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Quote: Lubitel - bought one for £20 in the old shop round the back of Tottenham Court Road. Leaked like hell, but it was fun while it lasted
Easily fixed with a bit of electrical or gaffa tape 
Lomo have bought out a new twin lens reflex based around the old Lubitel, its nearly £300 and it probably leaks even more light
I can remember my first darkroom, the corner of my bedroom before I left home.
I can still taste the fixer and stop bath in the back of my throat.
Quote: I can still taste the fixer and stop bath in the back of my throat.
Mmmmm, Photo porn. 
Did you ever have one of those darkroom tents? I nearly bought one but didn't have any room to put it. I can't even remember the name of the company that sold all that stuff now. Mail order. Nova-something?
Quote: I had a conversation a few weeks back with someone on EPZ. How many of us who love B&W started out by getting our hands dirty, annoying the rest of the family stinking the bathroom out - putting it out of use for hours. (My wife may say little has changed with the last bit).
So my guestions are:
Did you start out in a wet darkroom?
What Is your preference B&W (inc. toned etc, etc) or Colour or no preference?
Please try keep the answers clear as I will try to collate.
P.S. Any takers for my enlarger, plus stuff not been used in about 12 years the boxes a bit moth eaten after been stored in the garage.
im sorry i thought this conversation was about something completely different sounds like a line from the Jimmy Saville trial
Started out getting a few films developed, got to like taking pictures and was soon in a camera club with its own facilities (Paisley Photographic Society) and delved into Black and White. Moving to England and none of the clubs nearby have such a fantastic facility as Paisley had and developing B&W started to become a bit less enjoyable without a permanent set up.
Will still develop the odd film using a bag to load a daylight tank and developing in the kitchen and scanning the resulting negatives. I still miss however the space, equipment and accessibility of Paisley Photographic, a great club now suffering from petty minded officialdom it seems.
I was all black & white when I started for several years. I used to black out my parents' pantry. It was just big enough and could easily be blacked out. Enlarger was on the meat shelf and the trays balanced on the side shelves. I could only do up to 10x8 in there. I had just enough room to swivel around from enlarger to trays.
The first part of my apprenticeship as a newspaper photographer was six months darkroom training, loading DD slides and printing the work of 9 staff photographers. It's a fast way to learn. It taught me the truth of the old photographic adage that no photographer is a hero to his printer.
My finest (not) hour was when I loaded all 12 of each of 9 photographers slides, all 108 of them, backwards. The work of every one of them, maybe 4 or 5 jobs each on the Saturday afternoon was useless, unprintable. The paper was, how shall I say it, less than pleased with me 
I started useing the bathroom, upgraded to the box room then, when my son was born stopped. Eventually went to college, 6 happy years of evening classes. Darkroom now in shed in the garden. Still do process and enlarge, recently bought a foldeing 6x6 (Franka) great fun, makes you think, totally manual, use the lightmeter, set the aperture, shutter speed and focus.
Can scan the negs with my Epson scanner. Favorite film/chemical Ilford Delta 100 in Perceptol 1 to 1 at 20deg C.
A friend has just passed on to me a box of old camera`s and lenses to price up and sell for him, he only paid a few pounds at a car boot sale.
There`s a few nice bits and pieces, a Minolta slr with a couple of primes and an old Olympus trip in almost mint condition, the other bits and pieces are not worth keeping or selling.
I`m often feeling the urge to start processing my own black and white negatives again.
Thanks Nick, not interested in printing, just developing the negs.
I`ll get around to it at some point
I was told some time ago by a keen photographer (not a tog - I wouldn't dare after reading comments on another thread) that press photographers often developed 'in the can'. Wonder what / how etc.
Pete
Quote: press photographers often developed 'in the can'
Having been a national newspaper from the 60s on, I never heard that one. I suspect it may refer to American pressmen developing their films in the can (lavatory, toilet, bog) when on out of town assignment.
The toilet was the obvious place to develop your films in hotel rooms - usually no windows or small ones that you can black out easily and locks from the inside, taps for warm water. Downside, it gets awfully hot in the tropics and if there is some godawful insect or animal hiding in the toilet you can't get it out.
You can't develop a 35mm in its can because it's too tightly wound and 6x6 film doesn't have a can.
Developing colour films in toilets and bathrooms was a real pain. I was doing so in my hotel in Tel Aviv once when an air raid warning came. Did I leave the film to its own devices and shelter - or carry on. I know of no other news photographer who would do other than what I did. Carry on devving and hope for the best!
Lemmy
thanks. Seems a more reasonable explanation. A pity, though, as I used to find loading into spiral tanks rather fiddly.
Sounds like a pretty tough existence - the only major hazard I used to encounter on 'business' travel was airline food.
Pete
Quote: A pity, though, as I used to find loading into spiral tanks rather fiddly.
Yes, complete nightmare. The tiniest bit of water or sweat anywhere on the spiral and the whole thing would seize up, wouldn't it? And if you tried too hard you'd get stress marks on the film.
Taking an SD or CF out of your camera and plugging it into the computer, that's more like it. Luxury! When I were young etc......
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