Other equipment needed...
The initial setting up and operation of a darkroom is beyond the scope of this article. And as there are a number of books available from book shops libraries etc. There is also an excellent web site on this subject. I would recommend the beginner to one of these. But a few words on the subject won't go amiss.
Firstly, a darkroom does not have to a specially built room with no windows nor does it have to have running water. Any room will do. I used a spare bedroom, and when I wanted to do some enlarging I would place a sheet of hardboard over the window, and hang a curtain over the door to stop light from entering around the edges. Instant darkroom !! which cost no more than the sheet of hardboard.
As black & white processing is being done, the enlarger (which is the main piece of equipment) does not have to cost much, a very basic model will do as no filtration is required, nor is an electronic timer needed, but to get the best from your negatives the light source needs to be even, and the lens needs to be of good quality, that has an aperture that can be stopped down. In fact I paid about four times the cost of an enlarger just for the lens !
Other equipment needed...
Photographic paper is available in a number of different grades of contrast, from grade 0, (soft or low contrast) up to grade 5 or 6 (hard or high contrast). There are a number of brands to chose from, I use Ilford's Ilfospeed medium weight glossy which is available in grades 0 - 5. I find I use grade 5 about 95% of the time.Developer. I chose to use Ilfospeed developer, there are many others but I found this to work well for me and was available as a liquid, so was easy to make up a working solution when required just by adding water.
Fixer. Again many available but I use Paterson Acufix, as this was also a convenient liquid.
I found there was no need for the use of a stop bath, a dish of water was sufficient between the developer and fixer.
I will assume that you have read the appropriate books on how to use darkroom equipment and are familiar with developing a "normal" print. The methods described here have been developed (pardon the pun) by my self to give me the best prints of astronomical subjects from B&W negatives. These methods may depart from the textbook in order to get the most information from the negative.When I first started to process my own astrophoto's I noticed something rather strange happening in the developer. When the developer was first mixed up to the correct temperature I found I was not getting the results I wanted, but after a number of prints were passed through the developer the results were getting better. What was happening was 2 things; the temperature of the developer was lower than it should be about 15 deg C instead of 20 deg C that it should be, and the developer was being exhausted slightly. I pursued this find, so that now when I want to do some printing I don't warm the developer up to the "correct" temperature and I re-use old developer from previous sessions, and just "top up the solution" from a new mix.
The effect of the above technique is to increase the contrast of the print. Now as the developer is not working as fast as it was the development times are increased typically 2 - 3 times longer than stated in the instructions. In fact, I exposed the paper as little as possible and develop it for as long as possible until the development stops. This is completely the wrong way of developing "normal" prints, but works great on our deep-sky photo's.
The resulting print should not have any completely black areas on it but a dark grey, that way you will retain as much information as possible from the original negative.
Just to re-cap on the above...
- Use contrasty paper
- Expose for as short a time as possible
- Develop in slightly used developer at a colder temperature.
- Develop for as long as possible until no more action is taking place.
- Keep the darkest areas of the print from going black.
