B&W Photography

Black & White Photography

Hints & Kinks

By Doug Criner

Black & white film photography offers the opportunity for hobbyists to produce artistic pictures, worthy of framing—probably more so than either color film or digital photography. Color film photography suffers from the usual reliance upon commercial photo labs for developing and printing, which are integral components of the artistic expression. Also, color prints are often too gaudy–what's called rich, vibrant color is often quite unrealistic and distracting.

Why I Use Film

Digital photography is limited by the printing process. Even with expensive printers, the process involves splattering pixels of ink or toner onto paper. Both digital prints and conventional color prints are subject to fading. B&W prints, decades old, still look good. I recently discovered a deceased relative's 60-year-old B&W snapshot negatives, and was able to print them. Will digital files and formats be similarly extant and printable 60 years from now? In any case, digital cameras and printers are optimized for producing color photos rather than B&W.

Recently, commercial processors have begun offering what is termed the ultimate high-quality digital print: the digital image is projected upon normal photographic paper and developed in the usual darkroom process employing wet chemistry. Hmm.

B&W photography offers a vast array of choices in camera lenses, paper, and darkroom finishing techniques. The cost of setting up a very nice home B&W darkroom is probably less than a digital photography station equipped with a good printer and camera (which will be obsolete soon) and PhotoShop, with its continual upgrades.

I do own a 35mm film scanner, a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual III, which works well. However, when making scans for websites or email attachments, it is practical only to use the lowest resolution scans to avoid large image file sizes with intolerable loading times for dial-up modems. The photo gallery on this website uses only low-res JPEG images. The maximum resolution JPEG B&W scans from my film scanner produce multi-meg file sizes, which would bog down many website visitors and rapidly put me in a higher priced category with my web hosting service. For what I use it for, my scanner might just as well be a cheaper, lower resolution model.

Images from a digital camera have files sizes that are suitable for the web. These images can be converted to lower resolution optimized for the web with programs such as PhotoShop Elements.

Setting Up a Wet Darkroom

The main expense of a home darkroom is an enlarger. "Beginner" enlargers sell for less than $500, but probably won't satisfy someone who is serious. The next step up will cost about $1,200, including a variable-contrast head, good lens, and negative carrier. Try to go whole-hog on the lens, such as a Schneider or Rodenstock.

My enlarger is a Beseler 23CIII with a variable contrast head. This model is very commonly found in school photo labs, and can handle both 35mm and medium-format negatives. The rest of the required equipment, such as easel, developing trays, thermometer, graduates, enlarger timer, darkroom lights, etc., will cost peanuts compared to the enlarger, lens, and head.

Be Careful About What They Teach in School

There are many good books that describe the basics of setting up a home darkroom. However, many of them are written by photography teachers that are responsible for school darkrooms. The requirements for school darkrooms are different from home darkrooms in several respects. Here are some suggestions that you probably won't find in most books:

Use only liquid chemicals. Schools often use economical powdered developers, such as D-76 and Dektol, which are troublesome to mix for small batches. For developers, I use Kodak T-Max for film and Polymax T for paper. Kodafix, stop bath, and Photo-Flo come as liquids. Always buy the smallest bottle of each of your chemicals. Instead of using Kodak Hypo Clear, which comes as a powder, I suggest Orbit Bath, a liquid; if Orbit Bath is unavailable locally, it can be mail ordered from B&H Photo (www.bhphotovideo.com).
Schools and commercial photo labs mix "stock" solutions of their chemicals for multi-day storage, and then dilute these further for each day's "working" solution. Indeed, the directions on most darkroom chemicals follow this approach. For home darkrooms, which might operate a couple of times per month, this is a royal pain, and the "stock" solutions will probably go bad before you finish using them. Therefore, go directly to the "working" solution, and mix only the amount you need for one session's batch. My exception is to mix Photo-Flo in 1-gallon batches using a plastic milk jug; Photo-Flo shouldn't go bad for a very long time.
Buy wide-mouth plastic jars, about 1-liter size, one for each of your chemicals. (The Container Store, if one is handy, is a good place to shop for such jars.) You won't need lids for the plastic jars. With a permanent "Sharpie" felt-tip pen, label the chemical name and mark on each jar the level lines or directions for mixing one batch. This saves looking up the dilution formula every time.
Certain chemicals, including stop bath and fixer, can be saved and reused. Don't do it—it's more trouble than it's worth. The cost savings are insignificant for a typical home darkroom, and by always using freshly mixed chemicals, you will benefit from more consistent processing from one session to the next.
The books all tell you to fix film for twice the "clearing time," the fixing time required to make an undeveloped scrap of film become clear. The reason for this is that in schools, where fixer is reused (and possibly contaminated with who-knows-what by some joker in an earlier class), there's no telling how exhausted the fixer is without running the test to determine the clearing time. Using fresh T-Max film developer and Kodafix fixer, here's my simple rule of thumb: fix for the same time recommended for developing. For example, for Tri-X (400TX) 35mm film, the recommended developing time in a small tank at 20˚C is 6 minutes–so fix for 6 minutes. For Plus-X (125PX) film, the recommended developing time is 5-3/4 minutes, so fix for 5-3/4 minutes.
You will probably use a 2-reel tank for film developing. The most aggravating aspect of film developing is threading the film onto reels in the dark. The stainless steel reels commonly used by schools, though indestructible, are particularly frustrating to load. Buy a plastic tank with idiot-proof plastic reels. I've used both Jobo and Beseler; Beseler's seems a little more fool-proof.
For darkroom safelights, just buy cheap incandescent bulbs that have the prescribed OC amber coating.
You really need a processing sink if you're serious. Schools and commercial labs have fancy stainless steel sinks, but just get a 48-inch plastic ABS darkroom sink for about $200.
Don't buy a Kodak siphon for print washing: I'll give you mine–it's worthless. Unless your wash tray is about six inches deep, the siphon won't fit between the edge of the tray and the sink. Buy a plastic 11"x14" tray print washer. (11"x14" will probably be your maximum print size.)
For processing trays, I recommend 8"x10". Most of my prints are either 5"x7" or 8"x10", and larger trays will just waste chemicals for those paper sizes. I keep a set of 11"x14" trays available when I get into that size print. Don't waste your money on stainless steel trays–plastic works fine. Use black trays, and mark (in white) the name of the chemical that each tray will be used for.
School photo labs often have electric film-drying cabinets and print dryers. They're needed so students can finish quickly and get out of the classroom. For me, a plastic print-drying rack and clips for hanging film in open air work fine. To hang a roll of film for drying, you will need two clips; one should be weighted and attached to the bottom of the film to keep it from curling. If you rinse your film in Photo-Flo, I don't think you will have a problem with spotting or bad dust specks on your negs. My water comes from Lake Michigan and is relatively soft–so I may be spoiled. If your water is bad, you can use distilled water for diluting Photo-Flo.
For dusting dry negs, get a Staticmaster brush for about $15. It has a radioactive source that emits ionized particles that help eliminate static. Get the smallest size. The radioactive source lasts several years, after which it's depleted. You can order a replacement source, but it's nearly as expensive as a new brush.
Rather than build a real darkroom, I just blacked out my basement windows with heavy black vinyl.
I'm probably in the minority, but I do not recommend T-Max film. No matter how long I fix it and wash it, it turns out with a pink hue. Pink negs are objectionable on general principles—plus, I fear that the pinkness might have an adverse effect on printing on multi-contrast paper. I prefer Tri-X (ASA 400), which seems more forgiving. If I want a finer grain film, I use Plus-X (ASA 125) or even Technical Pan (ASA 25). Tech Pan requires a special Kodak developer, but it is available in liquid form, packaged in foil pouches for making a single batch. When I used the "old" versions of Tri-X or Plus-X, I used Kodak HC-110 film developer (Dilution B). However, for the "new" versions of Tri-X and Plus-X, the recommended development times for HC-110 are quite short, less than 5 minutes, which could lead to unpredictable results. Therefore, I have switched to T-Max film developer, a slower developer, to provide more consistent results. For paper, I use multi-contrast, resin coated. It's relatively cheap and works well. Manufacturers typically offer three finishes: glossy, semi-matte, and an in-between finish, sometimes called "luster." I dislike the luster because the surface seemingly is embossed with a noticeable texture that I find distracting.
For framing, you supposedly need a dry-mount press for attaching the print to a mat board. I just use 3M Photo Mount spray adhesive and a rubber roller. I keep reading that this is not good, but I have yet to experience any problems.
There's one thing that I've tried and given up on: cutting window mats. I order all my framing supplies from Light Impressions (www.lightimpressionsdirect.com). They have pre-cut mats in most popular sizes and will cut custom mats, too.
One more thing. Unless your eyes are very young and sharp, you'll want a grain focuser for focusing the enlarger.

Good luck!