Today’s B&W print from another photographer’s color negative, photo taken in 1988. Color negatives benefit from a 5.0 contrast filter, brighter aperture and more time.

Really love how this print turned out. I used Ilford multigrade filters and a Krokus SL4. The photo was taken with a Rolleicord with rolleinar filters, so I was a little surprised by the sharpness.

A friend said it is too dark.. what do you think?

I know this is a niche post for a niche problem, but the lid of my Posso Tank was tearing appart so I made a 3D printed replacement part (as well as the gasket) out of TPU.

Maybe it could be usefull to some people here so here is the link ;)

Have a nice day !

Accidentally poured in some blix into my Patterson tank first. Immediately poured it out and ran water through the tank. Then developed normally.

This how it turned out. I had two rolls in there. I'm guessing this was the roll at the bottom. The other one only had a couple of photos that were messed up.

But here is what it looks like for those who are curious.

Final results and scans of the 2 images

Prints started off fine- no problems. Then the last batch of prints started showing these black mould like spots.

Same box same day same chemicals.

Seems to be porous (black spot on the same place front to back)

Paper: MGFB GLOSSY
Chemistry: Ilford Multigrade, ilfostop, rapid fix, wash aid.
30 min water wash after

Any ideas? First time encountering this issue.

Hi there, just wanting to pick some brains. I recently saw the video on black and white reversal by Go Everywhere and need some advice on the following.

In the video, he uses HC-110 for his developer. I know a high activity developer is required. Could I increase ID-11 activity by adding Sodium Carbonate? Or even to Xtol? I’m going to be making my own developers from scratch soon so even if there is another developer recipe that would be best suited that uses any combination of Phenidone, Metol, hydroquinone, potassium bromide, sodium sulphite. And is 12 minutes a good starting point for whatever developer I go with?

For the bleach, he uses hydrogen peroxide and vinegar. Is a clearing bath a handy thing to use or just a waste as it’s not permanganate based? And how many times could I reuse 1L of bleach?

For the reexposure step, are LED light enough or would a proper light bulb be better?

Cheers

Heyo! As the main R&D person in an upcoming Polish lab I wanted to share some insights into how to avoid the dreaded red tinting of colour orwo film ;)

It's not as much of a concern as we develop it in our in-house chem that avoids that entire problem, but for film already developed it can pose a threat

First of all - exposure. Overexpose by 2 stops for film made after 1981 and by 3 for the earlier stock. For all 120 orwocolor and chrom film I'd recommend 3.5 stops of overexposure

Also one important note - this film always comes our darker around the edges, so make sure that your subject is around the middle in regards to perforation

About the storage and avoiding the dye degradation - keep it in a box with silica gel and some oxygen absorbing packets - the red tint is due to the oxidation of the bottommost red sensitive layer. Another thing you can do is harden the emulsion with a solution made out of 10ml formalin and 20g sodium carbonate in a liter of water. This'll reduce the amount of oxygen that can perfuse into it. The box you keep it in should be yellow tinted, as the blue and uv light also promotes the creation of free radicals and oxidation of the dye

Take care!

Found this while sorting through old equipment - never seen
anything quite like it before, hoping someone here can help
identify it.

It's a large bellows unit with a rotating turret head holding
three Rodenstock Apo-Gerogon lenses (150mm, 210mm, 240mm).
Front standard measures 49.5 x 61.5 cm, extends to about 70cm.
Rear opening is roughly 26 x 14 cm.

Based on the control panel styling, it looks like it came from
a German industrial reprographic/process camera - the kind used
for photographing printing plates or technical documents at
large scale, not a typical photography enlarger or view camera.

Has anyone worked with equipment like this before? Curious about
the original manufacturer and what this type of camera was
typically used for. Also wondering if the turret design (swapping
between 3 fixed lenses) was common in this era of industrial
photography, or something more specialized.

My friend just developed two rolls, both with the same kind of dev and fix (ilford d-11 and ilford rapid fix) water stop between and after. what has gone wrong? first roll got all pictures good but last part off roll completely black, but the second roll (another development) seems to fade too early.. On the first roll the lettering is good throughout, but on the second one it’s uneven in the edges as well.

I develop mostly for print. So far i love printing in black and white. What i like about large format is each sheet can be developed on its own, providing freedom to develop for different contrast one sheet at a time.

Thats’s the part i love about camera systems, i can use my backs for different film stocks. But…. I can also use different back for different contrasts. For my Hasselblad system V system, i now have over 22 backs. I have 3 different bodies but still, i can get rid of a few. But my point and question is, for those of you who develop to print, that develop so it’s easier to print and use the zone system…. Do you also use backs to separate your shots by contrast? I keep 3 stacks, for high contrast, separate from normal and low contrast.

As a side question, if for some reason you did not intend to print, would you develop differently? Is there something you favour when developing for scanning, for example you aim for highest acutance? I personally scan in the highest definition as an off site archive means to get another copy, and should gelatine prints not be possible, i can still large print using digital technology.

Thanks,

I’m experimenting with different film/developer combinations.
This is pancro 400 with legacy pro L110.
The negatives have streaks, I processed kentmere 100 with the exact one shot batch and did not get any streaking. Same night same temp one at 8 minutes one at nine as recommended.
Is this just a bad combo? I like the Pancro results (minus the streaks).
I usually stick to a different developer (Agfa Rodinal).

Kentmere is the contrasty one,

I have a few rolls here that I developed for a friend. I know these marks are probably insufficient chemistry/ lack of chemistry contacting the film, but I simply don’t understand how that could have happened! I developed these rolls in two sessions, a tri-x sesh and a Tmax sesh. All developed in a horizontal sitting rotary processor (Phototherm SK-8g) in 4 reel tanks using Kodak Tm-max developer and Kodafix. The two tmax rolls definitely took the bigger hit, especially the tmax 400 half frame roll. They were processed in the 4 reel tanks with a plastic spacer on the spindle to ensure the right amount of chemistry fills the tank. But howww could just a side of the film be underprocessed in a rotary set up like that? Does that make sense? 😅 I could be stupid and just missing something obvious but I just don’t get it.

Hi guys. So I recently bought an enlarger to get started printing. It came with some paper that I know nothing about. It seems like it's pretty old. What chemicals will I need to buy to develop it? Will Ilford multigrade work? Also I have no idea how old the paper is, is it worth practising to print on. Obviously I need to do test strips and stuff. But would I be better off getting new paper

Made a couple pinhole cameras thinking Direct Positive film sheets would be available and since it seems like it’s never to happen again. So saw a guy using a pinhole and stated that they used negative paper film? Any recommendations for this paper and what would be the workflow for using this?

Just starting out and I am a total newbie. I have this Time O Lite M59 timer and the buzzing sound keeps happening until it hits 0 second. Is this the proper way this timer is supposed to work? Videos on YouTube shows that the buzz goes off only when it hits 0 second. Thank you in advance for your help!

The rotation motor on my CPE2 plus keeps slowing down that doesn’t seem to be tied to liquid levels. Is my motor dying or could it be power spike related?

I just bought a roll of 100cmx1000cm fiber paper and I KNOW the Durst M301 might not be the best to make large format prints, but im gonna do it anyway... I just wanted to ask if anyone here has any experience using this enlarger for such large prints or have done similar projects? I have a 50mm 2.8 lens. I have done some 50x60cm prints before with this enlarger before, and they took about 5 min to properly expose, im thinking about exposing a sheet that apx; 100x150cm, im guessing it might take an hour..... let me know if im insane or not

Night shot of the Pioneer Cemetery in Salem Oregon. This is my first print I'd like to share with this group. Expired Ilford FB paper developed in D-76 stock.

Kentmere 400 on a Reto Wide and Slim. Ilford Warmtone fibre paper.

For a plastic 22mm lens on a $30 camera, it's really not bad ;-)

I just set up my darkroom a few weeks ago and am printing RA4 on a Beseler 23CII dichro. My first few prints came out fine, then I decided that maybe I should swap out the bulb since the enlarger was sitting in someone’s storage for awhile. I bought an Impact brand ESJ bulb from B&H, but now my prints are totally red (didn’t change my settings from my last prints). I just took the new bulb out to compare and the coating is in fact red so I’m assuming that’s what’s making my prints like this? How do I make sure I get a bulb that doesn’t have that red coating?

Photo attached of new bulb (top) and old bulb (bottom) and what my latest print looks like.

Just got some 1975 expired orwo film and I plan to shoot some, but I found out that I would need CD1 developer and to use the process ORWO 9165 (C-112). Is there any alternative process that could get me slides with this film ?