Photography/wet darkroom

Schneller

Schneller

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Is anyone else into this, or is everyone doing photography doing digital?
heres my darkroom for black and white developing and printing:

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Wow that's impressive. I bought a used film camera last year just to try it again, I love black and white on traditional film
 
I shut mine down when we moved and have never unpacked most of it. Several large pc of gear were given away to photo students, digital is so clean and manipulative and I may live longer without the chemicals.
It was fun and i miss it a bit, but post production with a laptop and a coffee is ok to.
 
Still have my Cannon AE with motor-drive auto-winder with wide and telephoto lens and a Vivitar flash but have not used it in a decade. Did enjoy developing film in high-school. Are silvanos still around? had most of my film developed there.

Schneller, you are truly a vintage guy, with the old bikes and cameras/film. Love old cameras especially the large format models. Please show us some of your cameras.
 
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i spent a lot of time as a kid in my opa's darkroom. have very fond memories of the smells in there. i miss those time.
 
Thanks guys.

I just ordered 50 rolls of B+W film for my retirement tour of the US this coming summer.

currently my camera choices fir this trip are a Leica M2 and a Rolleiflex.
 
Nice cameras, our current digital cameras are basically disposable.

How are you going to keep the film "fresh" during the trip? I remember helping a friend find dry ice in Rome to keep his film cool.

Cannot remember exactly what film, but it required to be kept cool.



Schneller said:
Thanks guys.

I just ordered 50 rolls of B+W film for my retirement tour of the US this coming summer.

currently my camera choices fir this trip are a Leica M2 and a Rolleiflex.
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I don't think that there will be much degradation in the 30-40 days of the trip. I'll use an insulated lunch cooler and motel refrigerators/ice dispensers to keep it cool.
 
wow, I havent used refridgerated film since school, keep it cool and slowly let it come up to temp so there was no condensation. what a PITA. We used Ilford for everything B&W since it had a much wider latitude in exposure and more forgiving in developement.

So with an L2 and a Rollie your carrying 35mm and 120? thats a pile of stuff. I miss my Hasselblad, but not when traveling.
 
Photography is an important part of this trip, so its worth the effort.
for digital and internet sharing, I'll just use my iPhone.

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I remember working in the darkroom developing film and prints. I used to bulk load as much Ilford FP4 into a film cannister as I could. I think I could fit 42 or so shots? Ah the memories! Cutting out shapes for dodging and burning and doing test strips for correct exposure. And contrast depended on the paper, not a slider in Photoshop.

Thanks for the memories!
 
A blast from the past indeed. I gave all my stuff away to a photo student around 10 years ago. Durst, Dektol, D76, Illford, stop bath. I can smell the chemicals once more. I coveted an Olympus OM-1 but settled for a Pentax MX. The Vivitar 283 flash still works. Only photo gods had the Nikon F1 and the photomic head, did you get the power drive too.....


Thanks for bringing this up.
 
In 1981 I bought a Hasselblad CM500 for $2900. brand new, about the cost of a small bike. With a two Metz light setup and a Contax and an F1 as backups I did weddings for a few years. A Ziess 80-200 for the Contax was about $1,500. and a wide angle was $600. I had 15k in equipment in 1983 dollars....
I did a wedding as a favour last year using 2 D90's and a half dozen SB800 remote flashes, the results were as good and the gear weighed 10% of what i used to drag around.

I have a 1948 Ziess Ikon 35mm I just pulled out that I'd like to run a roll through just for fun.
 
crankcall said:
In 1981 I bought a Hasselblad CM500 for $2900. brand new, about the cost of a small bike. With a two Metz light setup and a Contax and an F1 as backups I did weddings for a few years. A Ziess 80-200 for the Contax was about $1,500. and a wide angle was $600. I had 15k in equipment in 1983 dollars....
I did a wedding as a favour last year using 2 D90's and a half dozen SB800 remote flashes, the results were as good and the gear weighed 10% of what i used to drag around.

I have a 1948 Ziess Ikon 35mm I just pulled out that I'd like to run a roll through just for fun.
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Wow, fantastic stuff.

Is the Zeiss a Contaflex? I have that one, with the manual light meter. Amazing optics on those.
 
About film and digital: I get more satisfaction from the film process than the digital workflow. For me its not just all about the result/image.

It's like riding a motorcycle. A car will get you to where you want to go, usually more easily and more comfortably than a motorcycle, but the motorcycle journey is more fun.
 
Sunday Rider said:
Wow, fantastic stuff.

Is the Zeiss a Contaflex? I have that one, with the manual light meter. Amazing optics on those.
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I think my Ikon is a bit different from the Contaflex, mine is a lower end model and earlier. Bellows folder system and no meters, I did have a better one from the late 50's but was offered a good buck for it when we were cleaning out a bunch of stuff so it went. There are still about a dozen cameras from 1905 to 2010 sitting around getting dusty in my office.

The end image was always what I was really interested in, I enjoyed the process but it was an end to a means. I studied photography at Sheridan for two years and got my college cert. but I wasnt really gifted or ready to spend 8 yrs as an assistant for 12k to get into the industry.
I did the wedding route and freelanced on product shots and portraiture but it became like work so i shelved it for a couple decades.
 
CruisnGrrl said:
I don't miss the chemicals or having paper or film ruined accidentally though it was more of a feeling of accomplishment when you had some really amazing prints come out.
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Second chances are more expensive with film but there was a sort of magic when the image appeared. I didn't get too far into it because I had limited space and had to choose between photo and woodworking as a hobby. Sawdust and film are mortal enemies.
 
I developed my own for a bit and found film made me think more about composition. I love digital now too but it's too easy to snap 100s of photos without really thinking to get one decent shot now.

Funny but I was clearing out the garage the other day and found an old ciba chrome tank I was going to use for colour. Never got round to it.
 
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jc100 said:
I developed my own for a bit and found film made me think more about composition. I love digital now too but it's too easy to snap 100s of photos without really thinking to get one decent shot now.

.
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Actually that's a real problem. I do construction site repairs and the right picture can really speed up the job. What I find is that because digital is so cheap (Free) the person takes dozens of shots at random figuring that by shotgun effect he will have everything. They usually don't.

When a person used film or Polaroid there was more of a tendency to take careful overlapping shots because they were costing a buck each.
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