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Monday 19 December 2011

Dust in the darkroom.


If you look at a beam of light whether projected from your enlarger's negative carrier or a shaft of light shinning across a room you will notice lots of particals floating in the air. Dust over the course of time will settle on the upper surface's of your enlarger and lens.

It does not take long for a considerable amount of dust to build up on the surface of your lens greatly reducing the brilliance of light passing through it. You should make it a rule that once or twice a year you clean the lens thoughly. It is also a good idea to cover the enlarger at the end of each session with its cover if it has one or a black plastic bag this will greatly reduce the dust build up.

If you have a window in your darkroom that needs to be blacked out it is not a good idea to use curtains as these are dust traps. You are better off using a wooden shutter made of hard board painted matt black or a roller blind made of light tight material that has some way of being sealed along the sides.

What you have on the floor is also important. If it is carpet it needs to be removed, as this is a dust trap too. It should be an easy clean material like lino if you have floor boards or garage floor paint for concrete floors these keep the dust at bay making it easy to mop the floor with water, it also means that you do not have to vacuum very often leaving more time to print.

Sunday 18 December 2011

What next for PMK Pyro?


This year I decided to push the boundaries of my black and white film photography with a bit of dangerous living; well, flamboyant then!!. By using three makes of film I have not tried before: Agfa's relaunched APX 100 35mm, Adox CHS 100 35mm and 120, Fuji neopane 400 35mm. All of whom are going to be finessed with PMK Pyro staining developer in to reveling their latent images.
The first of these to receive Pyro's tender kiss is Agfa's APX. I have had a quick look at Digital truth massive dev chart ( thanks guys) and have discovered that the data they hold could be out dated as it is for the original film emulsion. A quick film test (quick! just joking) as described in another post, to check the time and if needed adjust it. I'll be using the suggested dilution formula of 1+2+100 and the 13 minutes as the normal process time for comparison.
It is a fine bright warm day just right to choose a subject and take pictures for the test. Wow! that's the fastest 22 frames I've taken in a long time! So as not to waste the rest of the film I took a walk round the local area to use up the other frames. Film is becoming expensive. Now all I have to do is find the time to process the film.