Choose me an enlarger please

puggie said:
suggest the mrs pops out to see her mates and run an extension lead under the bathroom door maybe :)

Have fun and I'm not responsible for the fallout when your trying to hide a floorstanding DeVere in the corner :)
Click to expand...

Lol, I'll dress it up, like a coat stand or a mannequin, might work temporarily :)

I'm probably gonna wait for her to crash for the night, bosh some pro plus, and crack on :D
 
EdBray said:
I have let you down Danny, I have not got the grain magnifier and book off to you as I said. This is partly due to the fact that I have a gert big bandage on my foot and also that I completely forgot. I will get it packed up and in the post on Monday for you.
Click to expand...

Hey Ed, no worries gent no rush, physical injury is a decent excuse! Haha. Hope it's nothing serious
 
Mahoneyd187 said:
Hey Ed, no worries gent no rush, physical injury is a decent excuse! Haha. Hope it's nothing serious
Click to expand...

Nah, not in my mind, my doctor has a different idea. I had a really bad ingrowing toenail :gag: and as I am diabetic it's not particularly a good thing. :nono:

They pulled it out on Thursday and I now have a gert big bandage on my big toe, can't get my shoes on and I can't drive, and the bandage is driving me nuts :thumbsdown:
 
EdBray said:
Nah, not in my mind, my doctor has a different idea. I had a really bad ingrowing toenail :gag: and as I am diabetic it's not particularly a good thing. :nono:

They pulled it out on Thursday and I now have a gert big bandage on my big toe, can't get my shoes on and I can't drive, and the bandage is driving me nuts :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

All sounds very inconvenient! Excuse to leave the housework though eh :)
 
My g/f does b****r all....that's why she's still my g/f rather than trouble and strife ha
 
c'mon... you have had the thing over 24hrs now... where are the prints? :)
 
How long does a print on this rc kodak paper take to dry?

Once it's dry I'll scan it.

Well it's done...

Lesson 1 learnt.... Close down the aperture after focussing. Cue 2x practically black prints with unworkably quick times. ****.
 
Mahoneyd187 said:
Lesson 1 learnt.... Close down the aperture after focussing. Cue 2x practically black prints with unworkably quick times. ****.
Click to expand...

All part of the fun, took me about half an hour in the uni darkroom of getting completely black prints before deducing that the slightly suspect safelight was not in fact safe :D
 
robhooley167 said:
All part of the fun, took me about half an hour in the uni darkroom of getting completely black prints before deducing that the slightly suspect safelight was not in fact safe :D
Click to expand...

Lol true that.

I've just added a shot to flickr taken with my phone. Unable to scan it as my other half has seemingly already packed it for our move.


First wet print, a decent first go I think! by mahoneydanny, on Flickr

I think I'm mahoneydanny on there, it's probably shocking quality, took it with an iPhone 3G, still, let me know what you think!
 
Shadows are fine, mid tones are fine, highlights are blown to buggery. That's not the case with the negative, it's scanned fine previously, so definately something I'm doing whilst printing. I used kodak rc paper with a grade 3 ilford filter, no idea if the filters work with this paper?!

Any ideas?
 
Kodak papers are higher contrast than the equivalent grade ilford paper, maybe try increasing the exposure a touch and putting a yellow filter in
 
About bloody time ;)

I'd be damn chuffed with that as my first attempt at a wet print. As said above try a grade 1 filter which will reduce the contrast, going from 3 to 1 your exposure time should not really change but you might want to give it another 3rd or a stop or so.

If you want to confuse yourself further have a search about 'flashing' the paper first. This is a brief exposure to light to kick start the paper, basically stop the lens right down (maybe add an nd filter, I know of someone who uses 4layers of bin liner) and do ultra short exposures of white light, no neg, and dev the paper, then see how much light it takes for the paper to start exposing. Might only be a couple of secs but it could help with highlight detail.

Fwiw I never bothered.
 
For highlight/shadow control you should look into split grade printing.

2 exposures, one for highlights, one for shadows.
-Do a test strip at grade 00 to determine your highlight exposure. Here you're looking for a decent amount of detail in the highlights, NOT the shadows.

-Do a 2nd test strip. First give it the exposure you got from the 1st test, then a test strip over it at grade 5 to determine your shadow exposure.

-Make yer print! It really makes it a lot easier to retain detail in your print without a lot of burning/dodging.

You might have a while to go yet before you want to start confusing yourself with things like this, but it's worth keeping in mind. There are a few good tutorials on it somewhere on t'interweb.

-J
 
A superb first print Danny, I want to see all the ones you threw in the bin before you showed us though;)

Split grade printing might be useful here and is a piece of p155 to do.

Interestingly I do it the other way round to Joe and test the shadows first. I then normally take away .5-1 stops from the desired shadow exposure when it comes to adding the highlight exposure as even though one isn't supposed to affect the other I've found that it does.
 
Last edited:
Kev M said:
A superb first print Danny, I want to see all the ones you threw in the bin before you showed us though;)

Split grade printing might be useful here and is a piece of p155 to do.

Interestingly I do it the other way round to Joe and test the shadows first. I then normally take away .5-1 stops from the desired shadow exposure when it comes to adding the highlight exposure as even though one isn't supposed to affect the other I've found that it does.
Click to expand...

Hey Kev,

I did a test strip then 2 prints that came out faaaar too dark and got binned. That was all. I only focussed by eye so it's not pin sharp, and as I said the highlights are almost base white, other than that I quite like it :)

I'm moving house very soon so that'll be my first and only attempt for a while unfortunately. Look forward to converting my shed to a darkroom at the new house though!

I'm putting my camera to one side for a while whilst I work on the printing, I can't muster any enthusiasm to shoot so I've cancelled what shoots I had. Hopefully being able to produce good prints will put a bit more fire under my ass
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top