Hi Wendy .... First, make sure your dark room is really dark. Turn off all the lights in the house - you'd be surprised what can sneak through the spaces between the door and floor. I even close the doors to the other rooms in proximity to the darkroom as I found that lights from outside - streetlights, sometimes moonlight - could sneak in. When in the room, wait a while until your eyes adjust to the dark, then move your hand around in front of your face. You shouldn't be able to see it, even just barely. You may have to put some flashing around the door - a towel along the bottom may help. Once you know the room is light tight, you can load your film. Always wait a few moments after you turn out the lights before removing the film from the canister, especially if you have fluorescent light in the room. Sometimes residual light can fog or degrade the film.
Paul's suggestion of using a piece of board over the tub is OK, but that means you've gotta print on your knees. A better solution is to build up some height. I used some plastic shelving I bought at some discount place - cost me $39.00 - and built a two-tiered wet area that can be easily moved or broken down. Here's a photo of the setup: http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/darkroom/my-darkroom.html The nice thing about this design is that the plastic shelving is very light and the whole setup can be quickly broken down and easily removed should you want the bathroom for its intended use. Since I've a few bathrooms, I leave things as they are unless there are house guests who may want their own bathroom. As for the local labs being able to process your B&W negs, I suppose you'd have to ask them. However, there are numerous excellent labs that do high quality work in many areas of the country. Check around and see if there's a "pro" lab near you. Don't waste your time dealing with the mini-labs. If you can't find a good pro lab that's convenient to you, there are many that will accept mail orders, but that's really not the best choice. HTH ... let me know if you have any questions. wendy beard wrote: > > You know, This never even occurred to me. > Even though I used to process slide film for precisely this reason. > I alway thought B&W = darkroom. Funny how your mind makes associations and > just sticks to them. > This also means that I can start to process my own black & white too. After > all, I've got the dark bathroom. > Just nowhere to set up for printing. > Which leads me to my next question - > Say I did my own processing, are the local labs likely to be able to make > prints or will they have to send the negs away just like now when they send > the film away to be processed? > Yes, I know, ask them. I went down to my local shop yesterday. It turned > out they were closed for "stocktaking" . Yeah, right. Some sort of minor > "football" game on TV and all the blokes go stocktaking. -- Shel Belinkoff mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/ - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
