'The Might Beseler 23cII XL(in Safelight)'
I finally spent the time to set up a makeshift darkroom in my bathroom and make some prints. I followed the simple beginner advice laid out here, on one of my favorite blogs - The Online Darkroom. This being my first attempt in years I had no intention of taking hard to print negatives and getting into dodging and burning and all of that. I was printing on fairly cheap paper I had ordered from Freestyle Photographic Supplies - their Arista.edu VC RC(Variable Contrast - Resin Coated). I think 100 5x7 sheets cost me about 25 bucks. I took my time and came away with a few decent prints - the bug has bitten me now and I want to go big - but I'm going to take my time and meticulously take notes and work through this box of paper before moving on to the good stuff.
'Focusing' - I shot this by taking a 20 second exposure and using an LED light to "paint" the enlarger. The pinkish color on the easel comes from the contrast filter.
'Print Washing' - The print under the water is a "final copy". The other ones are test strips - 5 second intervals of exposure across the images.
The big timer controls the enlarger and safelight - I was using the small one to time development. The trays are the developer, stop bath, and fixer. I'll be scanning some prints to "show off" soon and hopefully a real darkroom will be following at some point.
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