Tip Jar 35: Basic darkroom printing

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

We did film developing last week, so let’s tackle the next step: making a print from the negatives we now have (right?)

Making a print is slightly more involved, but not significantly, though it has a greater investment in equipment, prep, and space. The big thing is, you need an actual darkroom now, but making one isn’t all that hard.

Darkroom. You will need space for an enlarger (45-60cm square counter space,) and three developing trays sized for your paper, let’s assume 8×10 for the time being – that means 10×12 trays or thereabouts (print paper is still sized in SAE inch measurements, so the trays are roughly 30×35 cm, the paper roughly 20×25.) There will be opportunities to drip chemicals, so a surface that won’t be harmed – standard countertop treatments are usually fine. A little more space for chemicals (3) and beakers. And most helpful, a sink with running water, big enough for the prints you’re making. The room must be light-tight, but not as distinctly as for loading film – I’ve hung a heavy black sheet over the door, but it was an interior door so the room outside wasn’t bright, and doing it at night with the lights turned off out there can help. Generally, a bathroom is ideal, and none of this has to be permanent or mounted; I operated one in a shared apartment where I tore it all down when I was done, the enlarger being stored in the attached linen closet. My first darkroom was in a closet without the running water, so I trotted the prints down the hall to the bathroom when I was done, after floating them in a rinse tray, but it’s much easier with running water.

Equipment. The enlarger of course, but these can be had for the neighborhood of $50-100, varying a lot – some people think they’ll get more money from the retro crowd, others will give them away if they believe you’ll actually use them. Nothing fancy is necessary, especially when just starting out. Diffuser enlargers are smaller, lighter, and cheaper, but often produce uneven light, brighter towards the center of the print (sometimes virtually unnoticeable,) while condenser enlargers are more evenly lit, but larger and heavier from the lenses within that distribute the light better.

A safelight for monochrome paper. This can be as simple as a light bulb that you replace your normal light with, or a dedicated light fixture, but the type is really more crucial for color work than B&W. A darkroom easel big enough for your paper – often these are two-sided with smaller print sizes available on the flip side. A decent timer – enlarger timers are sweet, often set up to turn off the safelight and turn on the enlarger simultaneously, but these are not absolutely necessary and still often a tad expensive; still, one with an audible tone when done so you don’t have to watch it, which might be harder under the safelight. Trays (3, perhaps 4) big enough for your paper. Monochrome print paper – start off with a generic, all purpose, but resin-coated is highly recommended (this soaks up virtually no water and thus doesn’t break down as quickly.) Also, get more than you think you’ll need, because you’ll need practice. Cotton gloves to handle negatives. Tongs or rubber gloves for handling prints in the trays – tongs are far better and you shouldn’t have to keep switching gloves. A way to hang prints to dry, though I’ve also just stuck them to the wall in the shower stall, but you might crumple a corner when they fall after drying.

Useful, but not absolutely necessary, at least at first. An enlarger or grain magnifier for focusing. Contrast filters for your enlarger, though if you’ve snagged one with a color head you’re all set. An exposure guide, a piece of clear plastic with gradient pie sections that tell you what exposure works. A soft rubber squeegee to wipe excess water from the prints after rinsing. Paper trimmer for those nice clean edges. Film cleaner to remove smudges from negatives, and nose grease from damaged negatives (more on that below.)

Chemicals. Developer appropriate for your paper, stop bath (this is usually the exact same stuff you’d use for film,) and fixer, again appropriate for your paper. Temperature usually isn’t as crucial for prints, and room temperature is often fine. You should be able to do at least eight prints in the same chemicals before needing replenishing, and this is recommended, to maximize your time in the darkroom setup, and because you’ll likely be doing test prints and reprinting for better results – expect to be in there for an hour or three. So, ventilation isn’t a bad idea, especially since your light-proofing efforts will just about eradicate normal air flow. Stop bath is by far the worst smelling, being almost the same as vinegar (which can be used in a pinch,) but the level of actual harm that the chemicals can do to you is virtually nil. I’ve spent days in darkrooms and look at me…

The process. All set up, paper and negatives handy, chemicals mixed, trays set out, door closed, safelight on? Then let’s begin.

Negative placed in the negative or carrier tray of the enlarger, emulsion side down (this is the dull side, often doesn’t feel as smooth, but you shouldn’t be touching that surface anyway – use the cotton gloves.) Set your easel in place with a piece of plain white paper within, and turn on the enlarger (making sure your print paper is safely hidden away.) This is where you adjust the height of the enlarger for your print size, and obtain sharp focus, using the magnifier as needed. Looks good? Turn the enlarger off.

author in last darkroom, far too many years agoPlace your print paper in the easel, and the exposure guide over top if needed. Set your timer for the appropriate amount; if you’re using the exposure guide, this will be listed on it, usually a minute. Then just start the timer and turn the enlarger back on simultaneously, switching it off when the timer alarm sounds (actual darkroom timers handle all this automatically.)

[Note: print paper can still be exposed/fogged over time under many safelights, so minimize the amount of time the paper is out, and always close the box completely between prints.]

Immediately move the print paper into the developer, set the timer for that, and gently agitate it within the developer during the entire time – you can nudge it around with the tongs, or gently tip and lower the tray a little to swish the chemicals back and forth. You will actually be seeing the image appear during this, which is way cool.

Times up? Move the print to the stop bath, and like film, only about thirty seconds (or as recommended on the chem or paper instructions.) Time here isn’t crucial, just don’t underdo it or significantly overdo it.

Now into the fixer, and set the timer again – this is usually the longest chem bath as it locks the image in. Gently agitate, it just doesn’t have to be constant.

Times up? Move to the rinse sink, or at least a water-filled tray or bath. Rinse under running water for at least a minute, but more is better – if you’re using the rinse tray, you’ll transport the print(s) to your water source later to do this proper rinse, since the tray isn’t enough.

Hang to dry, after using the squeegee if you have one. Once dry, you do with it as you please.

Now, if you’ve used the exposure guide, this should have given you the proper time to expose your ‘keeper’ print, but chances are, you’re going to redo it for better effect, at least until you get the hang of things. First off, don’t judge the darkness and contrast of the print while in the stop bath, since this is usually colored, but even in the clear fixer, the safelight will fudge your judgment, so the print should appear a little too dark under that. It’s best to judge in regular light, and if your paper is tightly closed and the print fully fixed (rinsing doesn’t have to be complete at this stage,) you can turn on the regular light to examine your results. You will redo prints – it takes a little practice to get things right. This is where you might do:

Contrast adjustment. Contrast filters are colored filters to fit into the enlarger to increase contrast (duh!) – pale yellows for low contrast increases, down to deep magenta for very high contrast. But you may ask, why colored filters if I’m using both B&W film and paper? (I know I did.) It’s because print paper actually has a color sensitivity, especially over time, even when it only produces shades of grey and black – this is why your safelight can be red or orange and not, like, blue. The yellow or magenta light affects how deeply the dark areas of the image will develop versus the light area. When using contrast filters, exposure times will need to be lengthened.

You can also use higher contrast papers, and specialty developer as well, but you’re locked into those results, unless you have multiple papers and mixed chemicals, which you may eventually get into.

Dodging and burning, otherwise known as selectively lightening (dodging) or darkening (burning) only portions of the image. During the paper exposure under the enlarger, you can block some of the light getting to the paper to lighten a select region, or most of it except for that region to darken it (remember that we’re working with inverse light, so the more light that reaches the paper, the darker the print gets.) This can be done one of two ways. If you’re good, you can just use your hands a little above the easel to block the light for a portion of the exposure time. But it’s usually more accurate to use a piece of black cardboard cut into shape, with the edges roughened and irregular, supported by a stiff wire. You don’t want it against the paper because you want soft edges, so the light should diffuse around the edges – greater distance from the paper means softer shadow edges. Move it around during exposure to soften the edges more and make the effect blend well, and again, only a portion of the exposure time – how much depends on how much you need to do.

Touching up. Hopefully you won’t have to do this, but on occasion, you get a scratched negative, or a stray hair gets into the enlarger. The scratch will leave a darker streak across the print, and the best thing to do is reprint it, but treat the scratched emulsion side of the negative with a very small amount of mineral oil or, believe it or not, nose oil – yes, just rub you fingers on your nose bridge and wipe them across the emulsion gently. Either of these fill the scratch and diffuse the light going through, and usually make the scratch disappear in the print. Remember to clean the negative thoroughly after printing, because both of these will damage the emulsion over time.

Hairs will leave white/grey lines across the print. Again, reprinting is best, but you can also use touching dyes on the print to color these in (as well as any bugaboos from the film processing.) This takes a lot of practice, and should be done very gradually. Dyes are thin and essentially stain the image a little darker, and are cumulative, so you can easily match the light greys of the print, and build up to the darker ones. Always use an ultra-fine point brush for these. Back when I worked in a photo lab, I got quite handy with these on color prints, though when you go too far, you end up reprinting anyway.

But yes, this is where digital editing is way better/easier than the darkroom.

So, these last two Tip Jar posts give you an idea of what the process is like and what you’d need, but shouldn’t be treated as a definitive guide – there are entire books out there on the subjects. Again, it’s not too involved, but it is an entirely new thing to learn, with lots of quirks to get very specific control of the end result – much more so with the printing process. While it might seem like a lot to get into, it’s extremely cool to produce your own prints – I’d recommend at the very least trying it in a class where you find one available. Just trust me on this.

A note on that image above, which was my last active darkroom, far too many years ago. That’s a basic diffuser enlarger, so small and light, but you can see the light leak around the side – this only occurs during exposure and doesn’t reach the paper in the easel, but could start to fog any other paper left out. The image on the easel, however, has been tweaked. The original was an eight-second exposure by the light of the safelight, but having the enlarger on for that long would have bleached out the ‘print’ image, so the enlarger was only on for a second. For the remainder of the time, the easel was illuminated by the safelight, so the ‘print’ image was tinted red-orange by this – I digitally desaturated this and increased contrast, and dodged the far edge a little. I really should have gotten the safelight out of the pic, but there wasn’t the room to do it – this was in a little half-bathroom and you can see the shadows on the back wall, while the other is just behind my back – you don’t need much more space than that, though more makes it easier.

Does a bear…

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… yark in the yard?

A few days ago, The Girlfriend pointed out this curious mound of… something… in the grass not 7 meters from the window to Deep 13. Initially, I said, “Bear shit,” based on what appeared to be berry seeds, then looked closer and suspected it was an old patch of fungus that was fading away, but I wasn’t sure of that. Later on, I put on some rubber gloves and checked it in detail.

what appears to be a collection of regurgitated persimmons in yard, author's fingers for scale
Those things that look individual, are, and appear that they might be persimmons, though the persimmon tree in the immediate neighborhood isn’t ripe yet. But little to no digestion seems to have occurred, so I’m guessing that these have been regurgitated instead – possibly because a bellyful of unripe persimmons is enough to do that. The cricket, however (near my fingertips,) is a later addition.

I’ve been meaning to get a surveillance camera set up for that side of the house, and had been stalling on it, but this was enough to kick the process back into gear. Unfortunately, the time I tackled it was during the late morning on one of the hottest days, a heat index over 40°c, and I got badly overheated tackling this and one other task, even though I was out far less than an hour – it’s brutal out there. Worse, however, is that the camera system works great, and triggers to record on movement.

“But isn’t that what you want, dipshit?” you ask, and yes, it is – to a degree. I want to see the bears and deer and foxes and owls and whatever else in the fur- or feather-bearing classes that visit. What I do not want to see is the only thing that I’ve found triggering the recorder so far, which is moths – lots and lots of goddamn moths. There will be dozens of clips in the morning, at times spaced only a few minutes apart – I got lucky once and it went for better than thirty minutes without a trigger. The IR illumination bounces back from moths fiercely, producing brilliant white spots against the deep grey of the distant background grasses and trees, and as yet I have not found a way to prevent this.

IR surveillance camera frame of moth flying too close to camera
Sorry about the quality – no way to export yet, so this is a smutphone shot of the TV screen. I’ve dubbed this “Arthur” – stay with me here
An American black bear will be very subtle against the background, unless it’s close (well, as close as the chunder shown at top,) so I don’t exactly want to reduce the sensitivity of the camera triggers. What I need is an algorithm that takes little (or big) white spots wavering around at high speed and deletes all such recordings.

This equipment is all second-hand, because I tried for a while to get IP cams to play nice with a Linux system but that was a lot of wasted time, disappointing after having such a system running on Windows with surprisingly little trouble. So when someone offered a standalone system with its own harddrive, we jumped on it.

screen grab of moth captured close to IR surveillance camera
But it’ll be a boon for starting some YouTube channel about supernatural hoohahs, because look at this lovely example of a “rod,” which is… well, I can’t keep track of whatever a rod is supposed to be according to the ancient aliens crowd; it might be a ghost, or an alien, or a multi-dimensional manifestation (which, technically, it is.) In reality though, it’s simply an insect captured at a shutter speed slower than its wingbeat – that sine-wave outer shape is only its wings.

So, if we capture video of something interesting, I’ll make sure to feature it – but don’t be sitting there waiting, because I get frustrated very quickly with going through clip after clip of stuff just like this and find better things to do, so if a bear or a sasquatch is captured, I’m liable to have given up watching before I get to it.

Frog break, this time

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The video sorting continues apace – still a lot to go, but much more than that done. Still, we need another post, so we’ll check in on the new froglets appearing around Walkabout Estates now.

There have been a couple on the morning glories outside Deep 13 recently, so naturally I chose the smallest.

young juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on leaf of morning glory Convolvulaceae
That’s enough for scale, right? We all know how big morning glory leaves are? No, I’m not leaving it at that, especially when this one was pretty cooperative.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on author's thumb
At this age, the green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) are somewhat mellow, and as long as you don’t move too quickly, you may convince them to clamber onto your finger. This one, in fact, needed a little convincing to get back off, having settled in nicely.

Another, roughly the same size, this time on The Girlfriend’s hand.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on The Girlfriend's hand
The lighting was better for this one, though I like the previous pose/composition better. You can tell these are different specimens by looking at the dark borders to the lateral white stripe.

Another about the same size, but this time a Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis) on the sweet potato vines out front.

very juvenile Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis on sweet potato leaf
Obviously a grey, and the Copes are the only variety we have around here. This was the first newly-untadpoled one I’d found, though I emptied quite a few tadpoles from the watering cans into the pond, since the idiot adults kept using them to deposit eggs within.

As soon as it starts getting dark, a few resident greens emerge from their daytime hiding spots around some of our windows and start hunting the insects that are attracted to the light, which means we often leave the lights on in two of the windows overnight, and the frog are certainly taking advantage because we can see them growing larger, not to mention the occasional capture in action (I need to try to get that on video, but the video light outside the window might draw the insects away from the glass.) Another tiny specimen paused on the glass while I had the camera in hand.

very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus on window next to author's finger
The windows are double-pane insulated glass, which produced a reflection of the froglet’s feet down below. On a neighboring pane, one of the largest adults I’ve seen was also hunting, so we have a size comparison, taken moments apart.

large adult green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus on window trim alongside author's finger
So there’s a direct comparison between being newly-emerged from the water, and how big they can actually get (which, granted, isn’t big – bullfrogs can get larger than my fist, and we have at least one such specimen down at the pond.)

Coming in from doing the partial lunar eclipse the other night, I had the camera and long lens in hand when I spotted a rare opportunity, this time on the kitchen window: two juvies in close proximity. I had to back off across the kitchen because that lens doesn’t focus within 2.5 meters, and then fire off the on-camera flash, and then adjust my angle to eliminate most of the bounceback from the glass and try again, but I did record them for posterity.

two very juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus from underneath, perched on kitchen window
We’ve seen as many as five frogs hunting on this one window at once, three juvies and two adults, and given that the insects are horrendous out there and going out with the headlamp means dealing with a swarm, we’re happy to encourage their feeding. I’d carry a couple around with me if I thought I could train them for it.

[Seriously, I’ve actually gone out on the worst evenings wearing a mask to prevent inhaling any insects – it’s happened more than once, and one went so far up in my sinus that it couldn’t be sneezed or blown out, and had to be washed out with the neti pot. Rat bastard.]

And finally, one from last night, that I enlisted The Girlfriend’s help with.

very juvenile Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched on author's finger, photo by The Girlfriend
Again on the morning glories, this one was a silvery color tinged with green, but if you look closely under the eye, you’ll see the vestige of a faint diagonal white stripe down to the mouth, a trait of the grey treefrogs – they haven’t developed much other distinguishing coloration at this age.

Oh, sorry, not the final one – I forgot I had a couple images that I never got around to posting, from a month ago, but they’re topical now. During one of the rainy periods, one large adult Copes grey was calling on a tree not far outside Deep 13, and I approached with the camera but figured the headlamp would alert it too much, preventing it from calling while I watched. Still, I got the throat partially inflated, which is how it sits between calls.

adult Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched in crook of tree between calls
The Girlfriend and I were nearby while this one was bellowing out its desire for companionship, and soon located it. Amusingly, while it had paused its calling, The Girlfriend mimicked its call – and it responded in kind.

adult Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched in crook of tree, actively calling
I wouldn’t have thought this would happen, given that neither of us can get particularly close to the sound of a grey treefrog, but they carried on a brief ‘conversation,’ so there was little doubt. Granted, it might have thought she was a competitor, albeit one with a speech impediment, but it worked either way.

These, by the way, sit as a precursor to some other pics that I have coming, so more are on the way. I’m endeavoring not to sidetrack myself too much or I’ll never finish the sorting.

I need a break

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I mean, it’s been three days without a post – what am I breaking from? From sorting video clips, of which I got too far behind on. I am doing what I should be doing with the still photos, which is adding details to a spreadsheet as I go – species, behavior, location, et cetera. It’s virtually necessary with the videos since there is no adequate thumbnail program to skim through them quickly, so without a spreadsheet, I have to watch the clips to see what’s on them, and I’ve done this before; searching back and forth for that one that shows the wood duck killing the bear takes far too much time. So I’m being conscientious and saving myself future time by spending it now to catalog properly.

But this means watching every clip almost all the way through to see what it actually contains, and then adding those details to the spreadsheet. It helps, slightly, in that I delete almost half of what I’d shot, but I still have to watch them to see that they’re worthless. It takes a while, and makes me buggy fairly quickly, so frequent breaks are in order. I can’t imagine doing this every day.

Thus, I’m on break, and posting a few pics from yesterday, just for the hell of it (and because I’m not up to writing up the details on the other pics I have sitting in the folder awaiting treatment – they’ll be along.) These were obtained yesterday afternoon as the clouds got dramatic. The weather did not – it remained hot and still – but the clouds tried to pretend otherwise.

growing thunderhead with crepuscular rays breaking past
Which works better: the more direct focus on the individual growing ‘mushroom’ with the distinct diagonal of shadow, or the wider shot that shows more rays but more trees?

trees and thunderheads and crepuscular rays
From the yard, I wasn’t getting any better view than this – I should have been down at the waterfront, but that was just far enough away that the view would have been at least a little different, if the clouds didn’t shift entirely in the time that it would take to get down there. I also should’ve taken my cue to go down about an hour later to actually watch sunset on the water, but I didn’t. I did turn around a bit to see what lay in that direction, again using the trees because there were no majestic condors wheeling against the sky for a focal point.

growing cumulonimbus clouds behind trees with deep blue sky
I probably couldn’t have gotten a better blue than this at any other time, though it might have been nice to get a little sunlight on the trees and not have them silhouetted in this way. Never happy…

Okay, back to the grind. The nice part is, eventually I’ll put together the video clips I’ve been stalling on all summer, and have a feature here.

Yes, more

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The uploads for August still won’t compete with July (144) and March (126) of this year, but they will set a record for August uploads within the ol’ blogarooty, and to be honest, I have plenty of images to put up – I’m just remaining thematic right now, and saving some for a slower day. So what we have here are images from three sessions chasing Lepidoptera on the various flowers out front.

It started with noticing that some medium-sized, pale yellow butterflies were now frequent visitors to the two salvia plants, and attempting to get some sharp pics of them. The first session was evidence of my being absent-minded, because I was shooting in bright sunlight with the camera settings adjusted for shady conditions, and no compensation dialed in. It shows.

cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly on blue salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom, over-exposed
I should have warned you to squint before scrolling down, but too late now – you probably can’t even read this. For cloudy conditions, I have camera settings for boosting saturation and contrast a little, which should not be done for bright sunny conditions, like here – just the opposite. So the bright portions of the butterfly got blown off the scale. Plus, the background leaves were a little darker than midtones, so the exposure meter brought things up even higher. A shame, because the focus was bang on, something that’s extremely tricky to do with butterflies and the Sigma 180mm macro, which has a very short sharp focus range because of the focal length. After unloading these, I went back out to try again.

cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly on purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom, slightly over-exposed
This is a little bit better, with the settings for ‘normal’ conditions but under-exposed (from what the camera thought it should be) by 2/3 of a stop. That shadowed leaf in the background still pushed things higher, so this is less than ideal. The next is right where the exposure should be.

cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly with faintly damaged wings on purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom
There! That’s the detail that should be coming up, even though, against the other two images, it looks a little under-saturated, but this is probably the closest to natural appearance that I could get. With the wings flat to the camera, in good light, with a nice accent from the salvia blossom. Naturally, I get one with damaged wings for this.

This is, most likely, a cloudless sulphur butterfly (Phoebis sennae,) one of many visiting the plants.

closeup portrait of cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly buried in purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom
And buried deep within the blossom, with focus bang-on. I’d take credit for this and try to make sure you didn’t see all of the badly-focused frames hiding behind my back, but there’s so many they’re spilling from my hands. While the Sigma 180 has fast autofocus, that extremely short focus range means a lot of hunting usually takes place, so I typically set for manual, get close with the focus ring, and then achieve sharp focus by gently swaying into that perfect distance. Since the flowers are usually gently swaying as well, and the butterflies rarely holding still for longer than two seconds, this is no guarantee of anything, but it’s what works best.

By the way, when I say ‘short focus range,’ I don’t mean that the lens cannot focus through a wide range of distances; just the opposite, it can handle less than half-a-meter to infinity. The longer focal length (higher magnification) means depth-of-field is shorter, and so the range of sharp focus on either side of the focused distance is a few millimeters at best. If you look at the image above, you can see that the nearest portion of the blossom, and the ends of the antennae, are already defocused at f8. I could potentially have improved things by pushing to f16, but then the shutter speed takes a hit, perhaps enough for blurring from movement of either the butterfly or myself. There’s a sweet spot that you aim for with subjects like this.

A few days later (making it ‘today,’) I went out to try again, starting while the sun was behind a cloud, which is plainly visible in the contrast and color.

probable fiery skipper Hylephila phyleus on black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii cluster
Over on the black knight butterfly bush now, this is, near as I can tell, a fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus,) but it never dropped its wings in my sight so I could confirm the upper-surface coloration. It was gone in moments, and only returned for a brief cameo while I was chasing others.

well-composed image of cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly on purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom
Back to the cloudless sulphurs. This is the kind of composition I can live with, though purely accidental: The petals of the blossoms accenting the butterfly’s wings in this manner, nice contrast in the colors, the gap with the head framed within, and a lovely smooth background. I could have done without the shadows overall, but butterflies don’t take instruction (shocking, I know) and far too many times, I had edge-on views of them as they visited the individual blossoms.

closeup of cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly feeding on purple salvia salvia guaranitica blossom
A nice closeup, illustrating the multiple ‘false pupils’ that butterfly eyes often show. This puts me in mind of a dentist though.

closeup of cloudless sulphur Phoebis sennae butterfly with proboscis buried deep within purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom
And buried deep within another, trying to get all that heady nectar. In their favor, the cloudless sulphurs at least tended to visit nearby blossoms as they worked around the bushes, so while their next stop couldn’t quite be predicted, it was often not terribly far from the focus range already dialed in. Other pollinators that I’ve tracked seemed to operate almost at random, so following them required lots of focus adjustment.

Also, when the sun was behind clouds, the activity was almost nil, but once the conditions were bright again the butterflies re-appeared immediately, like within 15 seconds. My best guess is that they identify nectar-producing blossoms by the reflected UV, which many insects can see well, so the sunlight was highlighting the ideal food sources better. I have a goal of illustrating how UV reflection differs for flowers, but it’s not an easy or cheap photographic project, so it hasn’t happened yet.

pair of silver-spotted skippers Epargyreus clarus sharing cluster on black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
Back over to the butterfly bush, which the sulphurs never seemed to partake of, but the skippers were. This is (most likely) a pair of silver-spotted skippers (Epargyreus clarus) sharing the same cluster, which is rare; usually, they’re fairly territorial, and indeed, only seconds after this frame, they erupted into a brief dogfight in the immediate vicinity before the triumphant one returned. Meanwhile, the massive black knight butterfly bush seems to be feeling the heat and lack of rain, producing much smaller flower clusters, but I also haven’t dead-headed it recently, so maybe that’s on me.

detailed profile of silver-spotted skipper Epargyreus clarus feeding from blossoms of black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
Eventually, I followed one of the skippers until it turned into the light decently and provided good detail from the markings, proboscis, antenna, and especially the textures – look at the shadows within the ‘sliver’ spot. I can live with it.

So, that’s a good number of images for the month. Will there be any more? I don’t know myself – check back before midnight, I may end on a creepy note…

Tip Jar 34: Basic film developing

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

One of the things that I urge any serious, or even remotely serious, photographer to try is film developing. It’s a lot easier than it seems, takes minimal equipment, and is immensely gratifying. Except, there’s a caveat to all that, or perhaps several. Monochrome negative (print) developing is easy; color negative is three times as involved, and color positive (slide) more so, and I have not as yet tackled them.

Also, getting a print at the end requires an enlarger, probably the most expensive bit of equipment, and the space to set it up within, and for trays, et cetera. We’ll get to this in another post. But failing that, you’d probably want a film scanner to digitize the negatives you’ve produced, a different expense. Either of these can be had for relatively low costs, especially compared to what they used to be, but it still begins to add up.

Still, let’s outline the basics.

Equipment for basic B&W/monochrome negative developing.

  • Developing Tank
  • Film Reel(s)
  • Clothespins or clips (hanging film to dry)
  • A completely light-free area (more on this below)
  • High-visibility thermometer

    • Chemicals for basic B&W/monochrome film developing.

  • Developer
  • Stop Bath
  • Fixer

    • Helpful additions

  • Hypo Clearing Agent
  • Wetting Solution

    • A light-free area. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, but first, understand what you actually need. This is to get the film from the film can onto the film reel, and then insert the reel into the developing tank. The tank is light-tight, so from that point on, everything can be done in normal lighting. While you can certainly make a room (closet, bathroom, whatever) light-free, you can also use something called a changing bag, just a light-tight large bag with sleeves that you put the film can, reel, and tank into, insert your arms within, and then do the film loading. Should you want to make prints, the light-tight room becomes necessary because you’re not putting an enlarger in such a bag.

    Light proofing a room isn’t hard, this can usually be done with meticulous application of weather-stripping, you just have to find all the cracks. The guide is, put a white sheet of paper on the counter or floor and remain in your sealed room for ten minutes in the dark. If you can see any leaks in that time, or see the paper, it should be better than that.

    Film has to be loaded in total darkness, but this takes only a few minutes once you’re used to it. Printing can be done under an approved safelight, since print paper is far less sensitive to light, but minimizing exposure is best all around.

    Loading film.

    The whole idea is, allowing chemicals to get to all surfaces of the film evenly while taking up the least amount of space. Film reels hold the film in a spiral with space between the layers. Patterson or self-loading reels are highly recommended, and can usually be found used easily. Again, all this is done in total darkness, so the best thing to do is get a couple of old rolls of film that can be trashed, and practice in daylight until you’re comfortable with what you’re doing. With a self-loading reel, insert the end of the film into the reel for several centimeters, then, ‘walk’ the film further in by grasping the sides of the reel and alternating twisting motions – a 36-exposure roll will take less than a minute. Once you hit the end of the roll, cut the film free from the film can, and walk it another couple of centimeters until the end is firmly within the reel. Place this into the developing tank, cap it properly, and you’re done – the tank can be removed from the bag and brought out into the light.

    With old, wire reels, you have to pinch the sides of the film gently to bow it, making it narrower, and insert this into the reel down near the middle to clip it to the beginning of the spiral, then gently wind the film onto the spiral runners of the reel while still keeping it bowed – as it is released, it goes to full width between the runners and stays in place. This is tricky and takes practice. Once loaded, if the film is kinked or gets out of line, this can be felt by running your fingers all along the outsides of the reels, feeling for any edges of the film; if it is properly loaded, nothing will be sticking out of the reel sides. Then just place this in the developing tank, cap it properly, and you can do the rest in the light.

    If you pinch the film too hard, or bend it while messing about (easy to do within a changing bag,) you’ll get a ‘ghost’ on the negative from the film base getting clouded at the bend/kink. Also, if you allow the film to touch itself during the developing phase, it will have uneven patches, so loading should be done carefully.

    Chemical prep.

    It’s best to have some thick opaque bottles or jugs to store the chemicals within, and know that they have a relatively short shelf life. Old chemicals will do a poorer job, or barely work at all, so it’s not a bad idea to have several rolls of film ready and develop them all at once – they can be stored in a fridge or freezer (tightly bagged against moisture) to keep the emulsion from degrading.

    Mix the chemicals according to directions, and note that the best results are obtained at certain chemical temperatures. B&W is less sensitive than color film, but maintaining that temperature helps a lot – using a water bath to place the chemical jugs into works fine, just monitor the temperature. Some chemicals can be re-used (stop bath, developer to an extent,) and some can’t (most kinds of fixer, hypo-clearing agent.) Keep these in mind as you do the developing.

    Let’s go!

    Developer removes the unexposed portions of the emulsion, leaving the exposed portions attached to the film base. The films almost always provide guidelines as to developing times, so use these – the developer is crucial, the others less so. Start your timer and pour the developer into the light-trapped fill spout of the developing tank. Gently agitate it for the first minute – don’t shake it; bubbles are a bad idea. Usually just swirling is fine, but some tanks have an agitator to do this with. Tap the tank firmly at the end of this agitation to dislodge any bubbles from the film surface.

    Following that, agitate for about ten seconds every minute during the developing time. As the timer runs out, dump the chemicals out of the light-trapped spout back into your container and immediately go to the stop bath.

    Stop bath neutralizes the developer and prevents any residual from continuing to act on the film emulsion. Pour this in and agitate the entire time, usually 30 seconds, no more than a minute (unless otherwise indicated.) Most stop baths available are bright orange, ‘indicator’ chemicals that will turn blue when they have been contaminated by too much developer, so when you pour it back out of the tank at the end of the cycle, do so into a container where you can examine it before putting it back into the storage jug.

    Fixer removes any residual unexposed emulsion and locks the exposed emulsion to the film base. While under-fixing will let the negative degrade over time, over-fixing can produce a haze or color cast. Pretty much, you’ll do the same process as the developer: agitate one minute, then ten seconds every minute, with taps to prevent clinging bubbles.

    Wash under running water for at least a full minute – you can do this with the lid of the tank off now, since light won’t affect the remaining processes. If you have hypo-clearing agent, which removes residual fixer, you would empty the tank of water and pour this in now according to directions – this greatly reduces wash time. If you do not, continue washing for five minutes.

    Rinse out hypo-clearing agent if necessary, fill tank with water, and add a few drops of wetting solution. All this does is reduce the surface tension of water so it drains off the negative in sheets rather than forming drops – keeps the negative clearer. Agitate gently in this for a minute.

    Take the film reel from the tank, attach the outside end of the film to a clip, and gently unwind the entire roll from the reel. This is the part where you see all the individual frames for the first time. Hang the film vertically to dry for at least a half-hour – a shower stall is usually a good place, but someplace with minimal dust so it doesn’t adhere to the wet surface.

    Once dry at the bottom, you’re done! If the chemicals are already mixed, this takes about an hour all told. Now you can scan the film, or cut it into lengths to sleeve it, or go straight to the enlarger to make prints.

    But a warning: Once you see how easy it is, and watch the photos that you not only took, but developed yourself roll off of the reel, you’re liable to be hooked. I have had darkrooms set up in four different places that I’ve lived over the years, and other projects have prevented me from getting the fifth one set up here just yet. It’s coming.

    Ruo afọ na-abịa, August!

    Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

    Really and for true, it’s the last day of the month – I checked three times. I spent almost as much time on that as I did trying to render those characters in the title. Which is much more than I spent shooting abstract images this month, a time period best defined as, “almost nothing,” so we’re going with images from last month that are also sorting finds. Such as:

    mist-covered web at odd angle on foggy morning
    Is it still fog when it collects onto a surface, or does it become mist? Or dew? What’s the correct terminology here – it’s important. When you figure it out, apply it to this, which is [moisture adhering to a spiderweb in larger droplets], magnified a bit and with selective focus. This was taken on the foggy morning outing on Jordan Lake, and while the overall frame didn’t work, this cropped portion does. I think. Your call.

    And while we’re at it…

    great blue heron Ardea herodias banking against fog-shrouded background trees
    This is definitely fog – unless it’s a ground-level cloud. Or really fine mist. But the different amounts of it between the heron and the background provided an impressionistic air to the scene – unless it’s neo-classical. Or hyper-surrealist. It’s an air, anyway. A very moist air.

    There will be more images before we abandon the month completely – ah, but how many more? I was about to say, not enough to beat August 2021’s record of 102, but you know what? We’re much further along than I thought, presently at 101 right now, so…

    By the most remarkable of coincidences

    Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

    I really, really wonder* who comes up with these holidays. I mean, seriously – this one is far too much of a FaceBlerk kind of thing, and I don’t blame anyone for ignoring it, because it accomplishes nothing**. That said, I’m in the rare position to address/celebrate it, so we’ll grudgingly recognize What Were You Doing A Decade Ago? Because exactly a decade ago***, I was obtaining this shot:

    overheated great blue heron Ardea herodias panting in treetop
    I was down at Falls of the Neuse, the head of the Neuse River just north of Raleigh where it exited Falls Lake – initially, I believe, it had actually done so as a waterfall, or at least a cascade, since the rock face was still there, but now it is a controlled water source, which means it exits the lake through a dam spillway that, on occasion, is opened quite far to manage the excess water and thus the river erodes the hell out of the banks immediately downstream. Seriously, I’ve seen more than a few trees that simply lost all their supporting soil and toppled into the water in the nearly three decades that I’ve been visiting.

    Anyway, it was an extremely hot day, and this poor great blue heron was feeling it. The bird isn’t calling, or even swallowing a fish, but simply sitting motionless in a treetop, panting. I had lined up this photo for a post to be made soon afterward, but that never happened, and so it’s been sitting in the blog folder since that time. When the holiday reared its ugly head, I was set to ignore it and then thought****, Why not check just to see if you have something that fits the bill? Behold and lo, I actually had something. What are the chances?

    This was not, by the way, the oldest image in the folder – and neither is this (it’s close,) but I figure, while I’m here…

    unidentified pair of hoverflies Syrphidae mating in midair
    Just a grab shot of a pair of unidentified hoverflies, partially because they were engaged (well, beyond engaged I guess) in the naughty-naughty not just right out in the open, which would have horrified most of middle America, but in midair like total perverts. And also because I actually got a sharp-ish photo of a pair of flies hovering. These guys are typically no more than 15mm in length, usually less, though I admit I neglected any attempt to get a more specific measurement – I was far more slack in my youth. And young I was, this being thirteen years ago instead. That’s the era of the old Canon DReb! Well, okay, it was well after the era of the first generation of Digital Rebel, but that was when I was using one.

    I briefly went into BugGuide to try and identify the species, but got guides such as this:

    T4 with two pale oblique stripes in exotica and obliqua (completely dark in Fazia micrura); male obliqua has pale crescent-shaped band on third abdominal tergite; in female exotica the band is only slightly curved and is flattened along base

    … and you know, I’m not gonna go nuts just for this holiday, of which this image doesn’t even qualify anyway. They’re Syrphidae – be happy with that.

    So, what were you doing a decade ago?

    .
    * No I don’t
    ** Unlike most of the other holidays found herein
    *** Seriously – I set this to post exactly on the time from the EXIF info of the image, because I’m me. So as long as you’re right on top of the new posts appearing…
    **** No I didn’t
    *+ It is absolutely, patently untrue that I make up holidays as excuses to dump old photos and run up the upload count for the month, and I deeply resemble resent the implication…

    And the counterpart

    Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

    We had that tiny fragment of a solar eclipse two weeks ago, and true to form (in this case, orbital mechanics, though what they’re doing up there is anyone’s guess,) about ten hours ago we had a partial lunar eclipse. The weather forecast had called for rain developing in the evening and continuing on through into today, and before the penumbral portion was even due to start, we were socked in here starting to feel some light rain. I resolved to check periodically just to make sure we didn’t have a break in the clouds.

    Peak was supposed to occur right around midnight, and at 11:45-ish (or 23:45-ish if you prefer) I went out and actually saw the moon: partially shrouded in clouds and thus quite indistinct, but it was there. Moreover, I could see a star far off to the west, which meant a complete break in the clouds could be coming, so I set up to keep an eye on things. As it got closer, there were patches of actual brightness, which a longer exposure brought out.

    partial lunar eclipse with shrouding clouds
    It went in and out, disappearing entirely just as I got the camera set up but returning for brief peeks – I would have done video but the light was too sparse and, if I got anything, it would have been grainy as hell. The clouds weren’t moving fast at all, but they were moving, and soon enough, things cleared enough for some decent pics.

    partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026 as it neared peak
    This is roughly 13 minutes before peak, with the shadow appearing to move right to left – it wouldn’t get a lot more noticeable than this. But I was bracketing exposures for different effect, as well as tweaking focus because all I could clearly see in the viewfinder was the bright portion and that was inadequate for the job. A longer exposure brought up an additional detail though:

    partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026 with star HIP 110580 visible to right
    See it there to the right? I actually spotted this in a preview (“chimped”) image as I was checking focus, and re-aimed the camera to ensure myself that it appeared in the same place and was thus up there and not in the camera, i.e., sensor noise. But no, subsequent checks in Stellarium show this is actually a star, HIP 110580 to be exact (or HD 212396, or SAO 165042, depending on what catalog you prefer,) a 7th magnitude star in the constellation Aquarius. While the moon appears to move left to right in the sky, it does so slower than the stars do, so this one would have popped out from behind the moon, oh, let’s see… according to Stellarium, about 14 minutes before. In fact, there it is:

    star HIP 110580 appearing from behind partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026
    I didn’t think to check the motion until writing this post, and on finding that it appeared while I was firing off frames and not while the moon was obscured by clouds as I thought, I had to go back and re-examine my images – this is a full-resolution inset, and you can see the grain of ISO 1600 far too clearly. I even have a frame just as it broke the limb of the moon, but since it’s only a bump in a grainy photo you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

    The Girlfriend came out to check things as it neared peak, and she was the one who spotted the plane approaching, so full credit to her, because I would have missed these:

    streaks of plane crossing partial lunar eclipse at 0.4 second shutter speed
    We both had little warning, so no time to adjust from the settings I was using at the time, and so I simply fired off a few frames as it passed. Now, I’ve watched countless times as planes approach the moon, and catching one actually crossing in front is extremely rare, since the moon is a ridiculously small target in the sky – usually they pass close and that’s the best you get. Here, at 0.4 second shutter speed, I was only going to catch the movement delineated by the navigation lights, and a faint shadow from the body blocking the moon through portions of the exposure. The wobbly lines, however, are courtesy of camera shake, all from the vibration of the shutter and the mirror initially slapping up. The following frame captured some more.

    plane crossing in front of partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026, showing smear on bright edge from contrail and shadow against atmospheric haze
    Now, we can see that the white paint used to make this image wasn’t quite dry yet and smeared with the plane’s passing. Well, okay, you’re actually seeing the contrails of the plane distorting the moon’s light at the edge – and something else. See the faint shadow between the nav lights? That’s the body of the plane blocking the atmospheric haze lit up by the moon, indicating that the humidity hadn’t totally cleared and that glare wasn’t solely in-camera. I was a little surprised when I realized that I’d actually caught this.

    Now, could I have captured the plane sharply against the eclipse, like, properly outlined? Ye-ess, perhaps, but let’s lay it out. The shutter speed would have had to have been 1/100 second or faster (probably faster to get it really sharp,) which was 5 1/3 stops lower exposure than this. The aperture was already at maximum for the Tamron 150-600 lens (f6.3,) and ISO at 1600. What I might have gotten would only have been the sunlit sliver of the moon, and dimly at that, so only a portion of the plane anyway, and only if I nailed tripping the shutter at exactly the right moment. Getting the plane outlined against the reddish earthshine portion of the moon, sharply, would have required a camera and lens far in excess of the capabilities of mine.

    Anyway, we’ll visit probably the sharpest image that I got of the eclipse.

    partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026 with star HIP 110580 visible off to right
    This is about six minutes past peak, and you can see that the moon’s yarmulke is sliding off to the left now. Tycho doesn’t quite show up, but Copernicus does, as does Aristarchus (of course – that always shows, being the brightest part of the visible moon.) To the naked eye, the outline of the moon was dimly visible with just a faint hint of this color – it looks much better in pics.

    The Girlfriend, looking through binoculars, pointed out that another star was visible, much brighter than HIP 110580, so I reframed to capture that one too.

    partial lunar eclipse of August 27/28, 2026, framed with double star HIP111123 A
    That would be HIP 111123A (HD 213320, SAO 165134,) also known as 57 Aquarius or σ Aqr, actually a double star with a combined magnitude of 5, thus visible unaided on a clear night, but would have been obscured by the moon’s glare on either side of this eclipse. I didn’t hang around out there to confirm this, or to even get further shots of the eclipse fading, because peak is far more interesting, plus I was tired. Overall, though, more success than I was expecting, and a nice follow-up to the fragment of solar eclipse a fortnight previously. I’m good with it.

    Sorting finds: Peeking edition

    Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

    Just (finally) got through a major sorting session, so naturally it’s time for the found images that I should have featured back when I obtained them. We have a theme for some of these, only obvious because I was going through so many images at once.

    green heron Butorides virescens peering past lichen-covered branch
    Back when doing the green heron (Butorides virescens) sessions, I snagged it peering past a lichen-covered branch, through (like most of these) it probably wasn’t even looking at me, but we’re going with that impression because we’re silly humans. The next one, however, almost certainly was peeking at me, based on behavior and conditions.

    red-bellied water snake Nerodia erythrogaster peeking up from behind drain pipe
    This probably shouldn’t count, since it was taken with an (urk!) smutphone, but it was what I had at the time. Opening the garage door one day, I found this red-bellied water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster) watching carefully from a behind a drainage pipe only a short distance away. Since we’d found one inside the garage, twice, a few weeks before this, we’re surmising it was the same one all times, using the garage as a lair of sorts. It’s not that the garage is particularly holey, just that every time the door is open for more than a minute, some lizard runs in, much like a cat that’s been barred from a room and therefore thinks that it’s the most fascinating place in the universe, and instead of running back outside when we try to chase it out, instead finds the most inaccessible spot to secrete itself into. So we’ve taken to leaving the door open a few centimeters to allow egress for these little bastards, and apparently the snakes have taken this as an invitation – well, this, and the fact that there’s always a little bit of corn available, since that’s where we store the duck/et al food, and so mice are scarfing that up. Circle of life and all that. Notably, only a meter from this very spot and less than a week earlier, I’d found an eastern racer also hanging out – only briefly, since it shot off as soon as I drew a little closer, but nothing in hand to get pics with.

    juvenile brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum peeking through gap in foreground foliage
    While doing the hummingbird session, a juvenile brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) started foraging under the bird feeders, though they would do that even if the feeders weren’t there – the species hunts for grubs and insects in leaf litter, rather than seeking seeds. But the foreground leaves made for a nice framing element.

    juvenile barred owl Strix varia partially hidden behind Virginia creeper Parthenocissus quinquefolia with eye reflecting flash through gap
    One lone berry getting fully ripe like that is odd, but it’s not a berry of course, just the barred owl’s eye reflecting the flash. Their pupils are so big, and their corneas so reflective, that it’s easy to get this brilliant a reflection even when they’re not looking anywhere near the camera.

    By the way, just a few days after the latest of those linked pics, The Girlfriend and I were down at the pond edge distributing corn after nightfall, and as we turned to head back to the house, I caught a glimpse of something flashing through the trees. Sure enough, it was our juvenile friend, who had landed in the lowest branches of a very close tree and sat watching us as we passed, perhaps eight meters away. Silent this time, no calls for food, but there was no doubt it knew we were there since we weren’t silent, plus owls have badass hearing. No idea why it chose to land so obviously close, but it clearly chose to. That was the last we saw of the juveniles, though; bear in mind that most of the times when we did, it was simply because one or both were calling and drew our attention, so once they grew out of the begging stage, they could easily be close by and we’d never know it. Except for two nights ago, when someone hooted very distinctly right out front, less than 20 meters off, but I never caught sight of that one before it moved on.

    Some non-spying entries.

    adult female Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis with damaged tail perched on trellis
    The only Carolina anole I can dependably identify, solely because of that tail – what, exactly, has happened to it, I can’t say, but she appears to be coping just fine. And I know it’s a female because I’ve seen her both ready to lay eggs and starting the process over. She lives in the liriope out front, and I often find her sleeping on the star jasmine overnight.

    juvenile American black duck Anas rubripes perched on log with trio of yellow-bellied sliders Trachemys scripta scripta
    When the pond level dropped, it re-exposed a log that the turtles had been using to sun themselves on, and the ducks also took advantage of it from time to time, though the number of ducks visiting has greatly diminished right now. The Girlfriend spotted this one, and despite the distance, was alerted to it not being a wood duck because the proportions were wrong – as you can see here, it has a pretty thick body for a smaller head, yet distinctive bill. Those proportions, more than anything else, made me peg this as a juvenile American black duck (Anas rubripes,) which have been entirely absent from the pond since about the beginning of the year. It’s funny how we have guest appearances from several different species, but only a few decide to make it a habit.

    pair of yellow-bellied sliders Trachemys scripta scripta perched on Turtle Island while water level was very high
    During the first green heron session, I took the opportunity to snag a yellow-bellied slider sunning itself on Turtle Island, though at that time, the water level was so high that it was nothing more than tree trunks sprouting from the surface. Still, room enough for one – actually, two, if you look closely. I like how the light angle made the most out of the textures of the carapace.

    And finally,

    ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris hovering directly in front of blue salvia Salvia guaranitica blossoms
    I sort all of the images into appropriately-named folders, so I can search through all the Birds, for example (six folders and counting, since they get cut off at about 4,000 images to make searching slightly faster,) but of course some of the images have multiple subjects. Thus, the images get duplicated into multiple folders so they can be found depending on which subject I might be after. This is one example, obviously – it can show off either the hummingbird or the salvia blossoms, but both work together for a decent composition; I’m just not going to get that specific with the folder names. This was a distinct rarity, too: getting strong profiles of both the hummer and the flowers, in the same plane of sharp focus, with the light working beneficially. I could have done without the complicated background, but not without trimming a lot of rose bushes, or at least setting up a shade to keep the bright sunlight off of them and make them more muted. That’s more environmental staging than I’m going to engage in, however, especially since this was a grab shot while the greater percentage of activity was on the purple salvia instead.

    Now, I have to go into sorting the video clips, which takes a hell of a lot longer. And there’s still a massive video project that I’ve been putting off because of the word, “massive.” Work is never done…

    1 2 3 … 342