Digital Photography Research Paper

Digital-less photography is an old way to take pictures that is not much used anymore. There are many different ways to produce the actual image when it is digital. In this paper I want to describe how dark rooms work, different thing that can happen to the picture during the process, the change in from digital-less to digital photography, this history of photography, and things you need for a darkroom.

A darkroom is literally a dark room that people make photographs. When making a darkroom the room has to be light tight, meaning absolutely no outside light is let in. If making a darkroom in a house a basement, corner or bathroom would work. There are multiple ways to make a room light tights: weather stripping, duct tape, and wooden strips

would all work to make a light tight room. A tip to see if the room is really light tight of not is to turn off the lights and wait a few minutes and let your eyes adjust to the light, after your eyes adjust you will be surprised how much light you can actually see after the first minute. The room is usually split into 2 sections; and wet side and a dry side. The wet side is for the sink, the chemical mixing, film processing and paper processing. The dry side is where the printing, cutting, and finishing takes place. Vents are important to the darkroom. There needs to be vents, they need to go to the outside. The fans work best when they have fans in them.
There are many tools or equipment that are necessary to make a print. When working with film the equipment needed is a film reel, processing tanks, process thermometer, and a timer. If working with sheet film different equipment is needed. The processing tanks are made from stainless steel. The tanks also have a stainless steel, light tight lid. The reels are also stainless steel, they do make plastic reels but they break and make messes.
There is more equipment that is out there to make a darkroom top-notch. This extra equipment cost money. To make a top-notch darkroom an archival film washer, good film clips, roll film dryer. For printing in your darkroom processing trays, enlarger, enlarger timer, paper cutter, paper safe, enlarging lens, safelight, and drying racks are necessary. (Sparrow)
Chemistry is a larger part of the darkroom process. There are many different compounds that do different things to the image. Combining chemicals allows more control over the outcome of the image. Buying pre-packaged is an option but could cause more trouble and the image might not come out the right way. (Sparrow) The chemicals needed are developer, stop bath, fixer, and hypo clear. The developer activates the light sensitive crystals that make up the emulsion on the paper. When the crystals on the paper come into contact with the developer any part of the paper that is exposed to the light will become a shade of black. The stop bath deactivates the developer. Once the paper is put into the stop bath the paper stops turning black. The fixer will remove the unexposed crystals from the emulsion. Then the papers will the light safe. Once the paper has been through fixer it can be taken out of the darkroom and into the open light. Insufficient fixing will turn a picture yellow over time. Hypo clear does not have to be used. It helps uniform drying. If the drying is uniform it will prevent any drying marks later. (Weissenteinburg)
The enlarger is a piece of equipment that makes different sized photographs out of the same negative. The parts of the enlarger are the focusing knob, head knob, aperture ring, and a negative carrier. The focusing knob moves the lens up and down (closer and farther) from the negative. The head knob will loosen the head do it cane be moved up or down. This changes how large the image is. The aperture ring is a ring located on the lens. This ring changes the aperture. When the enlarger is turned on the light will get dimmer and brighter when you turn the ring. The negative carrier is what holds the negative. It goes between the lens and the bulb. (Weissensteinburg)
In the early day the photographic processing was simply a darkened room that was used to develop the first kind of photos. The silvered copper plates and papers. The actual term “darkroom” wasn’t used till 1841. The darkroom environment is essential for the wet-plate process. The wet-plate process was the main photography process between 1851-1870. Once the more commercially produced plates were being produced in the 1870’s the need for field darkrooms and wets-plates were no longer. Dry plates were quicker to use and gave a higher quality image. The dry-plate revolutionized photography. They made it possible for the hand held cameras to have dry emulsion film rolls. The film rolls made is easy for the amateur photographers take pictures in their hand held cameras. In 1890 darkroom equipment and chemicals became available for the amateur photographers. (Barnett)
Louis Daguerre developed a Daguerreotype in 1839.

The daguerreotype process was when the image was exposed onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. Henry Fox Talbot developed a calotype in 1841. His process used a silver iodide coated paper instead of halide. Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard invented the albumen print in 1850. This was this first commercially used method of producing a photographic print on a piece of paper from a negative. James Ambrose Cutting patented the ambrotype in 1854. This was a process that creates a positive image on a sheet of glass using the wet collodion process. Frederick Scott Archer created the wet collodion process o few years earlier. Cutting used it as a positive not a negative. Adolphe-Alexandre Martin invented the ferrotype in 1853. This process is the same as the ambrotype expect the photograph is created on a sheet of metal instead of a sheet of glass. Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871 invented the dry plate process. This was the first economically successful durable medium. By 1879 the first dry plate factory had been established. Richard H. Norris in 1856 invented the wet plate process. The wet plate was also a successful process but had its drawback. It had to be used in a certain amount of time, its slow photographic speed, and numerous chemicals required.

(Hasenkopf)
There are many reasons that digital photography is better then darkroom photography. The images are safer. On a digital program the original is always there and if an effect is put on the image that does not look good it can be erased. In the darkroom once an effect has been put on the image there is no going back. The original is getting messed with and there are not other copies. A darkroom is more complex then a digital program. Walking into a darkroom without any pervious knowledge would be very hard and you would have no clue what to do. In a digital program its self-explanatory and can be messed with and not destroy the image. Messing around in a darkroom could harm the picture and you can’t just undo things in the darkroom like you can in a digital program. You can afford to experiment in digital programs because there is always an undo button. Experimenting in the darkroom can cost a little more because of the chemicals and paper that would be wasted until the picture looks the way it is supposed to. It is much faster to produce a picture in a digital program then in a darkroom. With a few clicks of a button an image can be edited but in a darkroom it takes time for each effect to take place. For a darkroom to work a lot of equipment is necessary. All that is necessary for digital photography is a computer and a program. When applying effects to a picture in a digital program it can be done over and over again to different picture and will turn out the same way every time. In a darkroom there is no way to make sure that the same effect happens every time. It would be a lot harder to duplicate an effect in a darkroom then in a digital program. Access to a darkroom is not east unless you build one, but if you have a computer you can have a digital program that can edit your pictures. (Photoventure.com)