Tonight's class, being the first, was a bit shorter than the scheduled time but still full of useful information. The first half of the evening was, as I expected, a review of basic manual camera functions and photography concepts. There wasn't really anything new to me in this section, but the second half picked up with an introduction to the darkroom, developing, enlarging, and printing basics. Let me tell you: watching an exposed piece of photo paper develop in that Dektol bath is way cooler than an emerging Polaroid image.
So here's a rundown of my assignment for the week:
I have to shoot two 24-exposure rolls, 400 speed (B&W of course), of anything I want. I'm to have one processed, uncut, and leave the other undeveloped. This will give us one roll that's sure to be useful for prints, and one to develop ourselves.
With all that comes a shopping list:
1. Negative sleeves
2. Photo paper
3. A whole mess of B&W film - I'll probably grab four rolls of Kodak 400TX from Richmond Camera for this week and next, but I'll likely throw a bunch of Ilford FP4+ in with my online order for the rest of the supplies to take advantage of the cheaper price while I'm already paying for shipping.
I have yet to figure out how to get some of my pictures online. You see, we'll be cutting our negatives for both rolls. This is fine for the roll we have processed before the class because I can have Richmond Camera scan to a CD as usual. But for the roll we develop in class, I'll be left with cut negatives, not yet scanned, and Richmond Camera charges a buck a frame for cut negatives compared to $5 for an uncut roll. Of course, a large point of this class is to make our own prints, and scanned negatives wouldn't necessarily represent the finished product accurately. I suppose if I have prints worth keeping I can have Richmond Camera scan those to a CD for me; this just means I'll have a bit longer delay than usual between when I make prints and when I can share the results online.
Well that's it for this week! I should have some pictures from the processed roll by the end of this week, but again - that will only represent scanned negatives. I may post some of those same pictures again if I get any nice prints out of them.
So here's a rundown of my assignment for the week:
I have to shoot two 24-exposure rolls, 400 speed (B&W of course), of anything I want. I'm to have one processed, uncut, and leave the other undeveloped. This will give us one roll that's sure to be useful for prints, and one to develop ourselves.
With all that comes a shopping list:
1. Negative sleeves
2. Photo paper
3. A whole mess of B&W film - I'll probably grab four rolls of Kodak 400TX from Richmond Camera for this week and next, but I'll likely throw a bunch of Ilford FP4+ in with my online order for the rest of the supplies to take advantage of the cheaper price while I'm already paying for shipping.
I have yet to figure out how to get some of my pictures online. You see, we'll be cutting our negatives for both rolls. This is fine for the roll we have processed before the class because I can have Richmond Camera scan to a CD as usual. But for the roll we develop in class, I'll be left with cut negatives, not yet scanned, and Richmond Camera charges a buck a frame for cut negatives compared to $5 for an uncut roll. Of course, a large point of this class is to make our own prints, and scanned negatives wouldn't necessarily represent the finished product accurately. I suppose if I have prints worth keeping I can have Richmond Camera scan those to a CD for me; this just means I'll have a bit longer delay than usual between when I make prints and when I can share the results online.
Well that's it for this week! I should have some pictures from the processed roll by the end of this week, but again - that will only represent scanned negatives. I may post some of those same pictures again if I get any nice prints out of them.