Cyanotype-tutorial
28 Oct
OTHER, PRINTING PROCESSES

HOW TO MAKE CYANOTYPES – STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL

This is a step by step tutorial on how to make Cyanotypes from scratch. We will be mixing the chemicals, coating, exposing and developing until we have a cyanotype in our hands. Cyanotypes are one of the easiest and safest alternative photographic techniques. Cyanotypes were invented a long time ago in 1841 by Sir JohnHerschel just 3 years after the invention of photography. It uses a mixture of two iron compounds, which when mixed together, exposed to UV light and lastly washed in water oxidise to create its unique Prussian Blue coloured images. Cyanotypes are becoming widely popular these days...

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Container-Darkroom-Lights-Update
15 Oct
DARKROOM BUILD

LIGHTS UPDATE + ROOF CLEANING / Container Darkroom part 10

There are more and more of you reading my blogs and watching my videos on YouTube channel and I am beyond grateful if I was able to help you in any way. I am finally starting to form a group of creative individuals who are interested in similar topics like me. We are helping each other and growing together so thank you again Back to the Container Darkroom. There is less and less work that needs to be done until I will be able to say I am finished. At this point there are mostly...

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Large-Format-Lens-Storage-Box
05 Oct
EQUIPMENT, OTHER

3D Printed Large Format Lens Storage Box

I am in large format photography for a few years now and the thing I struggled the most with was how to store my lenses. I often take my camera on backpacking trips which means I have to store them in my backpack somewhere. Most of the time I used soft leather lens pouches that were leftover from my digital Canon lenses. It surely protects the lens from surface damage like scratches but it does not provide a good enough protection of the lens elements (if I bump my backpack in a rock) or moving parts like aperture...

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28 Sep
EQUIPMENT, OTHER

Restoring Vintage Kodak Brownie No. 3A

As a landscape & nature lover I was looking for an appropriate old analog camera that would be able to make panoramic shots and ideally accept glass dry plates with some modifications. After quite a bit of searching and reading I realised I should start looking into old Kodak cameras. Also in terms of my tight budget it seemed the best choice. So I started checking different online resale stores, mostly ebay. Let me say that it is much harder to find second hand analog equipment here in Europe, especially ones produced in the USA. After a few...

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24 Sep
EMULSION, EQUIPMENT, OTHER

COATING GLASS DRY PLATES – Step by Step Tutorial

In this blogpost I will guide you through the process of coating glass dry plates with silver gelatine emulsion. When I started coating my own plates I wished I had stumbled on a complete tutorial like this. I had a lot of different information from forums, blog posts, videos… All I was left with was to just start experimenting. Lots of emulsion has been poured with many failures along the way so here I am making a step by step tutorial without any secrets for everyone who would like to try out this magic. There are many commercially...

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Exploring-canyon-with-4x5-large-format-camera
21 Sep
EMULSION, EQUIPMENT, ON THE FIELD, OTHER

Exploring the Canyon with Large Format Camera

What a great time I had exploring the Pekel Canyon in central Slovenia with my 4x5 camera and hand coated glass dry-plates. It was a cloudy day just calling for some long exposures. I packed my 4x5 Intrepid camera + holders filled with hand-coated glass dry-plates and headed for an adventure. I hiked along the waterfalls of Pekel Canyon in the hearth of Slovenia. Made an exposure and developed it in my Container Darkroom. Along the way I also filmed everything for you :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne23W2_XSsY&t=1s

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running-water-darkroom-sink
17 Sep
DARKROOM BUILD

GOT RUNNING WATER IN THE DARKROOM SINK/ Container Darkroom part 9

I built myself a darkroom sink (LINK) a while ago but It wasn't connected with water until recently. Finally got a plumber in the container to help me out. Because containers may be transported to another location in the future the water system has to be easy to detach and mounted on the surface. Plumber did the work accordingly. At the end there were two workers that arrived early in the morning and worked for around 2h. The whole installation was quite complicated with most of the things in place already there was not much room to work....

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Red-LED-safe-lights
13 Sep
DARKROOM BUILD

LED SAFE LIGHTS INSTALLATION + TEST/ Container Darkroom part 8

At the moment I have a simple red light bulb from Dr. Fischer installed on the ceiling which is pretty dim and radiates a lot of heat so I started looking for alternatives. I am aware that there are special led safelights that are sold for 200eur + a piece and I just can not afford it. If you didn’t know the best red safelights reach peak wavelength at around 620-630 nm. If they are in this range they are suitable for use in the darkroom without fogging the bw photographic material. Safelight is usually made from an...

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How-to-make-camera-bellows
12 Sep
EQUIPMENT, OTHER

CAMERA BELLOWS – Step by Step Tutorial

In this blog post I would like to walk you through all the steps needed to make yourself new Large Format Camera Bellows including all the materials I used. In my case I made new bellows for an old Kodak Brownie NO.3 A. It is over a 100 years old camera so bellows were totally weathered down. It was my first time making it as well so before that I searched many forums, watched different Youtube tutorial videos…At the end I put all the useful information and techniques together and combined it into this post. It was very...

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12 Sep
EQUIPMENT, OTHER

DIY CAMERA BELLOWS (VIDEO)

How to make Camera bellows? I have been planning to make Youtube videos for a while now and I finally braved up making a tutorial on how to make Large Format Camera Bellows. In the video I am making brand new bellows for an old Kodak Brownie NO. 3A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m7jK1PKjlk If you would like to see more content like this you are warmly invited to my Patreon page. Thanks

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