Old School For New Students - Part One - Dark Light

I hesitated to use the term " Old School " in the header as it is overused these days - everything from hot rods to casserole recipes is referred to in these terms. The most frustrating thing about it is the fact that often the items presented have very little to do with previous designs. It's like seeing " retro " used in the electronics section of the department store on modern internet music players. Some of us who went to the old schools...and we know the retro difference. Nevertheless, it is an advertising formula that works, and since this column is 23.8% advertising, I might as well use it. You'll be sick of it by the end of the week. The AP company is out of Spain, and they may have taken over moulds and patents from previous analog equipment makers to carry on the darkroom and film form of photography. The darkroom safelight seen in the heading image is one of their best sellers - it can be found in hundreds of amateur darkrooms in Australia. It's fully safe - registered for local use on 220 volts AC - with a readily available fridge bulb if you ever need a replacement. This example is the most common - a red housing for use with normal black and white darkroom paper. If you're using Ilford Multigrade and keep it a couple of metres away from the paper you'll be fine. Don't use it to help when you're loading film into a tank or tray - it will fog any panchromatic emulsion. Likewise don't use it to light up the darkroom when you are developing Colour RA-4 prints or Cibachromes. Don't suspend it outside in your porch at night or you'll have to put up with a stream of visitors looking for active entertainment. Do use it to inspect the prints as they go through the developer. You'll eventually get to the point of being able to recognise the point of correct development, whereupon you can plunge plunge the paper into the stop bath and fixer. There are several other coloured covers you can get from AP for this light housing...though you'll likely not need them: Yellow safelight for low sensitivity bromide papers. Orange safelight for higher sensitivity papers. Green safelight for panchromatic film emulsions...but only the very insensitive ones and only if you're a bit of a gambler. The advice about keeping the safelight a distance from the paper you're using is based upon the fact that everything will fog eventually if you are close enough to it for a long enough time. You can light up a darkroom reasonably well with one light or quite well with two as long as they're far enough out of the way. All the textbooks say to test your safelight situation by placing a coin on a blank piece of darkroom printing paper for about 3 minutes at the distance you propose to use for your light - then develop it and see if there is any sign of an outline. Note that there is a hole on the base of the light to screw through or hang on a peg board.