Pavel Matoušek

photographer's pretty pompous presentation

My first film processing and enlarging

A short photoreport (some steps are skipped) from my darkroom (=bathroom) . . .

All done over thee evenings, about 4,5 hours in total.
1h to prepare and clean up the bathroom
1h to get film from cassette and put it to coil in developer
1h to brew (needs some hours to mature) and temperate chemicals
30m to develop the films (needs some hours to get dry)
30m to test exposures in enlarger and set-up it
30m to put ready photopapers to chemicals and wash it
+ much time to read about it and learn

Think i could do it much faster now, but it always hurts first time, you know . . .

1) cameras (Zenit E[1980], Nikon F70[1995] , EXA 1a[1965]) and film (Fujifilm Neopan ISO400) i used
The photopapers and chemicals were from Foma, only developer was Ilford ID-11.


2) room made dark


3) cutting film from the cassette


4) cooling chemicals (developer, stopper and fixer [all toxic]), need to be 20°C


5)drying developed films


6) selecting the right negative


7) preparing dishes with chemicals


8) preparing enlarging machine
(Opemus 6, now with Trioplan 50/2 lens[taken from old camera and its much better than original Belar lens])


9) pushing the red button (=ruby infrared bulb for photopapers, can also be hardly seen by cameras)


10) enlarger working (negative 36x24mm to A4)


11) my very first enlarged photo - symbol of the black & white - zebra (had a technical problems with lens, but i still love it)


12) final blow-ups


So thats all folks! Before trying it, i was a bit afraid, but now its great relax and its pretty simple...
And you need to love your own products... Now its your turn to try it following this instructions!
(all the equipment can be bought in online auctions and chemicals in specialized stores,
also all the how tos can be found around internet... or click this.)

"No animals were harmed during the making of this film."