Guess that depends on your living. For me, time is not the greater expense when
compared to lab costs.
Cost of darkroom - If you can make a room do double duty such as an office, etc.
where you can walk finished fixed film/prints to a sink for rinsing. For example
covering the room window
with black vinyl, and sealing any light leaks, the expense becomes the
equipment.
There are many good deals on complete darkroom set-ups on ebay for about $300.
The
smart purchase is a dichroic color enlarger. This can bring the cost up to
400-500
(more if you want - but not neccessary) as you can dial in contrast for
polycontrast
papers, and, of course, do color if you go that direction. I just got a cool
Fujimoto
G-70 dichroic color enlarger for $25 at an antique sale [ !! ]. An interesting
feature of this (and the newer VR-70 models of this make) is that they are
either
diffusion, OR condenser enlargers by turning a portion of the head one way or
the
other. 0-200 range on all filters. By sheer luck, this enlarger came with a
newer
design Nikkor 50mm f2.8 lens with 35mm, 6x6, & 6x7 holders. I just sold a
Beseler 23C
series 2 condenser enlarger (B&W, or filter insertion for color) for Buy-It-Now
$195.
Absolute tank of an enlarger in mint condition. The Omega Omicron 50mm lens
made by
Minolta that came with it when I got it, I still have up on eBay, and it
already made
its reserve of only $35.
Enlargers sell really cheap at garage sales, because they don't know what they
have.
No need to overpay, unless the money comes too easy.
Larry
"Barry B. Bean" wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:20:02 -0600, Daniel J. Mitchell wrote:
>
> > How much would it cost to print B+W myself, assuming I had a darkroom + kit
> >available?
>
> Printing is more expensive, and you'll find that time is
> the greater expense than $$$.
>
> I probably have $1500-2000 invested in my
> darkroom, and could easily have built the same darkroom for
> $1000-1500 if I hadn't tried to take shortcuts along the way.
>
> -
> B.B. Bean bbbean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Bean & Bean Cotton Co
> http://www.beancotton.com
> Peach Orchard, MO
>
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