Darkroom Equipment
Author: Seth Willis Jr.

You may be photographing in broad daylight or in the middle of
the night and it is no concern at all. However when you are
developing a film or printing the negatives, one always needs a
darkroom and the overall important darkroom equipment for
processing your creative photographs into reality. The
equipment required for film processing is of diverse variety
and you really need a nice square room to house all of these in
an organized manner.

What is required?

Before we discuss the most important pieces of equipment let us
list them together:

• Books on photography

• Film processing tanks of various types

• Film Reels

• Darkroom chemicals for film processing like developers,
fixers, printing chemicals, stop bath chemicals etc

• Chemical storage and jugs

• Miscellaneous chemicals and darkroom equipment like fixer
test solution, hypo clearing agent, wetting agent, changing
plastic bags, safe lights, timers, and trays

• Printing ancillaries like lint free cotton gloves, glass rods
for stirring, printing scale wedges, dodging and burning
equipment for color finishing of photographs, exposure meters
or timers, funnels, safety photographic paper containers, eye
magnifying glasses like the ones used by watch repairers or
jewelers (called loupes), focusable magnifying equipment and
dryers are some of the main items needed as darkroom equipment.

• If you intend to create art photographs or portraits and
stills, an enlarger equipment is also necessary, though this
can be pretty expensive.

One important factor in processing of exposed film is the
lighting inside your dark room. This should be of low intensity
and of dull red color as many readers would know already! This
hobby requires greater understanding of the photographic
processing and for a novice we suggest a suitable course to be
followed before embarking in a professional or even a
beginner's way.

Salient features of the darkroom equipment

As one can realize from the above list there are many items to
be considered before a processing studio is ready. Some of
these are explained in the next paragraph.

1 .The tanks required for developing and printing need to be
inert to the photographic chemicals and therefore either
stainless steel or plastic

2. The film reels can be either manual rotation or motor
driven. They are made from stainless steel or plastic. Check
compatibility between the tanks and reels before buying this
darkroom equipment

3. The chemicals are to be handled in a careful manner like in
any laboratory. The developer, fixer, printing chemicals need
to be kept in brown bottles made from glass for best safety and
storage life.

4. The type of lighting inside the darkroom is important and
great care must be taken to choose this item. Ceiling lights
with adjustable hoods is the most useful form of lighting as
one can focus it as per needs.

Miscellaneous equipments like trays, timers, enlargers, other
printing items are readily available in a photography hobby
center and one is advised to carefully choose them by
consulting the vast information available on Internet or the
expert in the local darkroom equipment shop

About The Author: Seth Willis Jr. is the webmaster for
http://www.Starephotography.com he enjoys photography as well
as painting and blues and Jazz guitar.Stare photography is an
Online school for budding and seasoned photographers to enhance
their skills or start a new career.