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Darkroom

my lab notebook for photo experiments: homemade developers, improvised tanks, and emulsions & prints

· date?

developing my first roll: caffenol in a tiffin box

developer
caffenol
tank
a round tiffin box with a broken comb in the middle to seperate film
fixer
salt
film
Kodak Double X (i think?)

the first time developing film. done with my friends at a sleepover. we didn't have a developing tank or chemicals, so a steel tiffin box did the job with caffenol, and then fixed it with tons of salt.

frame from the roll: a moka pot and a film canister on a table frame from the roll: someone smiling up at the camera
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we took sooooo long to develop this roll! I say we but I was the one who sat in a dark toilet for more than an hour just agitating the 'tank' (40 minutes of which was agitating the FIXER). but all 3 of us were really sceptical about anything showing up at all so when we actually did get photos the toilet time was worth it.

For scanning we used this contraption made of two MDF sheets that my friend designed, backlit by a phone torch (we tried a lamp too) and shot on a DSLR, after which the colour was inverted in lightroom.

a strip of film lit from below through a hole cut in a black card
our attempts at scanning the film
film laid over a window cut in black card, with a film canister and a small lens next to it
the scanning setup up close
one frame of the film glowing on the light, sprocket holes down both sides
frame when scanning

· 16 March 2026

pinhole cameras and silver gelatin paper

camera
pinhole in a shoebox and small deoderant tin box
paper
silver gelatin paper
where
a workshop at the CSMVS Museum

made pinhole cameras at a museum workshop and shot straight onto silver gelatin paper.

pinhole photo of the museum building and its front steps pinhole photo on eight-sided paper: a bright window in a dark room pinhole photo on eight-sided paper: palm trees against the sky
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what the deoderant tin camera looked like. I threw the shoebox one away because it took up so much space...

a round metal tin held in a hand, with tape over a pinhole in the lid
the tin camera
the tin opened up: a circle of paper sits in one half, the pinhole is in the lid
inside the tin

· 8 February 2026

half-frame hack: 72 photos on one roll

camera
Kodak KB10
hack
tape inside the camera, same roll loaded twice
film
Kodak Vision3 500T

i taped the inside of my camera so each shot only uses half a frame. shot the whole roll, then loaded the same roll again and shot it a second time. 72 photos out of one roll of 35mm. Got cool overlapping photos.

two half frames stacked on one negative two half frames side by side on one negative two half frames stacked: two people drinking from steel cups, above a frame burnt out by light
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The modified camera

handwritten notebook page comparing the Kodak and the Yashica, with measurements for a half frame
my notes: which camera to convert
the back of the camera open, with tape narrowing the film window
the tape inside the camera
film loaded in the open camera with a paper label saying photo here over the smaller window
where the photo lands on the film