The Complete Survivalist’s Darkroom: Ch. 1, Grocery Shopping in the Wild Wild Web.

This is my grocery list for a minimal darkroom. It’s not a perfect list, but it will give you an idea of what and where to buy (if you’re starting out as a novice and want to save money).

I will elaborate on why I chose particular products later in the course, but in the meantime, this will give you a rough idea.

 

Legend:

Underlined items are for developing film without a darkroom.

Non-underlined products are for darkroom printing.

Red items are products you can buy from specialist photography stores; I reccommend that you get them from B&H.

Purple items are easier to buy from Ebay, Amazon, second-hand stores, Craigslist and the like.

Green items are general products you can buy anywhere.

Blue items are free

 

ONGOING DARKROOM COSTS:

1. Kentmere 400 ASA Black & White Film, 35mm, 100′ bulk roll
2. Ilford Multigrade FB Matt Paper, 5×7″ 100 sheet
3. Print File Archival Storage Page for 35mm Negatives 100 Pack
4. Ilford Multigrade Paper Developer
5. Ilfotec HC Film Developer
6. Any kind of acetic acid: vinegar, citric acid or human pee (if you are a crazy person or work in the latrines).
7. Ilford Rapid Fixer
8. A light kitchen detergent
9. Black duct tape
10. Black rubbish bags
11. Access to running water, unless you don’t have access to free water.

 

DARKROOM/CAMERA EQUIPMENT AND ACCESSORIES:

1. Any kind of 35mm Film camera (preferably start learning with a compact film camera)
2. Durst M-301 Enlarger
3. Film Changing Bag
4. Kalt reusable 35mm cassettes for bulk film, (25 cassettes would be ideal)
5. Scissors
6. Thermometer
7. Lint-free cloth (typically used to clean glasses)
8. Clothes line pegs
9. A watch/timer
10. Kitchen brush
11. Stainless Steel Developing Tank
12. 2x stainless steel 35mm reels
13. Bulk Film Loader
14. 100mL measuring graduate
15. Kitchen Tongs
16. Micro-focus finder
17. Screw Light Bulb
18. LED red light or a red lightbulb (DO NOT USE A PHONE SCREEN!!)
19. Plastic trays larger than 8×10″ (needs to hold over 600mL of liquid).
20. Glass bottles (must exceed 500mL or higher)
21. A peg hanger
22. Kitchen funnels

 

Hardware:

1. A basic Windows PC (minimum requirements: 3Gb RAM and a 2GHz Processor)
2. Matte screen display monitor.
3. A film scanner; I use the Epson Perfection V370 but there might be better products from Canon if you look.

 

Software:

1. EpsonScan (or a different scanning software if you’re not using an Epson scanner)
2. Darktable
3. GIMP
4. BIMP (batch image manipulation extension for GIMP)
5. Adobe Bridge