produces a very sharp, high contrast print with no filtration, and without the condensers which tend to intensify flaws, dust on the negative is less likely to show up on the print. Cold heads use a fluorescent tube in a grid pattern, giving perfectly even illumination across the film and eliminating the problem of soft corners that often occur with condenser heads. The light is much more intense than a typical hot bulb, and being so close to the negative stage, exposure time is cut nearly in half. I’ve also filed out the negative carrier to print full frame with rough borders.

Paper and Development

My paper of choice is Oriental-Seagull variable contrast fiber base. Oriental is a glossy high contrast cold tone paper, with very rich blacks and a clean white base. Since I am using a cold light head on a variable contrast paper without filtration, I control the contrast and density of the print solely by exposure and development time. My typical recipe for developer is Edwal Ultra Black, a high speed cold tone developer, diluted 1+9. I then use an additive of Liquid Orthazite, which is a restrainer, that cools the image tone even more and cleans up the highlights.

From there the prints are washed for an hour with a Perma Wash bath in the middle, dried, flattened and then ready to frame.

Tags: Darkroom, development, enlarger, printing