Beginner Darkroom Equipment List/Setup

[nimo956]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Equipment order has been placed!

[barnacle]

Plastic soft drink bottles work well for chemicals.

Not if you have small children around the place, please. My five year old granddaughter is into everything, and there are times when I'm putting things away when some stuff is as yet uncleared.

For what it's worth, I don't use a darkroom at all at present; lack of space. I just use a daylight tank to develop the negatives and a changing bag to get the film into it. Using a Paterson Orbital tank for four 5x4 negatives, the fluid required is only 150ml (a little more for washing) and the biggest difficulty is measuring the 3cc of developer to dilute to 1:50 - I weigh it.


Neil

[jp]

and the biggest difficulty is measuring the 3cc of developer to dilute to 1:50 - I weigh it.

Neil

I bought some disposable plastic bulb pipettes that do 3ml. (I use them for dispensing cyanotype chemicals) They are completely reusable by rinsing and filling/emptying with clean water a few times.

[Michael Graves]

I don't use btzs tubes but.
1. I use one 1 L plastic graduated cylinder for large format. It holds the next chemical in the process. Never any mixups or getting things out of order that way.
2. Developer (pyrocat hd/hdc) is mixed for one-time use, so I have containers for the concentrate. stop is water. I keep fixer in a 1 gallon jug. I use distilled water for the final rinse and don't need a wetting agent because if it's clean film and clean water it will not dry with water spots. I keep the develop temp precise, but the other chemicals can be within 5f and never a problem for me.
4. A tiny bottle will last a long time as only drops are needed. Big jugs of this are for water fountain pranks.
5. Once final rinsed in distilled water, nothing touches my film till it's dry (except the hanging clip) This keeps it clean such that water removal is not needed. If you want it to dry faster, squirt the negative in clean rubbing alcohol.

I'm with you on all but one point. I've gotten permanent iridescence from using rubbing alcohol on wet negatives. As a result, I will no longer do that.