First, you need to load the film onto a reel and place it in the tank. A straightforward sounding affair. Until you learn that it must be done blind.
Lay out your tools in front of you: film cassette, can opener, film reel, tank and tank cover. Memorize their positions. Turn off the light. You're ready.
Step 1: In total darkness, remove the film from the cassette. Pull the flat end (as opposed to the end with the tip of the spool sticking out) off the 35mm canister with a can opener. Unwind the film and remove the end of the film from the spool by peeling off the tape that connects it.
Step 2: Load the film onto either a metal or plastic film reel. For beginners, plastic may be easier to learn than metal. With plastic, you simply slide one end of the film into a slot on the outer edge of the reel and "walk" the film in until it is loaded. Metal demands a higher degree of dexterity, which might not be appreciated when you're standing in the dark struggling to get your valuable shots onto the reel.
Following the instructions that come with the tank, practice loading a few times with a sacrifical roll in daylight so you can see and get the feel for it. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Once you feel competent in daylight, close your eyes and try it. You'll fumble. You'll fume. Keep trying. You'll get it.
The first roll you actually try to develop should not have important material on it, just in case things don't quite work out.
Step 3: Place the loaded reel in the film tank ad cover it as directed. The film is now in a light tight container. You can turn on the light.
"Soup" Time
Now you're ready to process your film. Lay out the chemicals in front of you: a film developer (nickname: soup), a stop bath, and a fixer with hardener, and a hypo eliminator bath.
Step 4: Make sure the temperature of the chemicals (especially the soup) is carefully controlled. Development time is directly affected by two things: the speed of the film and the temperature of the developer. Most manufacturers suggest 68-70 degrees as the ideal temperature for processing, although you can develop at slightly higher and lower temperatures as long as you make adjustments (the exact times vary from brand to brand, but each company gives recommended processing times and temps on the packaging.)
Most film is processed between 65 and 75 degrees. Higher temperatures could lead to "reticulation", which gives film a coarse, overly-grainy appearance. This can be an interesting effect to play with, but if not if you're trying to get the best negative possible.
Step 5: Pour developer into the open part of the sealed film tank, known as the pour spout, and cover it. Do not open the tank itself! To keep fresh chemical on the film surface, agitation is essential throughout the process. To agitate, briefly turn the tank upside down once a minute. When it is upright again, tap it several times against your work surface to remove any air bubbles that might form on the film during agitation. (If you don't, the bubbles will leave dark under-developed areas on your negatives).
Develop film for the time recommended on the packaging. When done, take the lid off the tank's pour spout and pour it out (either back into a container for re-use or into the sink if only one use is recommended).
Step 6: Pour running water into the pour spout for one minute to stop development. Alternatively, you can mix a small amount of glacial Acetic Acid with water (a 1:30 ratio) and let the film sit in that for 30 seconds to wash off the developer. Either method is known as "stop bath."
Step 7: Now it is time to fix the image so you can view it in normal light. Be sure to use a fixer with hardener, since that will help protect the negative from getting easily scratched. Fixing takes 5-10 minutes, depending on if you used a normal or rapid fixer. At the end of the fixing time, you could actually inspect the negatives although you'll probably want to wait until everything is finished.
Step 8: Since you no longer have to worry about exposing the film to light, remove the tank cover completely and let the film sit in cold running water for five minutes. You can pull out a bit of film to inspect it and make sure your negatives are there.
Step 9: Now you need to remove all traces of the fixer to avoid the appearance of white stains on the negatives. Pour in a tankful of Hypo Eliminator (also called Hypo Clearing Agent) and agitate for two minutes.
Step 10: One final wash, for five minutes.
Step 11: Carefully pull the film out of the tank. Don't touch the surface of the negatives! Use washing pins or film clips to hang the film to dry in a dust-free area.
Step 12: In about 1-2 hours, the film will be dry. Use scissors to cut the film into strips six negatives long. Be careful to cut the film in the space between the images. Store the negatives in clear glassine envelopes or PVC plastic negative pages.
You can control the overall look and feel of your final print long before you actually start printing by which film developer you select.
Some developers, like Kodak D-76 and Edwal FG-7, are fine-grain general-purpose developer. Either one is a good developer to start with.
Kodak T-Max developer and Edwal TG-7 are especially designed for the super fine-grain characteristics of Kodak T-Max and Ilford Delta films. If you are using a slow speed film and want incredibly fine grain, try Kodak's Microdol X. It will also make pictures taken on Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP-5 Plus and other ISO 400 films look less grainy.
For a softer look, try Ethol UFG (it's hard to find, so ask your local photo store to help you locate it) or Agfa Rodinol. There are also developers designed for high contrast, low contrast and big grain. Experiment!
Finally, there is one developer additive no darkroom should be without: Sodium Sulfite. Add a pinch of this powder to increase the dynamic range of your images.
What You'll Need
á A metal or plastic film tank
á Three dark plastic containers to hold chemistry
á Graduates (used to measure chemicals)
á A darkroom timer
á A can opener
á A room that is totally light proof (not even the slightest sliver of light should be visible).
á Developer (see other sidebar)
á Glacial Acetic Acid (optional, for Stop Bath)
á Fixer (Kodak Rapid Fixer with Hardener is highly recommended)
á Hypo Eliminator
As in film developing, there are three basic chemicals in the printing process, and a few more added to streamline it. These are Developer, Stop Bath and Fixer. Developer brings out the latent image--the magic part of the process. Stop bath stops the image from coming out any further, and fixer prevents any white light from darkening, fogging, fading or otherwise affecting the finished print.
You can add more chemicals to reduce washing time (and as a result save on your water bills) and to adjust tonality, paper warmth, contrast and other characteristics.
When you have a roll of 36 exposures in front of you, it is not realistic to expect that you're going to print every last one. Fortunately, you don't have to. The contact sheet previews an entire roll on one 8x10-inch sheet. Each photo measures about 1 x 1 1/2 inches, and you view it through a magnifier called a Loupe. Print up a contact sheet before you start printing and look at the tiny images. Select the best. You're ready to go.
The process of transforming a tiny negative into a larger print (8x10 is the most popular size) is based on a theory that's similar to exposing film when you're taking a picture. In this case the light source comes from one place--the enlarger head, projecting the negative onto a sheet of light-sensitive material, in this case the printing paper.
The amount of light that hits the paper can be controlled by adjusting the aperture on the enlarger's lens; a timer controls duration. The variable in this equation is the negative: how dense is it? The greater the density, the more light you need (either by opening the aperture or increasing exposure time) while the thinner negatives, which let more light through, require smaller apertures and/or shorter exposures.
Assuming a roll is processed properly and exposures are fairly consistent, it won't take you long to establish a good basic exposure that will give you acceptable results which you can fine-tune to create works of art. How do you arrive at that basic exposure? Through Test Strips.
A test strip is a thin, long strip of printing paper with the negative printed at several different exposures. The purpose? To see which exposure yields the best looking print. The how-to's are easy: lay down a strip of paper under the enlarger, take an opaque board and hold it over all but a small section of the paper. Expose for two seconds. Move the board to reveal more of the paper and expose for two more seconds. Repeat until you've exposed the entire sheet once and process normally.
This will give you a sliver of the image with bands of increasingly darker versions of the image. Pick the one that looks the best, count from lightest band to the band you've picked, multiply that number by two. That's your correct exposure time.
Now print a full sheet at the exposure time, and you have your basic print. This is where a commercial lab would stop (unless you give them lots of money). But because you're running the darkroom, you can refine your print (if you feel it needs refinement. Some won't.)
So you've made your print, but it's kind of dull. It needs more snap. The solution? Boost the contrast! Photographic paper is available in two forms: single-contrast or multiple contrast. Single-contrast papers will give you, as the name implies, one contrast. The "average" contrast is 2, on a scale of 0 to 6 (6 is basically black and white, no middle tones, while 0 is mostly gray).
Multi-contrast paper is more versatile, but you have to buy a set of multi-contrast filters. An advantage of multi-contrast is that most filter sets come in half-contrasts. So if contrast 3 is not enough but 4 is too much, use the 3 1/2 filter. Single-contrast papers only come in full-contrast increments.
Contrast control offer you the opportunity to interpret the basic negative. Greatly increasing or decreasing contrast when it is not necessary to bring out all of the information in the negative (your first goal) is a decision that could enhance--or detract from-- the composition.
Another way to control your print: part of your print is too dark, part is too light, but most of it looks just fine. This is not unusual. Localized dark areas of the print can be lightened via "dodging", where the light is blocked to that area for part of the exposure time; the too-light areas can be darkened via "burning", where you expose just the light area for a little more time. There is an art to this which is almost impossible to describe here. The best way to learn these skills is by taking a darkroom printing class. I highly recommend this.
To create a mystical,
cloud-like, almost unreal looking glow on your subjects:
This technique makes things seem to glow because the negative does not reflect directly onto the paper. It needs to be obstructed but only slightly so as to soften the lines of the image. The easiest way to do this is to take a clear piece of plastic-anything form a zip lock bag or a cigarette box wrapper will do (the latter actually works best), crumple it up and unravel it so that it is full of folds and creases. And then hold it under the enlarger lens while you are exposing your print. The images usually turn out best if you use the plastic for only a portion of the entire time, for if you leave it under there too long your image may be too blurry. But thatŐs all there is for this technique but itŐs amazing what a difference this simple piece of plastic can make on your print. Just remember that while you are holding the plastic under the lens to shake it gently back and forth and around in general just to prevent any external shadow or debris to imprint in the photo.
Sepia Tone:
Once your print has been developed and has dried completely it can be fun to experiment with different dyes. One of the more popular dyes for black and white photos is the sepia tone color, which gives the image an older, almost antique style look, similar to how you might imagine photos from way back in your ancestorŐs time. To sepia tone a print, all you need to do is have two trays available, one with a bleach like liquid and the other with the sepia brown one. You can purchase these items at your local photograph y store- if you tell them you are using the sepia tone technique theyŐll know exactly what you need. Sepia toning is a very common technique in black and white photography. So you have your supplies, now fill up the trays with enough liquid to allow your print to be completely submerged in the tray and able to remain that way even when agitated. You will first put your print (ideally a lighter one that has some flaws, for the sepia should cover them up, making that original throwaway print a new success) into the bleach liquid and wait for awhile (quite a long while, be warned). For the entire image to disappear. Agitate the chemical ever once in awhile as well. But what happens is amazing; your image literally disappears leaving a blank white paper. Then when you place it directly (donŐt wash off) into the sepia tone dye, the image comes back, in brown and white this time. ItŐs unreal.
Hand Color Your Black and
White Photo:
If you want to add color to your black and white photo, there are a couple ways to do it. The easiest way is to use colored pencils. Regular, arts and crafts colored pencils work alright but there are actual colored pencil kits on the market that are designed specifically to go on photographic paper and these are clearly better, though more expensive. Colored pencils work well because they are clean and there is no need to wait for them to dry- you can see what it looks like right away, but there are a few downfalls of the tools. First of all, you have to have the tip of your pencils just soft enough when coloring so that your lines are not to defined, thereby exposing every stroke you made to anyone viewing the photo. Secondly, you cannot mix the colors very easily without making it really obvious; what you see is pretty much what you get. An alternative to colored pencils though is any type of paint, be it acrylic, oil, or whatever type of paint your local photography store sells that is designed specifically for hand coloring black and white photos. The paints provided for this purpose are usually quite expensive but if you learn how to use them well, the results you achieve from them are worth the price. The colors can really enliven your photos. When using paints though, it is very important to be strategic in the order in which you paint the images on your photo, because the paint tends to be very messy, takes long to dry and smudges easily. The good side of that is that the colors mix well together to enable you to form your own unique shades, and also if you make a mistake you can just wipe the paint off. But overall, the paints are beautiful and should be experimented with if you are really serious about expanding your photographic experience.
Assignment marking criteria:
Part A – KO - 10
Shoot a roll of B & W film and explore using different f-stops, shutter speed, depth of field, focus and composition techniques.
Part – B AO - 10
Process film and make a contact sheet.
Part – C AO - 10
Select two to three images and produce a 8Ó x 10Ó print.
Part – D TO - 10
Select one print and explore hand colouring techniques, sepia tone or other esperimental techniques.
Part – E CO - 10
Document your process.