Printing your own black-and-white negatives in a darkroom is a different craft entirely from scanning — it is slower, more hands-on, and for many photographers, more rewarding. Getting started does not require a dedicated room built from scratch; a bathroom or closet that can be made light-tight at night is enough. This guide covers the enlargers and safelights that make a beginner darkroom setup achievable.
Beseler Cadet II Enlarger
The Beseler Cadet II is consistently recommended as the best enlarger for beginners starting a home darkroom. It supports enlargements up to 8×10 inches, comes with a 50mm lens suited to 35mm negatives, and its all-mechanical design means there is little to go wrong electronically. It is a comfortable, well-documented starting point precisely because so many beginners have used the same model and written about their experience with it.
Beseler Printmaker 67 Enlarger
If you shoot medium format alongside or instead of 35mm, the Printmaker 67 is built to handle 6x7cm negatives in addition to smaller formats, making it the more versatile (and more expensive) step up from the Cadet II. It is aimed at photographers who already know they want to print regularly and are ready to commit to a larger, heavier enlarger permanently set up in a dedicated space.
Arista 3000 Safelight
A safelight lets you see what you are doing in the darkroom without exposing light-sensitive photo paper. The Arista 3000 is frequently recommended for its combination of affordability and a built-in filter that protects a wide range of standard black-and-white papers, making it a sensible default if you are not yet sure which specific paper you will standardize on.
Beseler 45S Safelight
The Beseler 45S is a step up in build quality and light consistency from entry-level safelights, which matters because inconsistent safelight output can subtly fog your prints over long printing sessions. If you find yourself printing frequently and want a safelight that will not need replacing as you get more serious, this is the more durable option.
eTone Darkroom Developing Equipment Kit
For photographers who want to skip sourcing trays, tongs, a timer, and a safelight individually, the eTone kit bundles the core print-processing accessories (beyond the enlarger itself) into one purchase. It is a budget-oriented bundle, so individual pieces are not premium quality, but it removes the friction of researching and buying six small items separately when you are just trying to get your first print made.
Setting Up a Minimal Darkroom Space
You do not need a purpose-built room — a bathroom with a towel under the door and cardboard or blackout cloth over any windows can be made dark enough at night. What matters more than the room itself is a stable, level surface for the enlarger, easy access to a sink or water source for washing prints, and enough counter space to lay out your developer, stop bath, and fixer trays in a line.
A beginner’s first printing session, step by step
A first print session is more forgiving than people expect once the room is actually dark. Start by making a test strip — a single sheet of paper exposed in several short increments at different times — to find the right overall exposure before committing a full sheet to one guess. Develop, stop, and fix the test strip under the safelight, then turn on a normal light to judge which exposure band looks correct once it has dried slightly, since wet prints often look darker than their final dry appearance. Dodging (holding back light from part of the image) and burning (adding extra exposure to a specific area) come after you’ve nailed down a baseline exposure, not before, so resist the urge to start with creative adjustments until a straight, unmanipulated print looks right first.
Don’t forget the small accessories that make printing practical
Beyond the enlarger and safelight, a few inexpensive items make the actual printing process much less fumbly in the dark. A print-easel holds photo paper flat and square under the enlarger during exposure, which matters more than it sounds since paper that shifts mid-exposure ruins a print instantly. A set of print tongs keeps your hands out of developer and fixer chemistry during washing, and a simple darkroom timer that can be read by safelight (many basic kitchen timers can’t) takes the guesswork out of repeating a test-strip exposure accurately across the full sheet.
Final Thoughts
Start with the Beseler Cadet II and a basic safelight like the Arista 3000 — both are proven, well-documented choices that will not fight you while you are learning exposure and dodging-and-burning technique. Upgrade to a larger-format enlarger like the Printmaker 67 only once you know printing is a habit you are keeping, not just a one-roll experiment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an expensive enlarger lens, or will the stock lens work fine?
The stock 50mm lens that ships with a beginner enlarger like the Cadet II is genuinely adequate for learning and for prints up to the enlarger’s rated maximum size. Upgrading to a sharper aftermarket enlarging lens is worth considering later if you’re chasing maximum edge-to-edge sharpness at larger print sizes, but it is not something a beginner needs to budget for on day one.
How much ongoing cost should I expect for darkroom printing beyond the initial equipment?
Ongoing costs are mainly photo paper and chemistry, both of which are reusable for many prints before needing replacement — paper is the bigger recurring expense since it’s consumed per print, while a batch of developer, stop bath, and fixer processes dozens of prints before needing to be remixed. Compared to lab printing, home darkroom printing is usually cheaper per print once the initial equipment is paid off, especially if you print regularly.
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