Darkroom Adventures: Making Contact Sheets from Our Minolta Photos

Today, we’re back in the darkroom to create contact sheets of the photos we snapped this week with our Minolta camera!

If you’re not sure how to load film into your camera, check out our previous article on loading film.

Once we took our shots, we developed the roll of film (you can learn how to do that here), and now we’re ready to get hands-on with our negatives.

Key Terms to Know

• Darkroom: This is our workspace, lit only by a red light to keep everything safe from exposure.

• Negatives: These are the strips of film that hold our photos in reverse.

• Enlarger: A special projector that allows us to project our film negatives onto paper.

• Test Strip: We’ll create these to figure out the best exposure settings without wasting too much paper.

• Contact Sheet: A single photographic sheet that shows all our negatives together.

• Enlargement: This is the final print made from our negatives.

  
  

What You’ll Need

• Your negatives

• A darkroom

• An enlarger

• Darkroom chemicals

• Darkroom photographic paper

• Guillotine or scissors

• Glass pane

• Thin cardboard

• Developing trays

• Extra tray

• Sink

• Plastic tongs

  

Step-by-Step Process

1. Prep with Test Strips: Before we dive into the contact sheet, we need to create test strips to nail down the exposure. Cut or tear a piece of photographic paper into strips.

2. Under the Enlarger: Place one strip of paper (glossy side up) under the enlarger light. Make sure the light is off while you set this up! Lay a couple of your negatives on top of the paper.

3. Keep it Flat: Place the glass pane on top of the negatives. This helps keep everything flat and sharp while preventing the negatives from curling.

4. Exposure Experiment: Cover parts of the paper with thin cardboard to test different exposure times. Turn on the light for two seconds, then shift the cardboard to expose another section of the strip for another two seconds. Keep going until the whole strip has been exposed.

5. Develop the Test Strip: Take your exposed paper and put it into the developer tray for two minutes. Gently rock the tray and use the tongs to keep the paper submerged.

6. Stop Bath Time: After developing, let the excess developer drip off, then transfer the paper to the stop bath tray. Agitate for about thirty seconds.

7. Fix It Up: Next, place the paper in the fix tray for five minutes before rinsing it in cold water for at least ten minutes.

8. Evaluate Exposure: Check your test strip to see how your exposures turned out. Use another strip of paper as a confirmation sheet. Place your film negative on top, cover with glass, and expose it for the time you think looks best.

9. Final Confirmation: Develop this confirmation strip to confirm you’ve got the right exposure.

10. Creating the Contact Sheet: Once you’re happy with the exposure, lay all your negatives on a larger piece of photographic paper. Place the glass pane on top and expose it to the enlarger light for your chosen time. Then, develop it just like before.

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And there you have it! You’re ready to see all your photos come to life on the contact sheet.