Thanks for the encouragement Mike.
I've gotten some time expired film to use for practice purposes; the
confiedence level is going up... but slowly... but that's all part of
the thrill of experimentation anyhow.

On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:06:01 -0600, "Mike King"
wrote:

Welcome back to the darkroom!

Night vision goggles and IR lamps are used in commercial labs but only on
paper production darkrooms. When they first came out we all heard stories
of people sitting in darkrooms eating their lunch on the clock, goofing off
or, in one case, getting "romantic" in the darkroom, fooling around knowing
the boss couldn't see them, if someone would go through the light trap to
check on them they could just rattle some film reels, etc. knowing they were
safe from inspection.

That all changed after the night vision equipment was purchased! Production
went up and some people left the industry rather quickly.

Loading film in the dark is not trivial but if you're the type that does
things in a practiced regular series of steps and a meticulous order you'll
be just fine. And these are skills and habits you should acquire if you're
going back into darkroom work anyway. Good luck and have fun.