I was wondering - how would you take a photo on a darkroom with a film camera - not a dark room, but the room that has the red light, used to develop photos? Would that even be possible? I mean, the safe light should not affect the film, right?
The red safe light was normally used around paper. Most popular films were developed in a tank loaded in total darkness or a changing bag.
From a b/w photographer (i know nothing about color film). We always had to roll our film in total darkness, going by feel alone. I was told that the film is sensitive to many wavelengths, including the safe light. While it may not fully “expose” the film, we were cautioned that it would still affect it.
The b/w photo paper, however, was not affected by the safe light.
Film is handled in total darkness.
Printing is done under red safelight.
There was a (rarely-used) very faint green safelight that could be used for very short periods when loading film, but I never had cause to use it.
No, film, or at least most current emulsions, are panchromatic, sensitive to all visible light. Black-and-white paper emulsions are not sensitive to the red part of the spectrum. Certain older black-and-white films (and some specialist current ones) of the orthochromatic type were also not sensitive to the red side of the spectrum. Panchromatic film must be processed in complete darkness, as noted above. A red safe light will fog it/expose it. Orthochromatic film could be processed under a red safelight.
This is also part of the reason why if you’re making black-and-white prints from color negs, you generally should use a black-and-white paper that is panchromatic. You can’t use a red safety light with that. They’ll print on regular orthochromatic papers, but the contrast and tonal content will be different due to the paper’s insensitivity to the red side of the spectrum.
SO, if a photographer got inside a darkroom with the red light on and tried to snap a black and white photo on film - would he be able to take the photo or not?
There is a #3 Wratten or Kodak safelight that is dark-green that is used for a technique called “developing by inspection” where you check the neg halfway through development time and judge whether you need to alter the develop time, but that’s only supposed to be used when the film is halfway developed (and less sensitive to light exposure) and the light needs to be dim and about 3 or 4 feet away at least. I’ve never used it myself. I believe I’ve heard of this being used in color darkrooms for printing, as well, but I’ve always done it in total darkness. I never heard that it could be used for loading, only on halfway developed film. I suppose it’s possible, but one learns to load film in the dark pretty quickly if they’re paying attention. Never thought it would be necessary. Yeah, you’ll screw up a couple rolls when starting out, but you get the hang of it. It’s a rite of passage. Or just use the plastic reels which are pretty much idiot proof. (I’ve always used metal.)
Yes, assuming they are not using a specialty orthochromatic film and it’s rather unlikely they would be unless they specifically sought it out.
ETA: And it seems like Wratten/Kodak is the same filter. It’s a #3 Kodak Wratten filter that is dark green.
Darkrooms have regular lights, too. As long as unexposed film and paper is locked up as it should be, just flip the regular lights on.
Yes but those safe-lights are not very bright so it will be a long exposure.
There are very murky brown filters which can be used for color printing (paper, not film). I have come across them in a commercial darkroom but really they were pretty useless as they were so dim, just a faint glow really. Not as bad as the green ones you mention where your eyes needed to get accustomed to the darkness even to tell if they were switched on or not.
The answers pretty much nail it. B&W film is sensitive to all colours, paper is sensitive to mostly blue light, less sensitive to red. So a very low level of red light is not going to affect the exposure of a paper photo being developed.
In the Good Old Days, film too was originally sensitive only to blue. There were stories that the silent film actors used bright white makeup to avoid having dark faces on film, and even in the early days of B&W TV, “white” shirts were blue. You’ll also notice that for example lips appear very dark in older movies and photographs, because they were reddish (strong lipstick colours exaggerate the effect for women).
About the time colour film was being made, the techniques were realized to give all film, including B&W, good sensitivity to the entire visible spectrum. Of course, it’s convenient to have some light in the darkroom, so there was never a need to make paper sensitive to all colours of light, except, as mentioned, a specialized product for developing B&W photos from colour negatives without repeating the “blue is strongest” problem of the early 1900’s.
So panchromatic materials have to be handled in darkness - all film, colour paper, and panchromatic paper. Film, you load onto a reel by feel in total darkness, and put into a tank. The tank allows you to pour chemicals in and out without exposing the film to light, so you can develop film in plain room light.
Similarly, I have developed colour paper using a similar technique - set up your enlarger, turn out all the lights, put the paper under the enlarger and expose it, then put it into a light-proof developing drum. (About a foot long and 4 inches diameter, typically for 8x10) Again, you can pour chemicals in and out and roll the drum to make a small amount of the fluid cover the whole sheet.
The downside is that with B&W and a safelight you could evaluate the rate of development, and compensate for poor exposure somewhat by varying development time. With colour paper, you follow the formula and hope you got it right. If not, rinse and repeat with a bit more or less exposure. (I had an exposure guide you could lay on the test exposure to give you an idea how close you were to the best exposure - pie shaped segments with varying amount of opaque to indicate what a shorter exposure would look like).
the only downside to trying to take pictures with only a safelight (no flash, I assume) is that the exposure would be a very long time. But hey, people take nighttime sky shots too.
I worked in a photo lab.
Amber colored lights could also be used for B&W.
Yeah, the ones we used were amber/brownish. Those seemed to be more popular than the red safe lights.