what bulb in darkroom?

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mbphoto

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Hi all
Right just moved house and I have a great room / large cupboard I'm going to use as a dark room for now mainly to load my reels in to tank until I get more experienced with film and developing
My question is I have made it completely light tight and now just need a bulb that's safe to use so won't blow out the negs? Any suggestions will a low watt red bulb from diy store do?
Thanks in advance
 
Get a Patterson dark room red light from eBay or Patterson are only in Birmingham!
 
You can't use any light to load the negs, even a red safe light. As far as I know a red light is only for use in the dark room for printing with an enlarger, because the paper isn't sensitive to certain reds. Film is sensitive to all light so has to be done in complete darkness.
 
many years ago you could purchase Deep greenish filters for Film Dark rooms. They gave enough light not to bump into things but not enough to see what you were doing.
Total darkness is much safer and you soon learn how to handle films and spools. I always used centre loading stainless spools, which are very much faster to load especially if very slightly damp. which locks plastic ones solid. I still own all sizes 35mm 127 and 120
 
I used a light free bag for loading negs to the tank and a red safe light for printing still have them with a colour enlarger etc never use them
 
I got a red led bulb off ebay to go in a semi melted old red light, so im double red, and the lack of heat stops the red casing stinking really bad.
 
Thanks guys so at the min I'm only loading negative film so sounds like total darkness safest
 
If you are in any doubt get a dark bag from eBay for a tenner.
 
Bags for loading film are ok if you don't have the space, but if you have a darkroom, its much easier to have everything laid out on a worktop in front of you than scrabbling about in a bag full of plastic cups, lids and reels.
As already indicated above, a safe light is only useful for printing, loading film has to be done in pitch black..:)
 
I've used the small 15w bulbs painted red for developing, you shouldn't use any light for handling the film though.
Test a safelight.First set up your enlarger and stop it down to get a pale grey exposed bit of printing paper (do this in the dark) then In total darkness take out a sheet of paper, expose it the same as your test, put a coin or something on it to block light to an area of it and turn on the safelight for about 10 minutes, now develop that and see if you can see where the coins were, if you can the light is either not safe or needs to be forther away.
The idea of pre-exposing the paper is to because your normal printed images will have some exposure and it's the highlights that tend to get fogged with dodgy safelights.
 
I know you already said that you have made the room light tight, but you need to make absolutely sure if you are handling film. I'd recommend sitting in the dark for a full ten minutes and see if you detect any light leaks. It's surprising how long it can take your eyes to adjust. The last time I sealed the bathroom window it looked completely black, but I started to detect light creeping in after five or six minutes.
 
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