Nervous about the leap I'm taking into the colour darkroom

[SeanEsopenko]

I have RA-4 chemicals from Mondrian Hall on the way. The wholesaler appears to be the only way I can get RA-4 chemicals in Canada so I have dealer box quantities of developer, fix, bleach, etc, etc on the way. I've placed my order for Fuji Crystal Archive paper from B&H and I have boxes of 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20 on the way. Friday I pick up my "new" Omega 4x5 enlarger with Dichroic II head (replacing my current omega 4x5 with condenser head) & plenty of other goodies (including glass carriers and shneider lenses, possibly some good upgrades to my nikkor glass). I found a machining shop who's able to make a new pulley for the CAP-40 I acquired for colour paper processing. I've moved my darkroom into a proper studio in the city with running water, a drain and heat. So many ducks to line up.

Relative to my time and money available it's been a huge investment to get into producing colour in the darkroom. It appears as though it's the only choice for me at the moment because I feel I need to see my prints right away and have a hands-on process (ruling out prints from a lab). Also, the wife and I (she's an artist, too. a painter) can't currently justify the costs of a high-end scanner & printer. My gallery representation is spotty at the moment (just local, juried group shows here and there so far). I think I'm going to be one of two artists in Calgary, Canada operating a colour darkroom.

I'm pretty nervous at the moment and I really hope that this leap I'm taking into RA4 processing will be as rewarding as I suspect. When I met the local guy selling the enlarger he showed me some prints he produced in the 80's and 90's and they were pretty good. They easily rivaled digital prints and seeing them lessened my worries over digital vs darkroom a bit. Having to wait for all this stuff to arrive is driving me nuts and I think I need a distraction in the mean time.

At least I found a use for the $500-700 worth of Cibachrome paper & chemicals that came with the CAP-40 (bought everything for $150): a good friend has a ton of good slides that were taken by an uncle that passed away recently. We're planning on printing them and organizing a show. I'll be doing that before installing the new pulley into the CAP-40.

[ataim]

Do you need a JOBO lift? I just happen to have one in the for sale area:) :)

[atlcruiser]

I am on the same path. It will be fun I am sure !


I have done a bit of color printing in the past and the biggest issue for me was getting the colors correct. Right now I am workign on my negatives to get them as color corect as possible to make the printing step easier

[tgtaylor]

Exploring Color Photography by Robert Hirsch is an excellent reference text for color photography. It now available in it's 5th Edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Color-Photography-Fifth-ebook/dp/B004Q9TXDG/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Thomas

[SeanEsopenko]

Exploring Color Photography by Robert Hirsch is an excellent reference text for color photography. It now available in it's 5th Edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Color-Photography-Fifth-ebook/dp/B004Q9TXDG/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Thomas

Just ordered it from Amazon, thanks for the tidbit :)

[Sirius Glass]

I started down the line of going the digital route to do color printing. The costs of the inks, software, printer, [I]et al was going to be so expensive that I bought an enlarger with a color head instead. I have never regreted setting up a color darkroom. I wish that I had the room to set up a second one on the East Coast.

Steve

[Drew Wiley]

In certain ways C-printing can be even easier than black-and-white. Temp control is a
little more fussy, and you need fresh chemistry (do mix it very far in advance). Minor
changes in color balance on the colorhead will have a significant effect once you get
within striking range, so plan to fiddle with that a bit on some test strips. Otherwise,
it's quite easy. You'll need to match your subjects to the contrast range of the paper
based upon the degree of magnification. Otherwise you'll have to learn contrast masking to fine-tune the results. But that can come if needed after some habituation to the current materials. Don't be intimidated. The skills come quickly.

[atlcruiser]

Exploring Color Photography by Robert Hirsch is an excellent reference text for color photography. It now available in it's 5th Edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Color-Photography-Fifth-ebook/dp/B004Q9TXDG/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Thomas

thanks! I ordered it as well

[SeanEsopenko]

I started down the line of going the digital route to do color printing. The costs of the inks, software, printer, [I]et al was going to be so expensive that I bought an enlarger with a color head instead. I have never regreted setting up a color darkroom. I wish that I had the room to set up a second one on the East Coast.

Steve

That's the conclusion I've come too. I could get an HP Z3200 and a used Imacon for about $5000-6000+ all together. Use up about 1/3 to 1/2 the ink on the initial priming of the lines (a friend has one and reported this). Spend even more on paper (although have a fairly wide selection of papers). Plus I have a bit of a traditional printmaking background (silkscreen, litho, intaglio, relief, collograph...). I prefer to run an edition in limited quantities all in one go. The lower costs make it much easier to do this.


You'll need to match your subjects to the contrast range of the paper based upon the degree of magnification. Otherwise you'll have to learn contrast masking to fine-tune the results. But that can come if needed after some habituation to the current materials. Don't be intimidated. The skills come quickly.

What do you mean "based upon the degree of magnification"?

[Larry Gebhardt]

I tried Ilfochrome printing before RA4 and I went through a whole lot of chemicals and paper with little to show for it. I rarely could get the color balance right across the whole print. Not to mention most of my slides were too high of contrast for the paper, so I spent a lot of time trying masking.

Eventually I moved over to RA4 and was amazed at how easy it was. Amazingly enough if I got the color balance right in the highlights it was also right in the midtones and the shadows. With Ilfochrome there was always color cross over. And the papers are a closer match contrast wise to the negatives (for how I like to print).

Someday I will try Ilfochrome again, but I don't think it was optimal to try and learn on. Being able to judge color takes time, and you want the process to be as simple as possible so you don't get lost. Of course after the Ilfochrome I have no trouble making contrast reducing masks for the few negatives that need it.

Good luck.

[Brian Ellis]

I don't think there's much point in saying that either digital color printing or darkroom color printing is more expensive. Costs of either method can vary wildly based on personal choices. If I assume a $10,000 Durst enlarger from Glenview in establishing my darkroom it's going to get very expensive very quickly. If I assume that to print digitally I must have an Imacon scanner (some unknown thousands of dollars depending on model) and an HP Z3200 printer (about $4,200) then digital printing will look very expensive. But color darkrooms don't require $10,000 enlargers and digital printing stations don't require $6,000+ printers and scanners to make very fine prints.

I think all one can accurately say is what a color darkroom would cost for them based on the equipment they want and what a digital work station would cost for them based on the equipment they want. But certainly the $4,200 HP printer or the many thousands of dollars Imacon scanner mentioned in this thread aren't what everyone requires for digital printing. My own gear is much more modest than that and I like to think that I make excellent color prints digitally.

[Drew Wiley]

Larry, Ilfochrome can be a cantankerous animal if you try to store the paper; crossover is inevatable. But the unmixed chemistry stores well. The C-printing stuff
I have used is just the opposite: the paper keeps well but the chemistry goes bad
relatively quickly. Therefore I mix fresh for each session (which I did for Ciba too).
The nature of masking is very different too, although with Ciba masking is almost
mandatory, but simply an option C-printing. I'm setting up some more masking tests tonite with Ektar sheet film. But either way, C-printing is WAY more economical
than Ciba, and probably more economical than inkjet per supplies used. Equipment can
vary anywhere from simple drums right up to wide dry to dry continuous feed machines. Gear doesn't have to cost much in order to work well. And C-prints expose
quickly, unlike Ciba.

[SeanEsopenko]

Larry, Ilfochrome can be a cantankerous animal if you try to store the paper; crossover is inevatable.

Printing the ilfochrome is just to pass the time and get some experience with the enlarger while I wait for the RA4 chemicals & paper to arrive. Silly Canadapost strike. At least they're being civil and performing a rotating strike. The CAP-40 came with about 8 boxes of Ilfochrome paper (most of them full) and some 2L chemical kits (enough to mix 2L of each chemical). I'm guessing the paper's circa 1993 from some of the paperwork that came with the machine.

I don't even shoot slide film so a friend (a printmaker and film/installation artist named Alex Moon) is digging up some slides of his passed away uncle's and we're going to see this weekend if we can get some prints out of them. Most of them aren't amazing but he said there are some slides of the Calgary Stampede that are intriguing for their subject matter. Just for kicks, really.

When I use up the 2L chemical kits I'm going to decide if the paper's any good. If it is I'll post it on the buy & sell section of the forums for cheap because it appears I can't get the cibachrome chemicals in Canada and I won't have much use for it afterwards.

[Drew Wiley]

Ciba paper goes bad within about six months if it's not kept in cold storage. It would
appear that 1993 is longer than six months, but you can try. The chemistry might still
be good. One thing I forgot to mention about drum processors is that you will have a
difficult time with repeatability if you're processing times are too short, due to the fill
and drain times involved. For RA-4 in drums I use 83F for RA-4 and 2-min dev and blix
times (including a ten-sec drain for each). One minute times at higher temps are simply
unmanagable. For Ciba the standard three-minute times should be with the chem
instructions.

[SeanEsopenko]

The guy claimed to had kept it in the freezer the entire time he had it and that the previous owner claimed he kept it all in the freezer too. I'll find out this weekend.

I'll be processing the cibachrome stuff with a CAP-40 and then modifying the machine for RA-4 (speeding it up to 45 seconds). I plan on doing all my RA-4 with the modified roller transport machine since I bought it with that plan in in mind in the first place. Getting all the free cibachrome stuff was unexpected so I'm just trying to use it before I modify the machine.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

I did Ilfochrome prior to RA4. With a dichro head, a not-too-contrasty transparency and the right paper type chemistry (P3X rapid chemistry adds contrast!) you don't even need unsharp masks for maybe half of what you might otherwise print.

Comparatively speaking RA4 can be ridiculously easy to get great results. There are a couple of caveats from my experiences in the late 90's-2005. Crystal Archive is a good choice for mixed film types; strange results sometimes from shooting Fuji films and processing on Kodak papers (especially Reala, the first one with the "4th Layer" for mixed lighting).

A consideration for building a D/R for RA4 printing will be proper ventilation. The fumes that came out of my JOBO and sink were sufficient to cause headaches if I forgot to turn the exhaust fan on. No such headaches with Ilfochrome. Laminar flow across the sink would be ideal.

Also, the bleach/fix from RA4 is quite corrosive and you'll want plastic drainpipes, not cast iron-- or you'll soon have headaches of another sort.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Old P30 kits can be hard to mix and then use fast enough. Old Ilfochrome chemistry goes bad quicker once mixed... within a day or two at working temperatures sometimes.

[SeanEsopenko]

...

A consideration for building a D/R for RA4 printing will be proper ventilation. The fumes that came out of my JOBO and sink were sufficient to cause headaches if I forgot to turn the exhaust fan on. No such headaches with Ilfochrome. Laminar flow across the sink would be ideal.

Also, the bleach/fix from RA4 is quite corrosive and you'll want plastic drainpipes, not cast iron-- or you'll soon have headaches of another sort.

I have a 300CFM fan installed for my darkroom of about 60sf. I think it's pulling out about 150-200CFM with the restrictions of the light baffle. The print processing machine will be located directly under the intake fan of the ventilation. My printmaking background (intaglio acid baths, screen cleaner for acrylic silk screening, etc, etc) engraved proper air ventilation in my practice ;). If it turns out to be an issue I won't hesitate to install better ventilation.

Thanks for the tip on the corrosive qualities on the bleach/fix. The house where my wife's store and my darkroom is set up was built in 1912. About 3/4 of the house's drainage pipes were switched to ABS but the laundry drain in the darkroom is metal part of the way (I had a look in the basement a while back). I'll make sure those chemicals go down a safer drain.

Are there any darkroom chemicals that are harsh enough that they shouldn't be going down the drain and dropped off at the fire department instead?