B&W vs Coloue + Enlarger

oreo5000

oreo5000

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Hi Guys, im just about to purchase a new enlarger and setup a darkroom, its been a while so im a bit rusty on some of the technical stuff.

Am I right in thinking that when handling paper for B&W prints you can use a safelight but for colour you cannot?

Is the process for developing colour film and prints much different from B&W, ive only ever got involved with B&W.

Im looking at making prints from 35mm and 120 6x6, ive been offered a used LPL C7700 with a nikon 50mm and Kestrel 75mm lens for £250 with a heap of extras. What do you guys think to this? Worth it, or would I be better off with something else?

Thanks in advance for your help
 
when I were a lad
safelight for b/w was red
and for colour was v v dark green, but so dark you could never actually see anything
 
I believe colour film is extremely hard to develop at "home" as a lot of equipment is needed. Also are you sure the enlarger you have been offered takes 6x6 as many don't.
 
In my darkroom at work we have a b&w LPL 7700 pro and I assume it is fairly similar to the colour model - except for the light head of course...

It (the B&W) is a very nice system but printing larger than A4 becomes a bit of a challenge. The head is jacked up high and the light becomes weaker. Exposing the paper for several minutes with lots of dodging and burning is often necessary when going beyond A4/ 8" X 10".

I have absolutely NO experience of colour development but many years of b&w darkroom stuff and would not be able to advise you on colour stuff.

Why don't you just get a good scanner and scan the colour negs yourself.

Go wholehog on the b&w(y):D
 
Liam said:
I believe colour film is extremely hard to develop at "home" as a lot of equipment is needed. Also are you sure the enlarger you have been offered takes 6x6 as many don't.
Click to expand...

Temperature and timing are critical for colour processing.
The C7700 goes to 6x7 out of the box.
Not much more kit than b&w, colour analyser recommended.
My c6600 did A3's on its baseboard ,anything larger turn/swivel the head 180 and weight the baseboard down.
IIRC re. colour safelight I used a LED by Paterson
 
Processing colour film is not much different to B+W.

As for processing colour prints I recommend working in darkness.
All my prints were processed in open trays on dish warmers.

The biggest problem I faced was cross contamination of chemicals, and it does not take much to stuff a batch of developer.


The other alternative is to source a Paterson orbital processor or a drum processor.
The down side of these is that you have to clean and dry them between prints.

Colour balance can be judged reasonably well by eye but, you need to assess the prints when they are dry and under daylight or daylight simulated bulbs.

It's a huge amount of fun and if I had the room, would still be doing it.
 
Thanks for all your responses guys.
From your info and what I have read elsewhere I think I will stick with B&W for now.
However most of the enlarger kits ive seen on ebay are colour. Is this an issue? Am I better off finding an enlarger that is B&W only, Will I notice a difference between the two?

Thanks for your help
 
B/W enlargers tend to have a condenser light source, which is crisper and can give more contrasty prints but it can show up and dust or scratches.

Colour enlargers tend to be diffusers, which have a softer light and won't show up dust and stuff so much.

Colour heads can be used in conjunction with variable contrast paper instead of filters.
 
john-oh said:
B/W enlargers tend to have a condenser light source, which is crisper and can give more contrasty prints but it can show up and dust or scratches.

Colour enlargers tend to be diffusers, which have a softer light and won't show up dust and stuff so much.

Colour heads can be used in conjunction with variable contrast paper instead of filters.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply john.
So what would the filters be used for?

Would you recco' going for a b&w only enlarger if I wasnt ever going to be playing with colour?
Any models worth a look at that I can search for on ebay? I want to be able to print 35mm and 6x6

Thanks for your help
 
Not that I know much, but the filters are used with multigrade paper to give different contrast to suit the negatives or look you are after.If you use'normal' papers, you need to keep different grades, so will have several boxes to buy and store.. From what I have found out, it seems that colour headed enlargers are cheaper to buy (second hand) as there are so many about.
In my day, the Durst 601 and similar were considered to be fairly good, and did up to 6x6, and I had, and foolishly gave away, a Durst 801 which seemed a big step up in quality of build - plenty of stuff on ebay, and also second hand darkroom shops, such as SDS (I think it stands for 'Secondhand Darkroom Store')
 
If you have a colour enlarger you can dial in the appropriate filters for multi grade paper.

I remember doing this years ago. The only problem I found was that different enlarger manufacturers filters gave different results. Different enlargers had different values for the same filter strength.

Once you figured it out it was fairly straight forward.

http://www.plumeltd.com/artzone/paperzone/ilfcont.htm
 
steveinspain said:
Not that I know much, but the filters are used with multigrade paper to give different contrast to suit the negatives or look you are after.If you use'normal' papers, you need to keep different grades, so will have several boxes to buy and store..
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply Steve. Is this the case for both B&W and Colour or just colour? I dont seem to remember using filters when printing b&w back at school!?
 
But way back when you were at school, you may have used normal paper instead of multigrade, which is purely for B/W, to the best of my knowledge.
I used to have to keep boxes of grade 2,3,4 and 5, and being the rubbish printer I was, and I expect still am, I used to make 3-4 prints just to get the paper grade right, then another few getting it all exposed and looking good..
For colour it is a different matter - you need to dial in various filters and I used to use a colour analyser to tell me what - still never got it right, as there are so many variables..
 
B&W used to be fun as you could watch the print appear in the dish. But when I tried colour everything was done by time in the pitch black or at least so dark you could only see the timer if you held it by the safe-light.
I remember once printing a 15x12(I think) 35mm crop where the enlarger was on boxes on the table & the masking frame was on the floor. The image on the floor was 4ft wide.:D
 
steveinspain said:
But way back when you were at school, you may have used normal paper instead of multigrade, which is purely for B/W, to the best of my knowledge.
I used to have to keep boxes of grade 2,3,4 and 5, and being the rubbish printer I was, and I expect still am, I used to make 3-4 prints just to get the paper grade right, then another few getting it all exposed and looking good..
For colour it is a different matter - you need to dial in various filters and I used to use a colour analyser to tell me what - still never got it right, as there are so many variables..
Click to expand...
Is there any particular rule when using certain films, do they require certain grade papers? I think we always used the same paper back in school!?
 
Now thats beyond me - from what I remember, it was more to do with the negative and subject, so if you had a soft picture that needed some 'snap' you used a higher grade of paper and so on..
 
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