Wet Printing - first attempt

TheTimeChamber

TheTimeChamber

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Nick / Sectionate
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Ever since shooting film, I have had the idea of converting the bathroom into a darkroom and printing some b&w photos. Like most plans, it has only taken 8 years to get here and finally give it a go after my brother and I were gifted two big piles of darkroom equipment and a Zenith UPA enlarger.

It was a fun day experimenting and learning, and thoroughly satisfying as there is something exciting and pleasing about seeing an image appear on the paper.

Things I learnt:

  1. Nailing the exposure is a tricky thing and it took me a while to get my head around the exposure being the wrong way round to taking a photograph. It also became apparent that my camera over exposes the negatives, requiring a very short paper exposure time of 1-2 seconds. My brothers camera under exposes the negatives and requires a longer paper exposure of about 5-10 seconds. This doesn't seem a big deal, but the longer paper exposure means that there is more wiggle room in having an incorrect exposure time. Not sure why our camera do this and I wonder if it is because of different films used.
  2. Agitation of the tray is very important - our first few attempts were swirly!
  3. Prints look so much sharper on paper than on a screen and the grain focuser is awesome / a bugger to use
  4. Time is everything; don't mess with the chemical times at all, and only adjust the enlarger times.
  5. Aligning everything requires an advanced degree in Geometry and Not Touching Things
  6. You can print from colour negatives too :D
We initially started out using the test strip method to determine our exposure (we had an overlay thing that worked well), and then switched to a Patterson Enlarger meter which vasty improved our 'hit rate'

We are now looking at getting a better enlarger as the Zentith is old, very rickety and can only do 35mm.

A few photos:

It is very cool seeing images projected:


Wet Printing by Nick, on Flickr

Our first three attempts when we learnt that timing was important, as was agitation:


Wet Printing by Nick, on Flickr

Final selection of images - not the best, but we had learnt a lot and improved in the four hours we spent in the dark!


Wet Printing by Nick, on Flickr
 
Sectionate said:
It also became apparent that my camera over exposes the negatives, requiring a very short paper exposure time of 1-2 seconds. My brothers camera under exposes the negatives
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It is fun isn't it... A little point, it is not the camera that is under/over exposing the film you simply are not getting the exposure right ;)

Agitation... can be messy but try to get the chemicals moving in as many directions as possible...

My old lecturer showed us how to breathe on the paper and to carefully rub an area with your fingers to help the dev along in places it needed... He then went on to slap our wrists if he caught us doing that, saying to get your exposure, dodging and burning right in the first place
 
Or use a little hot(tish) water or neat developer...
 
Ha, yes that is true! It was just interesting to see that his camera metered differently to mine, even though they are both centre weighted meters (his is a canon, mine is a pentax).
 
A shorter exposure time under the enlarger means a thinner negative, and a longer time a denser negative so if your camera requires shorter exposures when printing, it's possibly underexposing. If it is underexposing, you'll have blocked shadows, or - if you snatch from the developer or reduce the exposure to prevent this - you'll have a grey print with no blacks and low contrast.

On the subject of times - I am correct in guessing that you're not stopping the enlarger down to give reasonable exposure times?

PS The exposure the camera gives would depend on what speed the film is set at; you say that you rated TriX at 1000 but did you tell the camera's meter that?
 
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StephenM said:
A shorter exposure time under the enlarger means a thinner negative, and a longer time a denser negative so if your camera requires shorter exposures when printing, it's possibly underexposing. If it is underexposing, you'll have blocked shadows, or - if you snatch from the developer or reduce the exposure to prevent this - you'll have a grey print with no blacks and low contrast.

On the subject of times - I am correct in guessing that you're not stopping the enlarger down to give reasonable exposure times?

PS The exposure the camera gives would depend on what speed the film is set at; you say that you rated TriX at 1000 but did you tell the camera's meter that?
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I knew I would get it the wrong way round - I spent the weekend doing the same things lol. Thanks for the clarification. I am very vigilant at making sure I have the correct ISO setting on the camera etc. It may be something else that is amiss, I don't know

We didn't have the enlarger stopped down at first (we forgot), but did stop it down about halfway through our experimentation and it did make a different to the timings.
 
If you can get hold of a Patterson enlarger (albeit only 35mm ) I'd recommend it. They look awful and cheap but it seems all the cheap bits cancel each other out somehow :) and it's a decent platform to work from, especially as it has a filter box built in. If you reverse the head on the column and counter balance the base board you can get some BIG enlargements. I had a couple of really nice enlarger lenses with mine, although the own brand one was quite good and had some lovely results many years ago.
The magic of seeing the print come to life is awesome and truly does feel like magic.

I'm assuming you have a red safelight (works for B&W but not colour, which is pretty obvious when you think about it)
Matt
 
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Thanks, i'll keep an eye out for one. There is a Meopta for sale around the corner from my brother that looks good.

Yup, we had a safelight to us. I read on another forum that we should test the light seal of the room
 
I had a Durst which did MF and 35mm, had to swap out the condenser and the lens when changing format, only did B&W though, being colour blind didn't help, neither did having to adjust colour correction filters based on film and/or paper batch.
 
Sectionate said:
Yup, we had a safelight to us. I read on another forum that we should test the light seal of the room
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And the safety of the safelight!

The simple test is to take a sheet of unexposed printing paper from the box, place it where you would in processing in relation to the safelight and put a coin on it. Leave it there for as long as the sheet would normally be out and sensitive - time to put in easel + time of exposure + time of developing etc. - and then process it. If you can see an outline of the coin, your safelight isn't. This will of course also test the room's light tighness.
 
MatBin said:
I had a Durst which did MF and 35mm, had to swap out the condenser and the lens when changing format, only did B&W though, being colour blind didn't help, neither did having to adjust colour correction filters based on film and/or paper batch.
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Fellow colourblind photographer here! It can be a real hindrance when a shot has a horrible colour cast :oops: :$
 
I attach my first ever print done in 1952 at East Ham Grammar School Photographic Society meeting in the Chemistry Lab !
It is a 'Contact Print' of a 6x9 format boc camera negative, on Kodak 'Velox' Chloride paper and processed in Home-Made Print Developer and fixer ! I am the Scout in the FRONT holding an oar -- I was 15 years old.
Photo 01.jpg
 
This bought back so many memories. I first started in photography using a 35mm point and shoot and developed my own prints using a Patterson enlarger that my dad gave me (also a keen photographer), looking back I so wish I had moved the equipment with me when I left home and subsequent moves :(
 
pentaxpete said:
I attach my first ever print done in 1952 at East Ham Grammar School Photographic Society meeting in the Chemistry Lab !
It is a 'Contact Print' of a 6x9 format boc camera negative, on Kodak 'Velox' Chloride paper and processed in Home-Made Print Developer and fixer ! I am the Scout in the FRONT holding an oar -- I was 15 years old.
View attachment 119689
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Arent all 4 at the front holding oars or are some paddles, in which case I am completely lost as they all look the same, the paddles/oars not the children.
 
Sorry -- I am the one sitting down on the RIGHT of the 4 Scouts in the foreground, shading my eye from the sun. It was the 11th East Ham senior Scouts punting trip .
 
pentaxpete said:
Sorry -- I am the one sitting down on the RIGHT of the 4 Scouts in the foreground, shading my eye from the sun. It was the 11th East Ham senior Scouts punting trip .
Click to expand...

Looks like child obesity was not an issue back then. You guys were trim and fit looking
 
pentaxpete said:
Sorry -- I am the one sitting down on the RIGHT of the 4 Scouts in the foreground, shading my eye from the sun. It was the 11th East Ham senior Scouts punting trip .
Click to expand...
Good job the camera angle wasnt a bit lower!
 
GTG said:
Looks like child obesity was not an issue back then. You guys were trim and fit looking
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You cant get a fat kid up a chimney.............................
 
I started with a LPL3301D (also branded Jessops).

Superb enlarger for the money especially with a Rokkor 50mm f3.5 lens.

In fact I have a Jessops one in the loft.
 
I'm just starting to set up my own darkroom does anyone have any recommendations for a good enlarger for beginners that isn't going to break the bank?
 
William_G said:
I'm just starting to set up my own darkroom does anyone have any recommendations for a good enlarger for beginners that isn't going to break the bank?
Click to expand...

What format...ie, you only intend to enlarge 35mm ?
Colour or b/w...ie, you only intend to print b/w ?

:)
 
So after the initial excitment of wet printing, we purchased an Opemus 5 enlarger cheaply of eBay because it was lacking the base. A quick visit to the shed to cut an old worktop scrap to size, two years later we are back in business lol. This enlarger is so much better than the suitcase soviet thing we were using, the prints came out a lot better and it allows me to print 120, woo!

Lessons learnt were that I need to be much better at keeping my negatives dust free as every image is spotty, and a full size squeegee is needed for 10x8 prints!

Here are a few


Wet Printing Attempts by S8, on Flickr

Dust, so much dust:


Wet Printing Attempts by S8, on Flickr


Wet Printing Attempts by S8, on Flickr
 
Well done Nick! If I read this right, it has taken you 10 years to get to this point. I look forward to getting my darkroom up and running in 2030 (at which point I will need the apparatus in photo 2 above).
 
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