Vastavalo darkroom handbook

Always check the darkroom booking calendar before coming to the darkroom. Members and outside organizations can reserve the darkroom for private use and it will be denoted in the booking calendar.

Chemicals

Turn ventilation on when using any chemicals. Timer switch can be found above the computer corner.

Chemicals can be personal, club-owned, or public.

Personal chemicals must be marked with the owner’s name, mixing date, and if possible, an expiry date. Personal chemicals are stored in the broken fridge. Club has laboratory bottles available for storing working solutions.
Chemicals marked with “Vastavalo” or “VV” are club-owned chemicals, and using them has to be paid for.
Chemicals that don’t have an owner written on can generally be used at will, and at own risk.

Equipment

Listing most used equipment and general guidelines on how to use them. A detailed technical catalog is in the last chapter

Borrowing equipment

The club offers a couple of 35mm film cameras, old digital pocket cameras, and a Spyder screen calibrator to borrow. It is courteous to leave e.g post-it on the shelf with your name and what you have borrowed, so other people interested in the gear can contact you.

Cleaning up

Everything that has touched chemistry must be washed on the dark side sink using dish soap.

Never wash anything with chemical residues on the bright side’s sink. That sink is only used for washing drinking mugs, coffee pots etc.

Silver-containing solid waste (film, photopaper)

Film and light-sensitive photopapers contain silver, which is an environmental pollutant.

Any waste film is put in the orange box on the dark side.
Waste photopaper is put in the tall bin sitting next to the orange box.

Other hazardous chemicals

Photographic chemicals are toxic and should not be poured down the drain. Using marked jugs below darkroom tray table, these chemicals are gathered for special disposal:

black-and-white developer, film and print (BW Dev waste)
black-and-white fixer, film and print (BW Fix waste)
colour developer (C-41 Dev waste)
colour fixer (C-41 Fix waste)
colour bleach (C-41 Bleach waste)
slide film developer (E-6 Dev waste)
slide film fixer (E-6 Fix waste)
slide film bleach (E-6 Bleach waste)

Buying from club kiosk

The club has films, chemicals’ uses, papers, and negative sleeves available at a cost. All items you’re buying are marked in the accounting book, on your personal accounting sheet. You will receive an invoice for the bought items at the end of the year.

Leaving the darkroom

Wash all equipment that touched chemicals
Clean all surfaces that might have chemical spills with a wet rag
Clean up any spills on the floor with the mop
Sweep the floors if there’s excessive mess
Close all water taps
Pull any power plugs you put in during the session
Turn off the computer and associated hardware
Close all water taps
Turn off all lights

Often forgotten: the light in the entry corridor, and the red-light over printing trays

The front door has a weak spring, push on it to make sure it locks

Analog work

Lorem ipsum

B&W

Lorem ipsum

Equipment references

Film development

For developers, the club provides HC-110 for one-shot use, and reused Xtol. Water is used for stopping development, and for fixing a reused fixer is available. Deionized water is available for final rinsing.

The darkroom has Jobo and Paterson development systems available for use. Beginners are recommended to use Paterson film spirals with 1- or 2-spiral tank, a corresponding downpipe, a funnel-top that locks in with a turning motion, and a rubber top.

Standard film development follows a 6-stage process:

In complete darkness, put films on spirals, the spirals on the downpipe, downpipe inside the tank, and turn-click the funnel-top on top of the tank.
Development is done first

Development time depends on film, developer, and temperature.
Reference film manufacturer datasheet or Massive Dev Chart
Agitation regime depends on film and developer. 4 agitations over 10 seconds every minute is a good starting point. Any technique is fine as long as agitation is done the same every time, to allow compensation on the contrast offset caused by specific technique.
With Xtol use “stock” times and compensate exhaustion by adding 3% development time per previous film developed.
When in doubt, overdevelop.

Stop development by pouring out the developer and then filling and emptying the tank 2 times with tap water.
Fix the film for 5 minutes

To avoid air bells, agitate a bit at the start, otherwise agitation is unnecessary, but it is good form to do 1-2 agitations during fixing.

Wash the film for at least 5 minutes by exchanging the water at least 5 times and then letting diffusion do its work. For archival-grade washing, multiply these 2 numbers by 2-3
After the film has been washed, pour in the final rinse solution (deionized water and wetting aid) for 30 seconds.

With well washed films, the solution can be reused indefinitely.
Rinsing with deionized water avoids streaks on the film and the wetting aid halves drying time.

Printing

Club provides Adox MCC print developer, an indicator stop bath, and a 2-bath fixer system.

Following setup is often used for printing:

Red tray for development bath

Development time is 50 seconds for RC paper and 90 seconds for FB.

White tray for Indicator stop

Stop time is 5 seconds for RC paper and 15 seconds for FB.

Gray tray for first fixing bath

Fix in this bath for 30 seconds for RC paper and 1 minute for FB.

Lime tray for second fixing bath

Fix in this second bath as long as in first one, for a combinated fixing time of 1 minute for RC and 2 minutes for FB for baths.

2-bath fixing

2-bath fixing ensures archival-grade fixing without requiring making a new fixer for every session, while also cutting down fixer waste by three quarters. After about 2 m² RC or 1 m² FB fixed, #2 bath should be made #1 and new working solution made for #2, if archival-grade fixing is desired. Per Kodak instructions, after 7 cycles both solutions should be disposed of and new ones made.

Best enlarger for beginners

The Durst with the Multigrade head is a good starting point. It allows

Stepless contrast adjustment without requiring separately compensating exposure

Colour

Lorem ipsum

Film development

Lorem ipsum

Printing

Lorem ipsum

Alternative processes

Cyanotype

Hybrid work

Digital negatives

In Rawtherapee there is a curve profile available for producing cyanotype-compatible digital negatives: turn black-and-white filter on > load ‘before’ curve from file (“cyanotype-something”) > turn into negative with ‘after’ curve

Scanning

Club has an Epson V550 flatbed for producing digital files from film negatives.

Digital work

Printing

Canon Pixma iP8750 is available for use at the darkroom.

A simple checklist for making a print with the computer:

Decide your paper size
If needed, trim papers using the blue Dahle 552 paper cutter (i.e. An A4 down to 8x10”, or A3+ into a pair of 9.5x12”)
Turn computer on by pressing power button on top
Turn printer on by pressing the top button in front right

Lift rear tray open and pull out the segmented tray meant for blank sheets
Move the light gray paper holders to hold the papers nicely in portrait orientation
Put papers in, photo side up, in portrait orientation, between the holders.
Open front door and pull out the segmented tray that will hold finished prints

On the computer

Right-click your image file -> click Print on the context menu
Set proper paper size
With bigger sizes: you have options on the right regarding borderless and other prints
For even marginals, click Fit picture to frame. This will crop the image slightly.
Advanced users can find more options via Printer properties on bottom-left corner
Click print
A separate program will now start and show you how it will exactly look on the paper. Click Cancel printing if something’s off.
Click Start printing

Screen calibration

A Spyder 5 screen calibration tool can be borrowed for personal use. Recommended calibration software is DisplayCAL, which can be downloaded from https://displaycal.net/.

Using DisplayCAL

A simple checklist for calibration, advanced users may stray from this:

Download DisplayCAL installer .exe
Install, let DisplayCAL handle color profiles on the system
Run DisplayCAL
Download and install ArgyllCMS when prompted
Install Spyder drivers in DisplayCAL by clicking Tools > Instrument > Install ArgyllCMS instrument drivers.. on the top menu.
Select as correct as possible display panel type for your device as Mode. Generally speaking, pre-2010 displays like the darkroom display are CCFL (fluorescent tube backlight), and post-2010 are LED.
You may select the right Correction for better results
On the bottom, click Calibrate & profile button and follow instructions.

Equipment catalog

This catalog contains an inventory of all Vastavalo equipment with respective technical & usage information.

Analog work

The analog equipment is used to make silver prints and negatives.

Film development

There are two film development systems available at the darkroom. The Jobo system includes an AutoLab ATL 2 plus and is meant primarily for machine development. The Paterson system is a good choice for hand development.

Jobo

1500 system with spirals, tanks, autolab, for up to 6 films’ simultaneous development

Jobo 2500 system with 2501 and 2502 spirals.

Paterson

Spirals and tanks for up to 3 films at the same time

Miscellaneous

Soviet-made development tank for 8 and 16 mm reels

Enlargers

Our enlargers cover sizes from 35mm to 4x5.

Beseler Dichro 67

Prints 35mm and medium format films up to 6x6.
Glassless negative carriers for 35mm and 6x6.
6x6 lightbox.
Exchanging enlarger lens requires unscrewing two small Phillips screws . An appropriate screwdriver should be found laid next to the enlarger column with the other lens.

Modded to use 100W/12V MR16 GX5.3 halogen. Old light-proofing foam inside the head is breaking apart.

Durst Laborator 1200

Prints 4x5, medium format, and small format films.
Has glass 4x5 carrier and glassless 35mm carrier.
4x5 lightbox.
Glassless plates for other formats can be found in storage.

250W/12V MR16 GX5.3 halogen.

Durst M605 with Modular Vario 70

Prints 35mm and medium format films up to 6x6.
Glassless 35mm negative carrier and glass 6x7 carrier.
6x6 lightbox.

100W/12V MR16 GX5.3 halogen

Fujimoto System 700

Prints 35mm and medium format films up to 6x7.
Glassless 35mm, 6x6, and 6x7 negative carriers.
6x7 is better printed on Laborator, as the smallest lens for 6x7 at the darkroom is a 150mm meant for 4x5.

100W/12V MR16 GX5.3 halogen

Printing aids

Projection print calculator scale, “pie”

This print scale is used for determining exposure time by matching middle gray parts of the scene with middle gray parts in the pie portions. Since it is screen printed (small dots instead of even fill), it cannot be used to determine contrast: it shows highlights and shadows wrong.

Stouffer wedge

A reference scale with logD densities from 0.05 to 3.05 in 0.15 steps. Can be used for determining both exposure and contrast: scale base is equal to ⅙ of an f-stop, and each step is an additional ½ f-stop.

Trays

Darkroom has the following set of trays available: 4x 18x24 cm, 5x 24x30 cm, 3x 30x40 cm, 3x 40x50 cm, and 2x 50x60 cm.

Print dryers

Clothes drying rack

Plastic clamps leave less marks on papers than the wooden ones.

Durst Printo Dry

Be careful when running prints through it: the prints might get stuck in the rollers on the other side.

Silencio 1000W, 1000W, and 1600W hair dryers

Work as expected.

Digital work

Computer

It’s a 2009 computer with a spinning disk storage drive and Windows 10. Be patient. The Viseo 240DX screen is a 24” 1920x1080 display calibrated with the club Spyder. There is a USB3 extension card with blue ports available in the back for faster portable storage solutions.

Canon iP8750

A prosumer 32 x 48 cm photo printer with 5 photo inks and a document black. Printer uses 3rd party inks, so results may vary from Canon inks.

Hybrid work

Epson Perfection V550 Photo

Among the best flatbed scanners available today. A gift from a fellow university club TT-Kamerat.

To scan, use either Silverfast or EPSON Scan softwares. EPSON Scan is simpler, but Silverfast may be better for color films with its color profiles. Files can be stored on DATA-drive (D:) or on personal portable storage.

Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual III / AF-2840

Not much is known about, apparently someone has used it.

Other

Dahle 552 paper cutter

A relatively precise (+/- 0.5 mm) paper cutter up to 51 cm wide sheets.

Usage:

Move cutting head on either end to unlock the clamping bar laying on the cutting edge, if not already
Set desired paper size by pressing on the red button and moving the gray delimiter
Align the paper on the cutter

The gray delimiter doesn’t always stick to a proper right angle, so align the paper on the left steel list rather than the delimiter

To cut the paper, move the head all the way from one end to another. If you leave it halfway, the clamping bar will stay engaged.