Colour Conundrum pt. 1: "Kodak 5"

Colour Photography and me, sometimes I just don't know. It isn't that I have issues with it as a creative medium. Sure, black and white is it for me 90% of the time but there are times when colour is an important element. The trouble is more of a practical thing. It's easy enough to carry and extra back loaded with colour film for just those occasions. The problem is what to do with the stuff once it's been shot. Gone are the days when it was a simple matter to find a local business that could handle the processing for you. The answer should be simple enough - I know my way around the darkroom (I can do it with my eyes closed!) and colour chemistry isn't that hard to get my hands on. The trouble is a batch of C-41 chemistry only lasts for a couple of months once mixed. On average over that time span I'll probably not even shoot a single roll of colour. If I were to shoot E-6, which I'd love to, that's even worse. 

A popular option these days is to ship film away to a lab but shipping one roll at a time adds a lot of expense and if I'm going to wait until I have several rolls I might as well just do it at home. I have all the stuff after all. And so it is this is the option that I have gone with. Sounds like a near perfect plan given the circumstances, right?

Well... maybe. I'm no stranger to the C-41 process. It's fixed, predictable if you stick to a few simple guidelines with no adjustments required in time or temperatures to match a particular film, they all get processed the same way. In many ways it's easier and faster than processing a typical black and white film. Still, for reasons I'm sure had little to do with problems or inconsistencies at the development stage, recent results have fallen a little outside what I was expecting.

To begin with I had 6 rolls of film to develop: One roll each of Kodak Portra 400 and Ektar in 120, two rolls of Agfa Optima 400 in 220 that expired some time in the late 90's, a 120 roll of Lomo 100 and a roll of Fuji Superia 800 that went though one of my Nikons though I can't remember which. Together these represented all the colour film that that completed it's journey through my various cameras roughly over the past year, though in many cases they seem to have been sitting in camera for a much longer time than that. All were developed in the same batch of a 1L Unicolor C41 kit that I ordered from the Film Photography Project. It was recently mixed though I had the kit sitting around as dry chemicals for about a year and a half which should be well within expected shelf life for the unmixed chemicals. This is a two part series and here I'll be discussing the results from the Kodak emulsions and I'll follow up next time with some thoughts on all the rest.

Given that these were the most mainstream of the emulsions and, except for the Lomo, the freshest, these films gave me the most surprising results. Both of these went through my RB67. Like the other two medium format SLR systems I own it has interchangeable film magazines allowing me to switch mid-roll from one film to another and I've used this capability in the usual way to switch from the usual black and white to colour film when it seems appropriate. For the record it has always been a consistent performer the black and white images I have made with it come out just fine.

Portra 400

The Portra 400 had been loaded into the camera no more recently than 2015. I know this only because it contains a particular image, the black and white version of which first appeared in my portfolio in that year. There were only 4 (out of a possible 10) shots on the roll but it's been so long since I shot it I can't remember what might have happened that it was never completely shot. That's just how seldom I use that camera to shoot colour. For all the time it's been sitting there it's still surprising that there were such obvious issues with it. All of the images showed some degree of odd mottling. The first image was by far the strangest with a series of discoloured lines running the width of the film. Here's the straight scan:

The remaining exposures weren't nearly so affected but this odd mottling was evident in all of the exposures. Yes it's been sitting around for a while but I've developed film much older than this, including some that I'll discuss in the next instalment that was developed at the same time in the same batch of chemistry without any such issues. It's hard to say what's causing this. It's clearly not any sort of light leak as it seems to be just a variation in colouration and is worse on the first frame that would have been sitting closest to the centre of the exposed roll. One clue might come from the last of the 4 frames in which the otherwise random mottling shows one clear pattern. A cropped in image of this should make it plain enough...

And in case it's not clear where this might have come from here's a portion of the backing paper from that same roll:

I can only guess that this is the result of some sort of chemical reaction with the ink used to print the frame markings on the backing paper though curiously, to me anyway, there are no markings on the backing paper to match the lines seen in the first frame. Maybe the readership has some better suggestion?

I liked this final frame though, so just I decided to take the scan and clean things up as best I could digitally. The "Kodak 5" was gotten rid of easily enough but you don't have to look too closely to see the mottling.  If you can ignore this though I'd say I like the shot

Ektar

The second film that had gone through the RB67 was a roll of Ektar 100. It came out of the camera several months ago. If there were thoughts that the issues with the roll of Portra might have had something to do with whatever the problem must have been that caused me to shoot less than half of it most were dispelled by comparing it with this roll. Though it hadn't been sitting on the shelf nearly as long as the Portra, it also had a random mottling pattern throughout the roll and here the first three frames were plagued with particularly prominent lines that again spanned the width of the film, and again it was the same sort of greenish discolouration. Here is the third frame from that roll.

Image anomalies aside though it seems to me this roll came out much differently than any of the others. Ektar is known for it's reasonably bold colours but these seem punchy beyond reason to me. I mean it's still a fairly standard film not unsuited for standard portraiture. For example, while I'm no geologist I'm sure the rocks in this images are practically identical to the ones in the example Portra image above it that was taken about 30km away along the Lake Erie shore. They certainly don't strike me as being this sort of Mars red when I look at them. Curious indeed.

If Kodak C-41 films were generally problematic like this then I'm sure my experiences here would be old news. On the other hand if something is wrong on my end like I got a bad batch of chemistry or maybe I've just really gotten out of touch with good colour processing practice then you'd expect these problems to carry over to the other rolls I developed in this batch as well. In my best go at creating a cliff hanger then, that's what I'll look at in the next instalment so please stay tuned.

The Once and Future Ektachrome

This isn't a regular post, but I thought if today's announcement from Kodak was enough to warrant a double take from me it might be something readers would be interested in knowing. In this post truth era when I saw this my first instinct went something like "yeah, right", but the words are right from the horse's mouth and up there from the world to see at Kodak.com. In short, those words are:

"KODAK EKTACHROME. We're Bringing it back."

Kodak made the announcement today at CES 2017 in Las Vegas and there are a few more details available in their accompanying press release such as:

• Ektachrome will be in development over the next 12 months with initial availablility expected in the last quarter of 2017
• It will be manufactured by Kodak factory in Rochester
• Plans are to release Ektachrome as a Super 8 motion picture film and additionally in 35mm cassette format for still photography. 

The decision to bring back Ektachrome seems largely to intended as a compliment to Kodak's efforts to revive Super 8 film making by offering a film stock that can viewed directly in a projector. With the dwindling lineup of reversal films being offered by Fuji this, along with the progress still being made in the heroic efforts to revive Ferrania, can only be good news for fans of E-6 colour photography. Even more, for any photographer who has seen a treasured emulsion disappear, it's affirmation that a favourite film, though possibly somewhat transformed, can indeed come back from the dead.

The Cool Colours of Autumn

It's perhaps only a small irony that we connect autumn, a season of cooling, with a palette of such warm colours as the green canopies above transform, taking on colours of flame which, even as they fade leave us with a warm earthy browns. I happen to be particularly fond of warmer tones;  I tend to favour them when making home decor choices, generally prefer my black and white prints to have a somewhat warmer than neutral tone to them and when I load up with colour film as I am wont to do each fall I imagine filling them with images dominated by warm earthy tones.

Often they are, but I'm often surprised myself at how often it's just the opposite. You may have noticed for example that the photo that accompanied "A Season for Colour" a few episodes back may have featured a small stand of trees with leaves in full yellow autumn glory, but these really provided a complimentary accent to the foreboding sky that occupies most of the image space with it's cool blue, tones that seem to speak of the months to come once the snow begins to fly. These aren't the images even I usually envision when I head out to do colour work at this time of year.

To me it seems this is a simple consequence of a being a predominantly black and white photographer with leanings toward the foreboding and moody set loose on the world with a colour emulsion. It's not that find myself ignoring what's in the camera and approaching what's in front of me the same way I do with the usual monochrome stock loaded. Except for those times when I may grab a camera on the way out the door to do other things I'm not committed to colour. There is always an extra film back in the pack when I carry either the Mamiya or Bronica system loaded with HP5+ or Acros and whenever a photograph to be made calls out for it, a not infrequent occurrence, I'll happily make the switch. I have to say there I rarely find myself in doubt as to which is called for, though there are situations when it seems either could work.

The image at the top is an example of this. Had I been shooting exclusively black and white that day I probably would have shot it more or less the same way. As it happens this was taken the same day I was testing out the Polaroid Automatic 220 that I wrote about previously. What I didn't mention there was that on that day a wicked wind was blowing up a minor havoc along the lake. As I emerged from the relative shelter of the nearby wooded path a few small breaks in the cloud was letting through the first rays of direct sun I had seen all day bringing a welcome drama to the wind whipped seascape. I was able to grab a Polaroid shot right off but the fast moving clouds meant I had to wait for another shaft of sun to bring the drama back again so I could get another shot with the Bronica. Good thing I did too because as fate would have it about 1/3 of the previous image I had done with the Polaroid ended up appearing in this exposure. Despite the distinctly un-autumn-like colour palette I think the sombre sky, weathered reeds and blustery weather so typical of this time of year make this an appropriately seasonal colour image.

One more example is this recent shot of my son Brennan. It was a bit of a side jaunt to the beach I took him on while running a few errands. Noting some rather interesting clouds before we left I grabbed my Nikon F80 on the way out the door. I can't say I was really planning to use him as a subject, but somehow he just belonged in the scene so how could I not? Now someone may prove me wrong, but I don't think too many would argue with the suggestion that it just wouldn't work the same way if he'd been wearing, say, a red hoodie. And though, yet again, the predominantly cool blue tones here hardly scream out autumn, despite the lack of any real queue I can point to here that gives away the fact that is image was taken in October rather than, say April, somehow there's still a sense of the season here. Maybe it's just me, because I know, because I was there. Maybe it's something else though, something about the lake, the clouds, the play of light. There are always things that can't be put into words. If there weren't we probably wouldn't bother with pictures.

A Bridge Too Far

This image of the Peace Bridge is a scan from a print on Ilford MG IV RC after both sepia and selenium tonering. The first bath of the sepia process went to work too quickly for my purposes, leading to a stronger than intended effect.

If this image of the Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo NY to Fort Erie Canada made one misty morning this spring looks familiar it may be because it was featured only last week in Simple Alchemy. If it looks different know that its earlier appearance was a scan from the negative whereas this is a scanned from a darkroom print on Ilford MG IV. If it looks really different it's because this print was the subject of some of my first experiments with print toning since the days of my bachelor pad darkroom. Back then it was mostly about using selenium toner, a simple bath finished prints can be put through that gives the silver grains that make up the image a coating of more stable selenium that not only helps to protect the image against the ravages of time, it affects the colour, altering the tone of the silver image with a modest but noticeable purple/blue while deepening the darkest tones giving the image a richer appearance. Selenium toning typically results in a higher D-max, the density of the darkest possible black, than can otherwise be achieved with the same photo paper untoned. While the name toning implies the object is to achieve a colour shift, with selenium toner this sometimes seems almost secondary to the benefits of increased tonal depth and archival permanence.

Since the process of reclaiming my old wet darkroom capabilities began less than a year ago it's been a given that I would resume the practice of selenium toning sooner or later. I imagined that it would coincide roughly with the return to printing on fibre based stock once I was ready to deal with its extra demands, but although that remains in the works I have been inspired recently with the notion of taking print toning a little further. The inspiration comes from numerous photographers I admire whose work often departs noticeably from the modest tonal shifts typical of results seen selenium toner alone. A leading figure the movement, if it can be called such, is the photographer Tim Rudman whose book "The Master Photographer's Toning Book" has managed to become a classic of traditional darkroom work even though it only first appeared in 2002 at the onset of the digital age. Tim is well spoken, an acknowledged authority on toning as well as many other areas of darkroom craft and a highly regarded writer and instructor. I can't imagine that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking to take their print making skills to the next level... if only I could get my hands on it! This book is in such high demand and, being out of print, such short supply that on the used market this slightly over 200 page softcover book has been known command prices in the $1000 neighbourhood. A quick peek on Amazon while writing this showed 3 copies available through various sellers with prices starting at $400. That's more than can be justified for a guy working out of what is little better than a makeshift closet darkroom. Sadly the obvious demand these prices represent has not been enough to convince publishers that another printing is in order. From the account on Tim's web page one can surmise that this clear objective evidence has not been enough to trump the common "knowledge" that film photography is dead and therefore there's no demand for such a book.

For me at least this means trudging on without this authoritative reference, making the best of my existing experience along with whatever I can glean from the internet or the less comprehensive coverage given to the subject in other books. So be it.

 If there is a saving grace in all of this it's that the effect I'm after is a bit more subtle than the typically more dramatic tones that seem to be popular with so many photographers these days. For the majority of my work I'd want to see a definite departure from the usual scale of neutral greys you get with standard papers straight out of the usual develop stop fix process, but nothing that screams out that toning effects were used. I still want my prints to look black and white, but I would like to see a depth enhancing variation of warm to cool going from highlight to shadow that can be achieved with split toning. Because it works by clinging to the molecules of silver in the print, the rich cool purple effect achieved with selenium toner affects the silver rich shadows most, leaving the highlights untouched. While it's a nice effect in general I like my prints to be on the warm side overall, requiring a different toner. The plan is to combine the cool dark tones of selenium with warm browns that come from sepia toner for a split toned effect.

The word sepia evokes notions of those old timey brown toned images from photography's early days and many are those who regard sepia toner's purpose is to render an effect that evokes a sense of those old days. In truth it can be used to achieve a variety of warming effects and here's how. Sepia toning is a two bath process. The first bath is a bleach based on potassium ferricyanide, which sounds worse than it is though you still want to be careful when mixing it not to inhale any of the dry powder that may become airborne. Immersed in this bleach the print will, to the alarm of many first timers, begin to disappear from the paper, starting with the highlights and progressing towards the darker tones as it is left in the bath for longer periods. The image is still there but invisible, like the latent image on an exposed but undeveloped roll of film. Once bleached to the desired degree the print is rinsed thoroughly in running water then placed into a sodium sulfide bath (which is nastier than it sounds - even when mixing it outdoors I got complaints about the rotten egg smell that managed to waft indoors.) Within about 10 seconds the image that had bleached away is redeveloped, taking on the warm sepia tint as it reappears. The effect can thus be controlled by altering how far into the darker tones the image is bleached.

The Photographers Formulary Sepia Toner kit and my
bottle of Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner

I hadn't really played with sepia toner since photography school days. Back then I was using Kodak's sepia toner kit and trying to achieve the strongest effect I could manage. Bleaching down into the shadows seemed to take forever and I remember wishing Kodak had made this solution stronger. I was never really happy with the effect back then, toning to that degree made the print seem dull and the old fashioned look never seemed particularly genuine to me. Until my recent notions of using it in conjunction with selenium toner for split toning I hadn't given sepia much thought since.

In the intervening years Kodak has discontinued their sepia toner but there is a kit available from Photographer's Formulary which I duly ordered. Like many other Formulary kits of this kind the box contained individual packets containing each individual raw chemical ingredient. Unlike in my photo school days however I was going for just a whiff of warmth in the highlights, meaning I only wanted a slight bleaching. The Formulary bleach solution was a deeper yellow than I remembered and I should have taken a clue from this.

The bleaching started almost immediately and by the time it had a chance to even out across the print it had already gone further than I had wanted. For the second print I diluted the bleach 1_1 but it was still much too fast. As I only made a couple of good prints I experimented a bit with the seconds, the ones I had made prior to figuring out how to get the burning and dodging just right, but ran out of those before concluding there was just no way to keep from going too far without diluting even further. In fact I believe it will need to much further, perhaps 10 to 1 or more. It seems keeping a stock solution and diluting for use may be the thing here and obviously more experimentation is needed. That, unfortunately, will have to wait until next time I have a few prints to work with.

Old Film

There was a time when it was considered just a general shame if film went past it expiry date. It could still be used of course, but you normally wouldn't take chances by using it for the good family shots during the holidays or on a once in a lifetime vacation. These days there are those who consider a well aged film the photographic equivalent of a well aged wine. I think I can safely assume it hasn't escaped your notice that taking photos that have some sort of vintage look to them is quite a thing these days. There are countless apps and software plug-ins out there made to turn the clean output from DSLRs or the ubiquitous smartphone cameras and transform them into something that, at least on the display screen will look like anything from an 1870s tintype to a 1970s Land camera, complete with simulated peel marks like you get around the edges of pack-film photos.

There are those for whom nothing but the real-deal will do, and while getting the vintage look is hardly a hard-core pursuit of mine that's certainly something that resonates with my way of thinking. Shy of turning to something like a historic wet-plate process (though for the hard-core this has grown into quite a phenomenon itself) the general wisdom out there states that the best way to get this look is to use expired film, a vintage camera, or ideally both together.

Now I own a vintage camera in the Iskra, but as unmistakably vintage as it looks, the vintage look it imparts on images is at best subtle, though I'm sure something like an old box camera would do it. Likewise many a time have I used expired black and white film, some of it decades beyond its best before date, and have found that however fogged and curled the negatives may look, once all is adjusted for in the printing or scanning process there's nothing particularly nostalgia inducing about the final result.

My recent dabblings in home C-41 processing made this the perfect time to finally try something else however. There had been a roll of 120 Kodak Vericolor 160 floating around my freezer since I can't remember when. I last shot Vericolor about eight year ago just before selling the Mamiya 645 system but I'm not sure if this was from that same batch. I don't think it was though and if not it's probably even older. Whatever the case it was separated from its box, and thereby the expiry date, long ago. There is absolutely no doubt however that this roll went beyond its "process before" date long ago.

The question was whether the images shot on this roll would naturally take on any sort of nostalgia inducing look ago all on their own. I have never made a science of understanding what characteristics of an image lend themselves to this. One that I point to happens when the deepest blacks in the photo appear no darker than a light charcoal grey though there is not the loss of shadow detail that would suggest this is due to underexposure. This, or any of the other things that might happen with expired film such as colour shifts or lack of contrast, were entirely within my control. I don't have and have no intention of acquiring the capacity to do traditional colour prints so all of these things should be adjusted for as they are scanned in.

Once processed and dried the negatives did have the expected slightly olive cast to them compared to the Portra negatives I developed the week before, the kind of thing I figured would get corrected out more or less automatically with the usual exposure and colour balance tweaks during scanning. This had worked with the Portra after all without any effort to characterize the film first. I had no intention of treating these negatives any differently.

And yet they were different. To me it there's a nostalgic sense about it, like I'm looking at an image that was taken decades ago. At first blush I'd say it may be the colour saturation is lower than what I'm used to, yet the impression doesn't change when the saturation slider is moved up until the colours start looking unmistakably clownish. It must have something to do with colour though because when I view it as a black and white that vintage feel pretty much disappears, at least to my eye. There does seem to be an earthy quality to the colour rendition that, despite the obviously autumn pallet in the scene. The first shot at the top makes it even harder to say. It's moody, monochromatic and due to the extremes in contrast inherent in the scene the foreground was underexposed to retain detail in as much of the sky as possible near where the sun is trying to burst through. I can't say what this would look like if it were shot on fresher stock. Still, if I hadn't taken it myself and somebody told me it was taken in 1979 I'd see no reason to question that.

Now I know Vericolor enough to say it didn't come out of the factory like this. My wedding photos were shot on it and they haven't (I'm happy to report) taken on a vintage feel, at least not yet. I still have prints I shot on Vericolor in the late 80's or early 90's and they don't strike me as looking vintage. And yes I have to keep in mind that these are scans and I'd dearly love to see what the prints would look like if there was still a lab I could take them to that I know would print them optically, but I somehow doubt the conclusion would be any different. It does seem though that you can get to the vintage stage faster by aging unexposed film stock than aging prints shot when the film was fresh.

I'm sure there are people who have put in a lot of time and effort into figuring out exactly what ways and to what degree a clean fresh image needs to be changed to match the look of a shot that (depending on your age) your parents or grandparents might have taken when they were dating. Luckily we have a short cut available to us, and the results are sure to be far more authentic.

Adventures in Home C-41

In previous episodes I had written that for Fall colour this year I was going to use colour negative film and develop it myself with a home C-41 kit, so this is a bit of a progress about how that went, or at least how it is going thus far. 

The C-41 process itself is really nothing new to me. Back in the old camera store days a significant part of my job involved operating the onsite Kodak/Noritsu mini-lab including replacing exhausted chemistry and other process maintenance tasks. Doing it at home then should involve no more than combining that knowledge with the black and white processing skills that are routine for me and - spoiler alert - for the most part they were.

In contrast to the C-41 chemistry I knew from the past which always came in liquid form, the Tetinal/Jobo C-41 press kit I ordered was composed entirely of packets of powdered chemicals. Aside from that however the sequence chemical baths was the old familiar one, though what we had always called "bleach fix" goes by the cooler sounding name "blix" in these kits. The it's the same thing though, and once mixed it even had that same odour, the one that always gave the old lab its characteristic aroma. It's not particularly strong or unpleasant mind you, certainly less so than the vinegar smell of stop bath used in black and white processes. For me in fact the scent was pure nostalgia.

Unlike the cool room temperature 20^oC (68^oF) that is the most common standard temperature for processing black and white film, the instructions that came with my C-41 kit were all geared for a temperature of   39^oC (102^oF). This means the chemistry must be warmed up significantly before starting, and kept there throughout the process. I found getting a temperature change of just a few degrees for black and white had sometimes been a real pain, so I thought bringing it up by nearly 20 degrees would take ages. In the Flickr forums I received several assurances from others who had done this before that a simple water bath would get the job done in just a few minutes and indeed it seems I had underestimated the efficiency of this method. On my first go at developing a film I put the C-41 developer and "blix" into the sink and filled it with the water running purely from the hot tap to just below the mouth of the storage bottles then headed into the darkroom to load the tank. Figuring it would take quite a while for the chemistry to come up to temperature I really lollygagged through this process and as a result when I finally checked the temperature of the chemistry it turned out I had to wait for it to cool a bit. Lesson learned.

Having brought the chemicals up to temperature (the final stabilizer bath can be left at room temp) I emptied the sink, got the tap running at exactly 39^oC then refilled the sink to act as a temperature stabilizing bath and filled the daylight tank now loaded with film.  One difference between the old automated C-41 machine process and the home kit is that in addition to the usual chemical baths a pre-soak is recommended and a water rinse is used in between the blix and stabilizer.

Unlike black and white film processing and the often wildly varying processing times you can get depending on the particular combination of film and developer you chose, colour processes like C-41 are standardized affairs. As a result I felt compelled to abandon the gentle and rather idiosyncratic agitation method I usually use for the comparatively brutal inversion cycles assumed in the processing instructions.

Shot on Kodak Portra 160, developed in the kitchen sink.

The first film processed was a roll of Portra 160 I ran through the RB67 and it looks pretty good. As is my usual practice I squeegeed the film prior to hanging. I've never been happy about having to do this as it sometimes leaves fine scratches that can be visible when scanned or printed, but this is better than dealing with the water spots that seem to be the inevitable result of failing to do this, even if the final rinse is done in distilled water. Other photographers have sworn this is not necessary and no doubt it isn't given their particular combination of water supply, humidity levels, working habits and whatnot. The C-41 process ends with the film being hung straight out of the stabilizer solution with no other rinse in between. I wondered if this might be different enough to allow me to forego the squeegee, so with the second roll I processed I decided to just give the film a shake before hanging to dry.

Apparently little more care is needed with the drying process.

Well, it was a noble experiment. The above result says it all. This is from the second test roll I put through the Minolta Hi-Matic 9. It was taken in the pouring rain and the scan is straight from the Epson V500 on default settings. There were two or three frames on the roll that weren't ruined, but this one is typical. Admittedly I used tap water to mix the stabilizer, but this may be the worst case of water spots as I've ever had and if distilled water didn't cure my problems there I can't see it being much use here. It looks like squeegee it will be.

If years gone by are any indication it won't be long before the urge to shoot colour once again drops off the radar screen. The oft spoken of peak of colour has already gone by for another year, though it's not always about getting those super punchy reds oranges and yellows. That in between period as the colours are on their way to a faded brown can have a mood all its own as well and if I'm lucky I may be able to capture some of that before it's gone.

Vintage Bonanza

I've mentioned a time or two that the one gaping hole in my partially functional darkroom has been an enlarger I lacked. Online auctions may be great for cameras and lenses and such, but shipping charges alone would exceed the budget I could allow for an enlarger no matter what sort of bargain I might be able to find. A search through the local online classifieds turned up slim pickings, usually a lot here and there of unspecified darkroom "stuff" that might include a rickety entry-level 35mm enlarger, but I figured if I waited long enough something would eventually turn up. A few days ago it did. 

The ad seemed much like all the others, just a complete darkroom setup, no photos, no list, contact for details. I don't even know what prompted me to inquire, but the next day the news from the seller arrived in my inbox that the lot included a Durst M601 enlarger, a model that would afford the near perfect balance between capability (it won't quite handle the full 6x7 frame of my RB, but heck, I usually crop square anyway) and size in the teeny darkroom space I have. That was all I needed to know. Apparently some other stuff was included too.

My primary target, The Durst M601, in its new still very unfinished home.  

The lot had been kept in a blue storage trunk (included) of sufficient size to contain a medium sized adult provided they were willing to endure physical discomforts exceeding those experienced by coach passengers. Inside was the enlarger which was in fine condition excepting for a portion of the gear teeth on column rail which create a dead spot at a certain height when cranking the head up and down. It included a 50mm and a 75mm Schneider lens which I'd say is at the high end of reasonable expectations. Then there was the expected - the obligatory trio of 8x10 developing trays, safe-light (though there were two of these), film tanks (though there were three of these), printing easel and a packet of D-76 powder. 

Then a few unexpected items began to emerge. First was the print dryer, not the most common darkroom item to be found but a sweet bonus for any printer who, like me, loves the look of a print on premium fiber based paper but the tendency to curl up into a cylinder not so much. 

Even before the digital age I wonder how many photographers would have known what this thing even is.

Then the film started to appear. At first it was the four bright yellow boxes, rolls of Kodak Plus X, a film that perhaps I didn't show enough appreciation for before it was discontinued a few years ago and had been hoping for one last chance to use. These rolls were hardly end of the line though; the freshest of the four had expired int 1982. This was followed by a larger yellow box, a 100ft bulk roll of the same stuff (develop by 09/79), a round metal tin bearing the old Ilford sunburst logo containing 100ft of FP4. (FP4 Plus is one of the films I use today, but this stuff is the nonplussed version.) Finally there was an even larger round metal tin of the sort that looks like it contains a movie reel. (And I suspect it well might, we'll find out when we get it open in the dark.) This contains 1000' of Ilford Mark V, a cinematic film I've never heard of. It's 35mm like all the rest of it though, we'll just have to experiment a bit to figure out how to use it to best advantage. All told then that's 1200 feet of film not including the bit that's in one of the bulk film loaders. (Did I mention there were also two bulk film loaders? Sorry. There were also two bulk film loaders.) That's over 1/3 of a kilometre of 35mm film. If it's any good after all those decades my Nikons just might feel loved again. 

Large format isn't totally neglected though. There was also a box, apparently of similar vintage, of FP4 in 4-3/4" x 6-1/2" sheets, so now I just need to pick up a few 4-3/4" x 6-1/2" film holders and I'm off to the races. They carry those at Walmart I think.

Just the perfect size to fall right out of a 5x7 film holder.

Along the way there had been paper. Ilfobrom paper, Panalure F paper, Kentmere paper, pretty much all of it 8x10. Down at the bottom though, the very bottom there was a garbage bag of something resting in what turned out to be three 16.x20 trays nested togther. In the garbage bag was of course 16x20 paper. 

This isn't even all of it. The question is what am I going to do with it? How am I supposed to print on this stuff? My darkroom is a glorified closet.