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Thread: Second Best Darkroom Door

  1. #51

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    Re: Second Best Darkroom Door

    If room/ floor space was not an issue, definitely a light trap similar to what bobwysiwyg recalls. good airflow, no need to knock on doors etc.. having said this, I would still want a separate room for film loading and the last lab I worked in had such an arrangement. the second room within the main darkroom had pocket doors since light proofing the bottom of the door was not as big a deal.
    notch codes ? I only use one film...

  2. #52
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    Re: Second Best Darkroom Door

    Quite a diversity of strongly held opinions--but then that's the norm.

    Let's consider potential activities:

    a. Working with light-sensitive materials inside the door.

    b. More than one person using the darkroom at a time.

    c. Allow mounting on a wall containing wiring or plumbing adjacent to the door.

    d. Carrying supplies and large prints in and out.

    e. Leaving the darkroom while light-sensitive materials are exposed, for whatever reason (it never happened to me, but I'm not discounting it).

    f. Building a darkroom in an existing room with the minimum of reconstruction.

    g. The occupants will escape the darkroom in a hurry in case of emergency.

    h. The doorway is in a place that does not provide room for a door swing.

    i. The property manager (i.e. spouse) will pass by the door on occasion.

    These lead to requirements:

    1. The door shall admit no passage of light when closed.

    2. The door shall allow persons to pass through without leaking light.

    3. The door shall provide an opening x inches wide (x being whatever your supplies and prints require). (Or, The door shall allow a person to carry a print of x by y size without touching walls, curtains, or other materials.

    4. The door shall allow passage without the use of the hands (it takes both hands to carry a large print).

    5. The door shall be installable without reconstructing adjacent walls.

    6. The door shall be restorable to its prior state without reconstruction.

    7. The door shall be openable sufficient to allow multiple persons to escape unimpeded.

    8. The door shall open without entering the space on either side of it.

    9. The door's appearance shall be approved by the property manager.

    A plain-old-door (POD) fulfills all requirements except 2 and 8. 2 links to activities not often relevant for people who work alone. Tacking up weatherstripping is so easy that I'm surprised anybody has trouble with it. It may require a bit of black photo tape to seal the edge, and maybe a bit of black paint to make a light trap. It seems to me that a curtain over the door gets in the way of fulfilling a couple of the requirements, and before hanging a curtain I would just go ahead and make the weatherstripping work.

    A revolving door fulfills the second requirement, but I can see it preventing the fulfillment of other requirements, unless it can also be routinely opened on a hinge as a unit. The revolving door, does not fulfill the 8th requirement, and I have my doubts about the 9th.

    A light trap opening rather than a door fulfills all the requirements except for 5, 6, and 8.

    A pocket door fulfills 8 but not 5, and it requires more construction and just as much light-proofing as a POD.

    So, pick your requirements and make your choice.

    Rick "whose only current light-tight room is a storage closet, used for loading holders" Denney

  3. #53

    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    1,247

    Re: Second Best Darkroom Door

    The name of this thing is Beta Door, mfg by Beta Screen Co in NJ.
    although the website www.betascreen.com doesn't mention it .


    Quote Originally Posted by dsphotog View Post
    When the local newspaper went all digi, I obtained a much more modern light proof door system. It resembles the doors on Star Trek, kinda like black windowshades that retract into the sides of the doorway, with a lighttrap between them, with floor mounted switches opening & closing the inner & outer panels in synch as you walk through. They can be set to stay open also.
    Real cameras are measured in inches...
    Not pixels.

    www.photocollective.org

  4. #54

    Join Date
    Dec 2003
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    247

    Re: Second Best Darkroom Door

    if you lived in Denver CO. ebay #190622765512
    REVOLVING DARK ROOM DOOR 36" WIDE X 74 3/4" HEIGHT 53" DIAMETER DEAL!!!

    BUT its buy it now $399.99 is to high!!!!1

  5. #55

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
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    Re: Second Best Darkroom Door

    Rick,

    It's always good to get an engineer in on this kind of discussion. I think you did a good job of listing the features (some contradicting others) of a good DR door, but I have a nit to pick. A pocket door can easily satisfy #5. Think of the pocket door as a (horizontally operating) guillotine shutter, and the doorway as the aperture. The shutter is simply flush mounted over the front of the lens/aperture. In other words, the pocket need not be inside the wall, it can be on the wall, which might, or might not conflict with #9. So a pocket door meets all requirements but #2, and possibly #9. I think there's a reason the Starship Enterprise used pocket doors exclusively.

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