Michael -
Could you tell us more about how to make that bank of LEDs, and also: where can one find an affordable foot-switch ?
It seems that with my unit, the negatives are most "inspectable" while in the developer. However, the only way to inspect them is when they are lying flat, on top of the other negatives. A bank of lights would be perfect.
When viewing against the bank of LED's do you turn off/cover up the IR "projector" ?
Ken:
I can tell you that with the monocle I have, I can not only see them clearly in the developer individually (without other negatives behind ) after less than a minute and I can take them out of the tray at any point and clearly see highlight formation (or the lack thereof). An important point to consider. The quality and the intensity of the infrared illimunator and the ability to control this from a point light source to a wide source with the twist of a dial (mine has that). If the infrared source is to intense (ie. optimized for distance) it is not the best for close focusing as is the case with working with film at arms length, as it will could tend to reflect off of the film surface than penetrate it for visual observation. If you pull a sheet of film you are developing individually out of the tray at about 8 - 10 minutes and hold it at arms length, you should be able to get a very good assessment of the highlights formation without any difficulty. My only point of reference is my goggles and I purposefully bought an Argus monocle because of quality issues I was concerned about specific with my photographic application and paid $350 and have not been disappointed. You are going to have to experiment with this out for yourself.
The foot switch information can be found at michaelandpaula.com Azo forum, film development, half way down under title "Foot Switch". I believe I paid about $20 for a foot switch that I hold down to turn on and when I release my foot, it goes off.
The infrared LED bank I acquired on E Bay ($20) and it came with 39 lights in a circular device on a bracket that I screwed into the wall and put a $5 diffused light globe over that I got at Wal Mart. If the negative is really dense, I may turn off the IR device on the scope and just use the IR source on the other side of the negative. If you want me to provide you with the vendor that I got my IR LED bank, let me know. They sell them for surveilance as light sources and are readily available in many configurations. Talk about illumination - WOW.
Hope that helps.
I think DBI using NVG's under LED's runs the danger of too many TLA's.
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Old thread, and not a lot posted on the topic. I gave my night vision goggles a go the other night while doing some 11x14 tray development. Some notes here in case someone wants to give it a go:
I used the el cheapo night vision monocular you can get on Amazon.com that comes with a head mount for around $200 new. Getting the head mount set up was a PITA, but once done it's pretty easy to take on and off. Everything was prepped in regular room light prior to development. Once the lights were out, I flipped the switch and it was damned bright in that room! Made unloading the filmholders a breeze.
After pre-wash, negs went in the developer. All three negs I was developing were shot without a shutter and with "guesstimated" apertures. The first two were clearly more exposed than the third, as development progressed noticeably faster. I pulled them early, while the third neg continued to develop. Timing was a bit of a nuisance - the monocular does not have a great amount of depth of field, so you need to constantly adjust the focus to look at different things.....like trays versus your watch.
Fixed, rinsed, good to go. Couple post-development observations:
--The focusing (again) is somewhat of a nuisance, but you can get used to that.
--Developing film is slightly different than paper - all three negs came out equally under-developed, but printable. I think it will take some time to get used to what I'm looking for in the neg and be able to consistently tell it's "done".
--Fixing with the goggles is pretty awesome - you can really see how fast it clears and thus, to some extent, how potent the remaining fixer is.
--If you're like me, you tried writing down your exposures and notes in the field and you're just not that organized or disciplined enough to maintain it. Development by inspection will make it so that differences in exposure won't be that important anyway!
--This is also a MUST if you're "winging it" with aperture and shutter calculations.
All in all, really impressed and excited to hone my skills! The purchase seems well worth it!
--A
With the el Cheapo model I have, it definitely takes some experience to judge the high values, IE the densest parts of the negative. This is natural, since we are not seeing them on a light table, but rather by reflected light. That's why others have built the equivalent of a light table.
You'll get more comfortable when you develop some negatives that were exposed normally. No sense describing it, since it's something you have to see.
I am using a Viper which has a rubber cap/filter which stops the lens down using a "pinhole" - this increases the depth of field a lot. It does dim the image so its a trade off - I am doing developing by inspection and I agree there is a learning curve. I look at both sides to check progress - most of the time I use hangers and a dip tank so it is fairly easy to flip it over during development. I think you will find them a great investment.
The focus is easily dealt with. You have a couple of options. First make sure that you are taking advantage of any rotational eyepiece adjustments if you have them. Mine have considerable adjustment at the eyepiece. Secondly. I focus at roughly my fingers with my arm straight and I move the film for and aft to keep things in focus. Lastly, if your monocle comes with a front cap with a small hole in it you can always use it with the cap on as it is like a lens at a smaller aperture relative to focus. The image is a bit dimmer but you have a deeper DOF.Originally Posted by alec4444
Old thread, and not a lot posted on the topic. I gave my night vision goggles a go the other night while doing some 11x14 tray development. Some notes here in case someone wants to give it a go:
I used the el cheapo night vision monocular you can get on Amazon.com that comes with a head mount for around $200 new. Getting the head mount set up was a PITA, but once done it's pretty easy to take on and off. Everything was prepped in regular room light prior to development. Once the lights were out, I flipped the switch and it was damned bright in that room! Made unloading the filmholders a breeze.
After pre-wash, negs went in the developer. All three negs I was developing were shot without a shutter and with "guesstimated" apertures. The first two were clearly more exposed than the third, as development progressed noticeably faster. I pulled them early, while the third neg continued to develop. Timing was a bit of a nuisance - the monocular does not have a great amount of depth of field, so you need to constantly adjust the focus to look at different things.....like trays versus your watch.
Fixed, rinsed, good to go. Couple post-development observations:
--The focusing (again) is somewhat of a nuisance, but you can get used to that.
--Developing film is slightly different than paper - all three negs came out equally under-developed, but printable. I think it will take some time to get used to what I'm looking for in the neg and be able to consistently tell it's "done".
--Fixing with the goggles is pretty awesome - you can really see how fast it clears and thus, to some extent, how potent the remaining fixer is.
--If you're like me, you tried writing down your exposures and notes in the field and you're just not that organized or disciplined enough to maintain it. Development by inspection will make it so that differences in exposure won't be that important anyway!
--This is also a MUST if you're "winging it" with aperture and shutter calculations.
All in all, really impressed and excited to hone my skills! The purchase seems well worth it!
--A
Cheers!
Crap, I totally forgot about that!I do have a pinhole cap....
Thanks guys for the tips. Agreed, I probably should have exposed an initial sheet of film with an accurate shutter and developed by time to see what it looks like. Next time for sure!
--A
For $29.00 I bought an LED light that I wear on my head like a miners' light. It has a red LED surrounded by 5 white ones. The red one is perfect for darkroom work. I got it at an auto parts store.
--Gary
In the same vein that John Sexton encourages his students at his classes to perform a test for their darkroom safelights to technically verify the fact that these safelights are in fact "safe" I would pose the same question here.
Pure infrared light is invisible to the human eye. Since the devices that we are using in the darkroom were designed for weekend warriors the red glow of visible light was injected to let the operator know that these units are in fact turned on. If we can see the light I make the contention that the film can as well. Higher ASA film will be obviously more susceptible to fogging from this visible light source. The other variables are the intensity of the visible light source and the distance this source is from the film you are working with.
As a result I have tested the red IR light source that came with my monocle and I found that it does in fact add fog to the film that I was working with. I put a black piece of electrical tape in complete darkness down the center of a sheet of film and emulated working with in about the same time that I developed it in trays and turned off the monocle and pulled the tape and developed it in complete darkness and could visibly see the fog on the sheet film. I did not even have to get out my densitometer. If you do not take this variable seriously and perform your own testing you could be adding FB+F that could totally escape your detection and believe that all is completely well. It would be the same as using out of date film when you took the time and effort to insure that your film is in fact fresh from the manufacturer. To solve this problem for me I have a small 24 LED IR light source behind the sink on the wall on a foot switch behind a diffused globe that blocks out the red glow and I have a second LED IR light bank that I bounce off of an adjacent wall that works fine. I take the batteries off of the IR light source and leave it off of the monocle and do not have any other IR light source on my head but one really needs to perform your own testing.
There are all sorts of creative iterations along these lines. I saw a guy that was was developing single sheet film in glass trays with enormous LED light banks below the trays that I can only imagine how much FB+F was being induced into the equation but he said that his negatives printed perfectly.
If printing through excessive FB+F is acceptable to you that is perfectly fine with me as life is a series of tradeoffs. Personally I feel that LF and ULF are inherently expensive processes and I want to do the best that I can with the materials that I use to produce the best results. Testing to assess this variable is a simple process. Then you have hard data to either continue with this information in hand or make adjustments to improve the process.
If anyone else has performed the tests we would love to hear what you found. We need to be careful that we do not take two steps forward and unintentionally one step back.
Just my $0.02.
Cheers!
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