Overkillphil Loc: northern illinois

ok, I have a question, what happens if you use a safe light with today's DSLR cameras. I'm taking pics in a dark room in bulb mode what can I expect to see on my pics if the safe lights on during setup ??

back when I was doing my own film and developing I had variable power red lights,

does a dslr see the light from a safe light of any color,

Thanks Phil.

RWR Loc: La Mesa, CA

I would take a series of pictures under this lighting, varying the white balance, and see how your camera reacts. Sounds like an interesting project.

skooters Loc: Flagstaff, Arizona

Let us know what you find out. Very interesting, did not think of this before ?????

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

I took this yesterday in the museum darkroom where I work. Yes it will work. I used a very high ISO, a long shutter speed and self timer mode. I have also taken some in my home darkroom with red safelights. They have much more contrast as expected

BebuLamar

A digital camera would certainly capture the red safelight. The safelight is visible to our eyes and the digital sensor is even more sensitive to red than our eyes.

Overkillphil Loc: northern illinois

Well this is very interesting, however this isn't what I was hoping for, I’m planning to do some water drop photography, for the process I'm using you take the photos in the dark, so your camera is set in B (bulb) and the flash is controlled to get the water drop bouncing. as we all know most of us can't see in the dark, meaning you have to fumble around with the controls on the timer, I was hoping that using a safe light would allow me to work in the dark, with just enough light that wouldn't disturb this method of water drop photography.. however Darkroom317 points out that he did use a high ISO and his shutter was open for a long time, the water drop photos I plan to take only use a fraction of a second of open shutter and a flash to catch the bounce, this is something I’m going to have to play with,
Thanks to those that replied, thanks Bebulamar for the info, maybe there’s color we can see but the camera can’t detect as easy as we can, (think I’m kidding myself) thanks for the photo from darkroom317, I’m going to give it a shot and just see what I get, playing and learning is why most of us are here ? it’s not like I’m wasting film right … thanks again Phil.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

I'm not sure where to send you for info but by adjusting the exposure triangle, you can shoot outdoors in daylight and the background will appear black. So you can certainly shoot in dim enough light that only the flash will show with a few seconds exposure.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

Haha. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Anyway safelights are rather dim. The photo I posted was shot at 10,000 ISO, 1/6 sec at f4. This was just get to nearly what I see in the room. It is amazing how much the eye can see when the camera can't. So it is likely that your idea will work

tsilva Loc: Arizona

The longer your shutter is open, the more ambient light you let in. Any ambient light. I honestly do not understand why you are trying to shoot water drops this way. There are far simpler ways to do it.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Maybe correct but your comment would be more helpful if you explained your simpler way to do it. :)

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Let me explain something, then you can probably answer your own question. Though it is interesting you asked (for the sake of all the people who have never worked with film).

"Safelights" came in a few different colors, Amber, Red, even a few Green. The thing is they were safe primarily for Back & White printing paper (probably the amber ones were exclusively for that use), which is Blue (light) sensitive. Remember this is for printing from B & W negatives. Some ancient films and some B&W graph arts films are or were Ortho-chromatic, not sensitive to Red light. So you could process them under a Red safe light. Nearly all B&W films for decades have been Pan-Chromatic, sensitive to all visible colors of light and UV. They must be handled in total darkness. Some films could be viewed under dim light once partly developed for a brief amount of time (I've never tried that), that is where a Green safe light might come in. Some films required Red for that inspection instead. Color film and paper must be handled in total darkness.

Digital cameras, their sensors at least, by definition produce color images. Even the ones converted in camera to B&W or Monochrome JPGs are color at the sensor level. But I believe there may be one or two cameras on the market that are actually and only digital black and white. I think Leica and Nikon may each make or did make such a digital camera.

So the answer to your question is that colored lights, safe light or any would basically act like a color filter over the lens. Though it mighty just produce an interesting effect because safe lights or nay color are also narrow spectrum lights. And that might just make the WB in your digital camera go nuts and produce unexpected results. I have not tried it but it might be an interesting experiment. So your question was not actually invalid. But, no a safe light would not seem like no light to a sensor if that is what you were thinking. The term safe light was strictly for chemical based photography. Digital sensors "see" from IR thru Visible to UV, but usually have filters over them to block the IR & UV. But that leads to another topic...

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Yes it will as the DSLR "sees" all the color spectrum we can see. The safelights were for B&W film that was not sensitive (Very much) to the various safelights matched to it. So a "red" safelight will show red when photographed.

Peter Boyd Loc: Blyth nr. Newcastle U.K.

If you are using flash to illuminate the water droplets then your shutter speed is going to be around the 1/200th sec. mark, and in that case the safe light will not form any part of the exposure, so will not be visible on the resultant image.

mrtobin Loc: North East Ohio

Phil.
If you want to take photos in a dark room, for what ever reason, set everything up BEFORE you turn the lights off.

When working in a photographic darkroom, we did not mix our chemicals and fill our trays in the dark, we set everything up before turning off the lights:)

btw, film had to be loaded in complete darkness, the safe light was only used for the paper, as in making prints.

Leitz Loc: Solms

Actually, safelights are for black and white printing paper, not film.