As usual, a wonderful piece.

I can’t say I’m a filmista, but much the same as you I’ve got a lot of imagery sorry up that until recently have not done much with.

With the recent quarantine, I had the opportunity to parse through some 70,000 images and cull that down to about 10,000 which I stored in albums on Google Photos and sent links to my family.

Retirement is literally around the corner for me, and the next plan is to start creating photo books to have printed and give away to the family.

I’ve also got the Canon Pro-100 that I print on occasionally that I will use to create images to hang string the house, etc.

Thanks for an amazing website.

Chris

Justin, I hear you about a cold basement! I did mitigate it with a portable electric fan heater that I’d run for about an hour prior to beginning a print session. But I’d still have to eventually reheat the developer. But with the heater running, that occurred far less often! Heck I almost considered getting some of those air activated hand warmers and setting them in a towel with the developer resting upon it to keep it at 68-70 degrees.

Two months ago, I had to replace my furnace. Looking back, I should have asked the HVAC contractor to install a vent right off the output that I could open to heat the basement when needed and close for the rest of the time. Oh well…

Welcome to the Darkside! It’s hard to explain to the uninitiated how deeply satisfying traditional printing can be. For me it’s a journey that is as important as the destination. You are not likely to see a difference in sharpness between a dichroic and a condenser head – what you’re seeing is actually a contrast difference which can be easily compensated for by adjusting the yellow and magenta settings. Dust control will be more of a challenge with a condenser. Make sure someone shows you the secret handshake.

I agree with printing photos, especially if one uses film to some degree. My film exploits are limited to black and white as anything color is handled very well by my Canon 6D. So to print my black and white negatives, I have gone the traditional wet darkroom route. But why would I do that when there are some exceptional quality photo printers out there?

Simple. I was gifted an enlarger in the mid 2000’s by a gentleman who was getting out of darkroom printing and going to inkjet. It is an Omega with the Chromega B66 dichroic head (he obviously did mostly color printing) and a Schneider enlarging lens in addition to the Omega lens that came with the unit. I had negative carriers for 35mm, 127, 6×45, and 6×6. So I was all set to go. I understand that dichroic heads are not quite as sharp as condensors but I never have to worry about contrast filters. And besides, free is free! So all I had to do is get paper chemistry, paper, and trays. I already had tanks and reels for the film since I developed E6 from 1990 to 2006 or so. Sadly, having my job outsourced and other things put the darkroom on hold.

The unit languished in a damp basement for nearly 15 years until I decided to see if it still worked. It did so I finally got my darkroom made and have been printing for almost a year. So for me, the wet darkroom was actually the more economical way to print since I had the enlarger. The cost of chemistry and paper for darkroom prints was better than the cost of ink and mid to middle-upper range photo paper. Errors in printing are less costly than with inkjet printing when they do occur (I think many more than are willing to admit have forgot to close down the enlarger lens to exposure aperture after focusing wide open). And personally, I still prefer the look of black and white film on photo paper.

Now what I currently do is after processing, I scan the negatives on an Epson V850 and that’s my “proofing.” I do not make contact prints. And when I do print, I use 5×7 paper (with the enlarger at the height for 8×10, of course) to make my test print and then go to 8×10 for the final print. I’ve found that darkroom printing is quite forgiving, especially on the development end of things. And my results after just my second session ever were quite good to me.

So for me, the traditional way is the best way. But like everything else, it’s just a means to an end.