This weekend I was able to take my Beseler 67SC for a spin and create the first enlargement I’ve made in a long time. My first in this century, that’s for sure.
It’s not perfect, it’s quite overexposed. I didn’t use an easel or a grain focuser but I think I like it.
Enlargement
Exposure time was five seconds, way too long so I already know I need to invest in some ND filters to drop the light down enough to get proper exposure time to between 10-15 seconds. Lens was a 50mm 3.5 set at f/8. Paper is a 5×7 sheet of Ilford Pearl #3 RC. Developed in Kodak Dektol, since the print was so overexposed development time was mere seconds.
How’s the print you might ask? Even overexposed, the tones blow me away. Of course the process is fun too. The smell of an 8×10 tray of stop bath out in the open, the safelight casting a red glow over everything, the glow in the dark dial on my darkroom timer. The best part? Placing your exposed sheet of paper into the developer. Completely blank and watching it come to life right before your eyes.
Even if you have no interest at all in film or the whole wet-process, at least experience it once. Find a friend or take a class on working in the darkroom. Get an appreciation for what we had to do before digital. And if you don’t end up appreciating the process, you at least get to feel like one of those old time detectives working in the red-lit darkroom. So, there ya go.