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colpepper

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By way of a straw poll I'm wondering if anyone here still prints their B&W negatives on an enlarger?

The reason I ask is my steam-powered laptop isn't really up to regular scanning and the scanner isn't much better. To replace my computer - which works fine for word processing and general web use - with a high memory media one and a good neg scanner would be expensive. Then there's the printing ink costs.

A secondhand enlarger is cheap and the price difference would buy a heck of a lot of paper. Anyone done the maths?
 
Yep - using my existing high powered computer (which I need for my day job anyway) and buying a decent scanner, was cheaper than buying the enlarger and all the kit, then paying for the divorce! :lol:
 
TheBigYin said:
cheaper than buying the enlarger and all the kit, then paying for the divorce! :lol:
Click to expand...

Funny you should say that. I was walking the dog this evening with my wife and tentatively suggested an enlarger might be a good idea (she knew me when I had various enlargers including a wall mounted 5 x 4 cold cathode job and virtually lived in the dark).

"You haven't", she said.
Fortunately I hadn't, yet. Then she said she'd rather me buy a super-duper computer and scanner than find space for a darkroom in our cottage.

Spoilsport.
 
colpepper said:
Funny you should say that. I was walking the dog this evening with my wife and tentatively suggested an enlarger might be a good idea (she knew me when I had various enlargers including a wall mounted 5 x 4 cold cathode job and virtually lived in the dark).

"You haven't", she said.
Fortunately I hadn't, yet. Then she said she'd rather me buy a super-duper computer and scanner than find space for a darkroom in our cottage.

Spoilsport.
Click to expand...

Spare bedroom for me:-
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/chakrata/comroom.jpg

The scanner bottom right is quite good for negs and is the Epson 2480 bought for £8, and the scanner top left is the V750...two old printers good enough for A4 with results for non experts, with ink for colour and B/W as cheap as £1 a cartridge are the Epson 600 and 880 (bought for 50p at a bootsale).
 
I do B+W prints, yes. I got all the kit for 35mm-6x6 (conveniently which is what I own) for free off freecycle. Spending time in the dark with decent music and beer > Sitting at a computer getting headaches over perfection.
 
I venture into the university darkroom to make B&W prints fairly often, I don't shoot enough B&W film to be a super regular visitor though. If only I had access to the colour facilities...

Can highly recommend the Canoscan 8800F though, it's good enough for decent sized prints and more than ok for general web use! It's pretty cheap too.
 
Sam_G said:
Spending time in the dark with decent music and beer > Sitting at a computer getting headaches over perfection.
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Sam speaketh the truth. Here's me in my darkroom

4395870044_d79f1c4c32_o.jpg


Buy the wife something pretty to distract her then just go and buy a darkroom. Everything in mine came to about £200 if that and that includes top quality easels and a luxury dish warmer. I just wish I had room and the money for a devere 504 like I used in college, they were lovely machines.
 
Yup, I print most of my B&W negs to prints in a darkroom. I have to use a community one at the moment as I have no room in my shared flat for even storing an enlarger let alone setting up a darkroom. I have to say my Wednesday evenings in the darkroom is what I look forward to most during the week, although it's closed at the moment till mid July for building work /cry.

(P.S. most of the images in my Lo-Fi London blog [in my sig] are scans from my B&W prints).
 
I've got a darkroom as well, in a shed at the botttom of the garden. No water access but power and light and buckets are all you need.

I'm hoping to try out the "new" adox MCP/MCC papers soon to see how they are
 
Kev M said:
Sam speaketh the truth. Here's me in my darkroom

4395870044_d79f1c4c32_o.jpg


Buy the wife something pretty to distract her then just go and buy a darkroom. Everything in mine came to about £200 if that and that includes top quality easels and a luxury dish warmer. I just wish I had room and the money for a devere 504 like I used in college, they were lovely machines.
Click to expand...

I was offered one, for free :eek:
 
As much as me and my dad would like to get out his own developing kit and enlarger, our house just doesn't really have a suitable room. We're thinking about converting the garage at some point but it would be difficult as theres no real sort of like sink or anything, theres a tap, but with freezing cold water.

Most unfortunately, I searched for community darkrooms near where I live and instantly came up with the only one, at Bedford Museum about 20 mins away. Look on their site and...

No darkroom, its got all the kit but due to 'planning and structure problems' its not been put back in when they refurbished the museum.:bang:

Damn:thumbsdown:
 
s162216 said:
...No darkroom, its got all the kit but due to 'planning and structure problems' its not been put back in when they refurbished the museum.:bang:

Damn:thumbsdown:
Click to expand...
It's probably the collection and disposal of the used chemicals that'll be scaring them off - Arkady mentioned a worrying amount of money that the MOD had to spend on their processing setup for collection and disposal. It's really not nice stuff to be just bunging down the drain, especially in the kind of volume that community darkroom setups can get through!
 
Kev M said:
...I just wish I had room and the money for a devere 504 like I used in college, they were lovely machines...
Click to expand...

Don't...I was present when the Army smashed up about 20 of them as it was uneconomical to ship them back to depot, refurb and sell them on...

Also went the same way as a Gretag processor and about 200 FM2 'kits' comprising bodies, motor-winders and a suite of lenses from 24m to 600mm (though I managed to rescue about 10 kits with the better-condition lenses)...
Put it all in sandbags and smashed them with sledgehammers...

Heart-breaking stuff...when I last visited that location, I discovered a Hasselblad 500c being used as a doorstop - I kid you not...
 
TheBigYin said:
It's probably the collection and disposal of the used chemicals that'll be scaring them off - Arkady mentioned a worrying amount of money that the MOD had to spend on their processing setup for collection and disposal. It's really not nice stuff to be just bunging down the drain, especially in the kind of volume that community darkroom setups can get through!
Click to expand...

They actually used to have one - it was listed on Ilfords darkroom list. Its actually exactly the same room as before just enlarged slightly apparently by knocking the wall in between another smaller room. Obviously all they needed to do was make the rest of it light tight and to actually have all the equipment as well is just taking the biscuit!

Its so annoying when things like this happen:bang:
 
Arkady said:
Don't...I was present when the Army smashed up about 20 of them as it was uneconomical to ship them back to depot, refurb and sell them on...

Also went the same way as a Gretag processor and about 200 FM2 'kits' comprising bodies, motor-winders and a suite of lenses from 24m to 600mm (though I managed to rescue about 10 kits with the better-condition lenses)...
Put it all in sandbags and smashed them with sledgehammers...

Heart-breaking stuff...when I last visited that location, I discovered a Hasselblad 500c being used as a doorstop - I kid you not...
Click to expand...

You would have thought that the FM2's would have been worth selling considering how much they sell for now, I suppose their value would have been a bit less a few years ago. That is just a very sad way for good, decent kit to end its life.:'(:shake:
 
It's astonishing how fast technology has evolved in the last 15 years. We've moved from a process Edwardian photographers would have recognised to one incapable of working on ten year old computers.

A lot of firms got caught out, older members will remember Joe's Basement, a lab which served West End professionals for yonks. It expanded across London from its Soho roots with traditional technology just as digital was kicking in. Most people foresaw a ten year ease in to digital. In fact the pro scene changed over in a year or two. You couldn't give E6 machines away. Enlargers were landfill.

Our local tip is stacked high with old computers, post 2000 laptops by the score, Dells that look 4 years old. Strange times Grasshopper.
 
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