Bay 3 · Durst M605 · 10×8 in RC glossy

It’s on the paper.
You just can’t see it yet.

Set a time, expose, develop. Lights on only once it’s fixed.

There’s a negative in the carrier and a sheet on the easel. Set a time, press Expose, then put it in the developer. Keep your hand in the light to hold a part back. Don’t turn the lights on until it’s fixed.

The house print of frame 14: a cobbler at work under a market stall, printed at grade 3.

With the hand tool set to dodge or burn, move the pointer over the easel, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to hold light back or let it through.

Expose
Develop 60 s
Stop + fix 40 s
Lights

Red filter under the lens: frame 14 is on the easel and the paper can’t see it. Set a time and press Expose.

3 stops · grade 2

Timer 8.0 seconds, grade 2.

Multigrade filter

Your hand

The bench runs faster than the room: the lamp at 2×, the trays at 6×. The times it shows are real darkroom seconds.

What the sheet just did

Seconds go in. Density comes out.

Paper doesn’t record light in a straight line. It ignores a little, then answers fast, then runs out of black. Each Multigrade filter bends that curve. Grade 00 stretches it across a wide range of light, and grade 5 squeezes it into a narrow one. A flat negative wants a hard grade and a contrasty one wants a soft grade. You only find out which by printing.

We count in stops, not seconds. A third of a stop is 26% more light, and a whole stop is double. That’s why the timer on bay 3 jumps from 8.0 to 10.1 to 12.7 and not in tidy seconds. Every step looks the same size on the print.

On grade 2 at 8.0 s, frame 14’s brightest detail lands at density 0.12 and its darkest textured shadow at 1.35. The paper runs from 0.06 to 2.05.

Density against log exposure, all seven grades as modelled for this bench. The amber curve is the filter in the drawer, and the bar underneath is the negative in the carrier at the time on the clock.

The filter drawer
Grade	Exposure range it accepts	Time	Light on the easel
00	1.70 log units	×1	yellow
0	1.50 log units	×1	yellow
1	1.30 log units	×1	pale amber
2	1.10 log units	×1	near white
3	0.90 log units	×1	pink
4	0.70 log units	×2	magenta
5	0.55 log units	×2	magenta

Grades 00 to 3 print at the same time. Put the 4 or the 5 in and double it, or the print comes out a stop light. That’s the most common first-night mistake on the bench.

Two blank sheets of photographic paper pegged to a line under red safelight.

A condenser enlarger on its column under red light, the baseboard and easel below it.

The head of an enlarger in its bay, the column and focus knob lit red.

Hire a bay

Six bays, one rule about the door.

Bays 1 to 4 are Durst M605s with colour heads dialled for Multigrade, for 35 mm to 6×6. Bays 5 and 6 are Laborator 1200s and take up to 4×5. Every bay has an f-stop timer, a grain focuser and a four-blade easel. Chemistry is mixed fresh on Mondays and it’s included.

Bench rates
Bench	When	Price
By the hour	Tue–Fri	S$16
By the hour	Sat–Sun	S$20
Three-hour block	any day	S$42
Night bench, 7–11 pm	Tue–Fri	S$50
Membership, 10 hours	per month	S$110

Paper, at the counter
RC glossy, 10×8 in	S$1.60 a sheet
Fibre, 10×8 in	S$3.40 a sheet
Or bring your own	no charge

The door: the light-trap door stays shut when anyone’s paper is out of the box. Knock twice and wait for someone to call “clear”. It’s saved more sheets than any other rule we have.

First time on a bench? Do a Saturday First Print class once, or show whoever’s on shift that you can load a carrier and run a test strip. After that the bay’s yours.

Book a bench by email

Film

Drop it off Tuesday. Pick it up Friday with a contact sheet.

We develop black-and-white 35 mm and 120 by hand in steel tanks, a few rolls at a time, using the maker’s own times at 20 °C. Every roll comes back sleeved with a contact sheet printed on 10×8. Mark it up with the red pencil on the counter and book a bench to print the ones you ringed.

A contact sheet as it comes back, ringed in china marker. Press a ringed frame to put it in the carrier on bay 3.

Gloved hands loading film onto a spiral reel under red light.

An open developing tank with the processed film curling out of its reel.

Hands rinsing a strip of film under a running tap at a steel sink.

Film developing prices
Service	Price
Develop, 35 mm or 120, black and white	S$14 a roll
Push or pull, up to two stops	+S$4
Contact sheet, 10×8 RC	included
Flat scans, 16 MP, every frame	S$10 a roll
Tank bench, develop your own	S$8 an hour

Drop off by 8 pm Tuesday and collect from 2 pm Friday. Colour film goes out to a lab we trust and takes a week longer. We’ll tell you which one.

A printer reaching up to a line of black-and-white prints drying on pegs above the trays.

Classes

Four people, one room, three hours.

Classes run small because the room is small. Bring a roll of negatives or use ours. Everyone leaves with finished prints, dry and flat.

Sat 3 Oct · 10:00–13:00

First Print

Load a carrier, focus, run a test strip, read it, make a straight print. Twenty sheets of 10×8 RC included, and you go home with two prints.

S$952 of 4 places left
Sat 10 Oct · 14:00–17:30

Split-grade and dodging

Two exposures on one sheet, one soft and one hard, and a card, a wire and your hands to push the light around. Bring a negative that has beaten you.

S$1204 of 4 places left
Sat 17 Oct · 10:00–13:00

First Print

Same class as the 3rd, for anyone who missed it.

S$95Full · waitlist open
Sun 25 Oct · 10:00–16:00

Fibre paper and selenium

Fibre-based paper, a long wash and a selenium bath that makes the blacks go deeper and slightly cold. It’s a full day, and lunch from the coffee shop downstairs is on us.

S$1803 of 3 places left

Hold a place by email

The wet side of the darkroom: a row of trays on a sink under a single red safelight on the wall.

Visit

Up the side stairs, past the hardware shop.

Level 2, 118 Jalan Besar
Singapore 208848
Four minutes from Jalan Besar MRT, Exit A

Tue–Fri: 2 pm – 11 pm
Sat–Sun: 10 am – 10 pm
Mon: Closed. We mix chemistry and clean the trays.

In the room

Phones go face down on the shelf by the door. A lit screen fogs paper faster than our safelights do.
We test the safelights every month. Paper is safe under them for four minutes on the bench and not much longer.
Tongs stay with their tray: developer, stop, fix. One drop of fixer in the developer and everyone’s night goes grey.

hello@latentdarkroom.sg

It’s on the paper.You just can’t see it yet.

Tonight’s line