Evaluating Film Negatives

Video Transcript

"So this is called a loop and what it essentially is is it's a magnifying glass and it's a really important tool for me to have when I'm printing in my dark room, and what it does is it really lets me look at my negative close up. I can look at it and say is it sharp? Does it have any water marks or stains on it that I want to get rid of? And you know what is, what is the grain like on this negative? I find myself constantly using this loop. This is a rather inexpensive loop. It probably costs about five bucks. You can buy loops that could probably cost up to literally about a hundred dollars and that's just how the optics on them, how sharp they are, but really for most purposes this five dollar loop is pretty much all you need. If you're sharing a dark room with people or you're not that organized you'll find that your loop is one of the things that goes missing the most. So I always try to keep it on my light table. Sometimes I even put a string on it just so I don't walk away with it or put it in my pocket. So you always want to try to keep your loop somewhere close by when working in a dark room."