On Saturday, 19 September 2015 18:29:33 UTC+1, alan_m wrote:
On 19/09/2015 16:54, Chris French wrote:
Eldest daughter (14) is very much getting into photography. Digital of
course, but she likes the idea of having a play with film.

IMO, the best thing that happened to photography was digital. Your
daughter is likely to abandon the idea after processing a few rolls of
film and finding from the 70 shots she has only got a few usable images
worthy off taking through the printing stage for an enlarged image.

Using film gives an better apprecaition as to what real photography is rathe rthan just taking a snap shot.


With digital there is no cost in taking a 1000 bad shots and then
deleting them from the SD card.

Time is the cost and until you can tell the differnce between a good shot and a bad one how will you know which to delete.


For film I used to go under the stairs in the dark for 5 minutes to load
it onto the spiral for the developing tank. Afterwards developing etc.
is in full light, usually at the kitchen sink.

That's what I did.


For the enlarger and developing trays you need a flat surface. You
don't particularity need running water in the dark room. By the time the
photo needs to be rinsed in running water it's already developed and
fixed so it can be transferred to the kitchen sink in full light.

yes I agree and you don;t need the expensive dishes as cat litter trays works almost as well.


So any pointers/suggestions for setting it up are welcome. something at
least semi permanent would be preferable I think, and we have a few
places that might be suitable. What is the essentials, what would be nice.

don't want to spend to much money as it might be a bit of a flash in the
pan.

Don't go to too much trouble until you find out that its a fad, or not.
The first experiments could be done in the kitchen etc. in
autumn/winter evening when its dark outside using minimal balckouts over
the windowsnight.

My first attempts, wer ewaiting until might time closing teh curtains
and getting under the covers of my bed, it was certainly dark enough and worked but the problems of dust started to become apparent.