'The Press' presents Practical Photography

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32966, 12 July 1972, Page 21

'The Press ' presents Practical Photography

Home processing

By

M.P.C.

(")NE of the points in favour of photography as a hobby is that its followers have a wide range of options open to them. They can restrict themselves to use of the camera alone, leaving all the processing to commercial firms, or they can undertake some or all of the technical work themselves. In the case of colour, there is a great deal to be said for having the processing done commercially. The best firms — especially those which handle custom work for professional photographes — set high standards, and their charges are perfectly reasonable.

In the case of black and white, the situation is rather different. It has been my experience in the past that the commercial processing of monochrome film often falls below the quality of the work that can be done by any amateur; and once the initial outlay is overcome there are worth-while savings to be made from home developing and printing.

A good enlarger, a developing tank or two, and some dishes for processing your prints will cost much less than a camera of comparable quality, and you really need very little more.

The first essential is to find a place in your home where you can work without too much impairment of domestic harmony. There are many objections to the frequently adopted choice of the bathroom. Running water is needed only for the washing processes, and these are best carried out in the laundry. Complete darkness is necessary only for the loading of film into the developing tank, and even for this it is quite possible to get along without a darkroom. Some tanks can be loaded in full daylight, and though they are more expensive than the standard tanks their price is not prohibitive. Alternatively, you can use a changing bag — a black bag with light-tight openings for your hands. You simply put the film and the component parts of the tank into the bag and load by feel — which is what you have to do anyway in a darkroom. The advantage of using one of these methods is that vou can then afford to be fairly casual about setting up a darkroom. Modern film is so sensitive that if vou are going to handle it in a darkroom during the day you will have to go to considerable lengths to exclude all light. On the other hand, enlarging and the developing of prints can be done in surprising bright light. I once worked in a commercial darkroom where one could read a newspaper by the sunlight that streamed in through various holes in the corrugated iron walls. If you should wish to handle film in the open, the most practical arrangement is either to partition off part of the i*ain darkroom into a completely light-tight area, or else to have a separate small cubbvhole for work with film. It simply is not practical to try to have the whole darkroom light-tight to the standards needed for fast film. Film can be ruined by light so faint and out of the way that vour eyes will not even see it. Fortunately little space is needed for occasional, amateur work. I developed thousands of films in a former broom cupboard under the stairs. It was much too small to stand up in. so I bitflt a bench at one end and sat on a kitchen stool at the other. The bench w'as less than a yard wide, but this was enough to accommodate a couple of developing tanks and the plastic buckets which held my stopbath and fixing solutions.

The printing I did in the bathroom because there really wasn’t anywhere else to work. The enlarger sat on a tray which fitted over the handbasin and the enlarging dishes tet on a

hinged bench which came down on top of the bath. The bench was covered in plastic to catch splashes from the dishes, but nevertheless some chemicals found their way into the bath and stained it permanently.

Working in these conditions. 1 produced prints up to 4ft by 2ft 6in for commercial display, and on a number of occasions processed photographic commissions worth several hundred dollars within the span of 24 hours. So you really do not need much in the way of space or equipment to do your own processing — but you should definitely try to keep out of the bathroom. Can you spare four feet at the end of the garage, or is there a garden shed you can take over?

There are plenty of books and booklets which will tell you all you need to know about the basics of developing and enlarging, and there is no sense in going into these matters here. But there are some points which are not stressed nearly enough in most textbooks. The first is that while there should be as little light around the enlarger as possible—so you can see the projected image clearly —there should be plenty of light above the developing dish. The textbooks will tell you how much light is safe, but they leave far too much

margin. Have the safelight so bright it will fog the print within two minutes — and make sure you have the print face down for most of the development. Working this way. you can judge the developing process far more accurately than if you follow the advice of the books.

Another point is that there is no need at all to buy' an automatic-focus enlarger. and in fact there is a good deal to be said against it. I’ve used some of the best automatic-focus enlargers on the market, and although I may have been unlucky, 1 have had trouble with every one of them Sooner or later they all seem to go out of sharp focus, and you may put through a considerable number of prints before the loss of optimum quality is detected. So never hesitate to buy a manual-focus model. In the 35 mm. size there is nothing to touch the Leitz Valoy, but it is out of production now so you will only pick one up secondhand.

Third, the greatest problem in processing is dust. Wherever you handle film—and especially wherever you dry it—make sure there is as little dust as possible, and keep air current to a minimum.

There are many gadgets designed to make darkroom work simpler, and some of them are quite useful. Perhaps the best is a device which enables you to focus on the grain of your enlargement, instead of trying to get the image itself sharp on the baseboard. This is much the most accurate method of focusing and is strongly recommended