I'm away from home for a while, and cannot put together a darkroom. Can anyone offer any advice on making contact sheets without an enlarger? Even though I have been getting contact sheets made from my HP5+ as I travel, I would love to have more control, certainly up to the processing/contact sheet stage. Many thanks in advance. Neal Wilkinson.

-- Neal Wilkinson (NealAndDiana@aol.com), April 24, 2000

Answers

Many years ago before my dad allowed me to use the darkroom, I used to contact print in my bathroom utilizing a contact printing frame, a desk lamp with a 40 or 60 watt bulb (don't recall exactly) and AZO paper. It's primitive but it worked then,it should work now. As I recall the biggest problem was getting the light even (I used an old Weston Master V to measure all the corners and the center...very fussy!!) As far as processing I just,hooked up a safelight, used the any available flat surface that would accomodate 8x10 trays and used the sink for a washer. You are limited to late night of course and it helped that there was no window in my bathroom. A towel rolled up at the bottom of the door helps to shut out the light.

-- Robert Orofino (rorofino@iopener.net), April 24, 2000.

Instead of trays, use a tube. You don't need any fancy base, just roll it on the bathroom floor.

As to doing the contacts, a frame and a light source would do it. You can use the bathroom at night with the room lights off. I have even loaded film onto reels for processing using this "darkroom".

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), April 25, 2000.

I've used the regular light in the bathroom and a contact frame on the floor. The light turned out to be quite bright with very short times, so I took out one bulb and wrapped some tissue paper around the other. Generally, illumination on the floor some distance from the light is quite even (you can check this with an exposuree meter). Run one test for maximum black through film base + fog on your choice of paper and then you should be able to get your contacts. Hope this helps. DJ

-- N Dhananjay (ndhanu@umich.edu), April 27, 2000.