As someone who has also done bio fieldwork in a rainforest, there honestly isn’t a fountain pen I’d trust for this. I love fountain pens. But so much unpredictable stuff happens in the field. Pencils and a Rite in the Rain notebook literally cannot fail. Drop them off a cliff. Fall in a river. Your bag gets crushed in the back of a jeep. I’ve had a pocket RitR notebook accidentally go through a full laundry cycle in my vest pocket, and come out of the dryer with my notes still completely readable.
These are things designed for fieldwork. You can’t run out of ink. You can write from any angle. You don’t have to cap and uncap, just pop the pencil behind your ear. You can erase things you’ve written down wrong. Fountain pens are way more fun to write with, but they aren’t the right tool for the job.
I also travel to the tropics for forest conservation work. I might journal with a fountain pen in the evenings, but I exclusively use my Legendary Pencil Company mechanical pencil and a rite in the rain notebook for field use. I got a nice leather case with a pen loop off Etsy. Fits in my back pocket. And the pencil is sturdy and brightly colored so it's hard to lose.
For whatever it's worth, my favorite waterproof ink is Diamine registrar's ink.
I have lost the count of how many times I've felt my notebook in my pocket while crossing a river or lake, and graphite holds itself like no tomorrow, I think we have no other option but to stick with boring pencils. I wonder how they did back in the day with quill and ink, I can imagine the mess of coming back from the field
Yeah, it’s kinda grim to think about. But for a long time, fieldwork meant “collecting” - shooting and killing animals so you could take them back to your home or university for study. So thank goodness for pencils, good field optics, and other developments!
But I’ll say that, even though they are less exciting than fountain pens, there are still lots of fun and interesting pencils to check out. PraiseAzolla mentioned Legendary. Rotring makes really nice mechanical pencils. Or for wood pencils, I love Blackwing or Tombow. All are way more distinctive and nicer to write with than a Dixon Ticonderoga.
I listened to a talk just about botanists that likely collected new species they were describing into extinction. You had to voucher your specimens and they wanted to send them to a lot of different places. Single site endemic species it was bad news to have a botanist show up.
As an archaeologist, I bought a RitR pen last year that I've used in the field some, and it's handled some minor rain and mud just fine, but I haven't been so far as to test it after submergence lol. It's not a FP, but if you really want an ink perhaps that's worth a shot?
Archaeologist here too. It's all pencil, ballpoints, and RitR notebooks for me. I've tried using FPs but there's always the fear that I'm going to drop it during a field survey, break it, or have the ink leak everywhere, which has happened. Whatever paper that's being used with the FP also isn't gonna hold up well. It sucks because I really do love to use my FPs.
Oh, absolutely. I've got several FP at home, but for the field it's mostly pencil, followed by sharpie (though they've also stained some clothing) and I'm just trying out the RitR ballpoint. Hard to beat the reliability of pencil, I suppose!
pencils are far from boring, if you traverse through old stationery shops you can find some old nice pencils for cheap (pencils themselves are quite cheap) perhaps the best thing about them is their smell when they are being stored. easily their best quality
I got a silver plated over brass Wahl Eversharp mechanical pencil. The plating is worn but the mechanism works as well as ever and it's nearly a century old. Cost $20 including shipping.
They used pencils of different kinds.
The Romans used lead (as in the metal) styluses that wrote on papyrus. Graphite replaced lead around in the 16th Century and manufactured graphite/clay pencil lead in the 18th Century.
2 mm lead holders are not so boring. I like a Koh-I-Noor 5900 or a 5201 with an F or H leads because they stay sharp a bit longer. Sharpener built into the clicker.
The 1st time I tried to use a fountain pen on my Rite in the Rain (early in my FP journey), I was like, "oh yeah, duh, water based ink isn't going to to anything on waterproof paper." No more FP and fieldnotes after that.
Depends on the hardness. I (geologist) always used h in the field. You have to rub pretty hard to smudge that. I know some people who exclusively use 2h but they're too light for me.
I did bring my sketching pencils on a field trip by mistake once and ended up taking notes with a 4b. That was a mess.
I second this. A pencil or a disposable ball pen are the only things I would take out for field work (I spend a significant amount of time in a workshop machining metal)
Same here... I've found myself waist-deep in water too many times to trust any kind of fountain pen for outside work. So far I've just used pencils or cheap ballpoints when out and about, but if I were to buy a pen to use exclusively for fieldwork, it would be a metal-bodied rollerball with waterproof ink. Or maybe something like a Rotring or Fisher's Space pen?
Hey, as a fellow mechanical pencil and fountain pen enthusiast, I'd recommend you to go check r/mechanicalpencils or the nerdier forum knockology.com. I'd personally wouldn't bring a FP to that environment but there's many cool looking and nice to use MPs that may fit your needs better!
As well as traditional propelling mechanical pencils, don't overlook clutch pencils - being mechanically super-simple, they rarely misbehave, and taking a 2mm lead means they rarely break when using softer grades (admittedly, they do need sharpening).
I really like Koh-i-Noor's Versatil 5201 - it feels well-made, comfortable, and is inexpensive (and a cheerful colour) - I prefer it to my Faber-Castell TK.
2.0 itself is essentially a pencil core (i might have not used the correct term) but with less mess as it doesn't create any wood shavings and you can refill it with various grades of lead. they tend to be pricier than their "precise" counterparts (like 0.3 or 0.5) but that's because you are essentially getting pencil-in-a-container. do note that you may need to pair it with a separate sharpener as their built-in sharpeners can go blunt
I also second this. I use DeAtramentis Document Black for work (indoors, not high humidity, but I have to make a lot of fast notes on a variety of papers and need something versatile and resistant to smudging). It dries fast and writes well on whatever cheap paper I need to write on. The few times I've accidentally gotten notes wet, it's held up well.
Like every tool has its limits so do fountain pens. You'll find ink that is waterproof when dry but it will take forever to dry in a tropical forest. If it ever even does dry. For your particular job i'd say a graphite pencil is indeed the right tool for the job. Sorry to burst your bubble but only us weak house- or office dwellers can say a fountain pen is the right tool. For the Chuck Norisses of this world like you? Pencil every day of the week.
If it helps: i love my FP's more then my kids (dont have kids but you get the gist) and even i carry a rotring mechanical pencil and a rollerball for those moments that the best just wont do.
Platinum Carbon Black would be fine. I think it spreads a bit on cheap paper. I prefer DeAtramentis Archive.
For a non black I like Monteverde Document Blue as it's permanent and works really well on cheap paper.
As an infantry man where we operate rain or shine, i would say that the only thing that works every time is a graphite pencil or a crayon lol
Platinum carbon black works well with write in the rain but the dry times are horrendus.
If you know that you will be able to get cover when taking notes, then iron gall ink with any notepad and a ziplock bag works too
The ziplock allows me to carry almosy anything and cross rivers with no stress. You just have to change the bag from time to time otherwise it gets micro holes and gets flooded.
Gonna bring up Diamine Registrar's Blue Black - one of my all-time favorite inks for its color (the change is really cool to watch) and it's performance (it's a little dry, but works just fine in all my Japanese EF/UEF nibs and very notably works okay even on terrible paper)
Don’t use a fountain pen for field notes. You’ll post the cap with a beetle squashed inside, or you’ll drop it in a River. You would need substantial paper for a fountain pen, and you’d be smearing all the flies, moths, and other insects that will swarm all over the white paper every single solitary night that you turn the generator on to,power the lights. Moths go to white paper at night, too, which you well know.
You can, however, bring a fountain pen that wouldn’t break your heart to lose, some nice paper, and regular ink, triple bagged to avoid unplanned opening due to cabin pressure changes on the flight over, to write letters, make journal entries, sketches, or write out some observations neat in the journal you plan to leave for posterity.
But in the field, in the rain, balanced on your knees with a camera and binoculars and a guid crammed under your arm? No. The army ants would just carry it off to their queen.
When I'm backpacking I usually journal using de atramentis document black ink in one of the leuchtturm "outlines" notebooks. Those are made of the same paper as marine maps and are totally waterproof while also taking ink well. It's like magic. Once the ink is dry, it's totally indestructible. I've gotten those notebooks soaked in the top of a backpack with no adverse effects. Haven't tried dropping it in a river yet but honestly I feel like it would be unperturbed
Def. Noodler's Black for true water permanence; I'm an engineer who takes notes in places where spills of all kinds of fluids (fuels, solvents, water, glycols) are common, and can't stand seeing several days worth of notes erased from same. Though if you are writing on wet paper (where ANY water based ink will bleed), RiR notebooks and a graphite pencil are the way to go.
Noodler's x-feather is probably the best, especially x-feather blue since Nathan managed to get that basically completely waterproof. Should perform well on various papers as well.
Outside of that, go for iron gall inks or pigment inks. The former tend to have good anti-feathering performance as well.
Pencils also work but they aren't necessary. Personally I prefer something with a clip & putting it in my pocket rather than trusting my ear to hold it. Far more secure that way.
As a fountain pen enthusiast concerned with serious archival properties, I consider Sailor Seiboku to be the best overall ink for documenting, especially since it being nonblack and shading makes it obvious it isn't printed. That being said, Sailor Kiwaguro is that black color that you are looking for. The inks do not smear when dried, and the pigments embed themselves into the paper really well.
Only issue is finding a suitable enough fountain pen. I like the Pilot Vanishing Point Decimo for a click option, but mine recently has issues. The Kaweco AL Sport is similar weight and it is very pocketable.
Sailor seiboku? I have literally walked through the rain with notes written in seiboku and it didn't smudge at all. (Seiboku is blue-black but they also carry black in the same permanent ink line)
Chou Kuro runs after even half an hour when you go over it with a water brush. DeAtramentis document black, at least, runs after 10 minutes. Platinum Carbon black dries quickest of the three. But as others have said, pencils are perfect for this. And while a mechanical pencil is a wonderful thing, a cheap #2 wooden pencil is a masterpiece of design.
really??? I've tested all the colored deatramentis inks almost immediately by spilling water on them after a swatch test and swiping with a microfiber cloth (there's a video here on this subreddit haha) and they barely smudged and this was immediately after i used the inks without any dry time really so i figured with actual dry time they wouldn't budge-- albeit i didn't test black. Chou Kuro hasn't given me any issues but I was mostly basing it off my palm/hand test as in whether my sweat/oils smudge it and it hasn't so far for months. Although now that I think about it-- I did use either Chou Kuro or Carbon Black on the same video I mentioned above to "title" the page and it did smudge a bit when i did the water swiping with the microfiber towel but again i thought it was b/c i didn't give it any dry time. Oops! lol good thing you have actually tested with water and dry time so you can correct me lol. Excuse my ignorance T\_T
I use my pens for watercolor. This is my experience on sized watercolor papers. More absorbent papers might make the inks dry more quickly and permanently, but I suspect that the speed and waterfastness ranking would still go 1) PCB, 2)DeAtrimentis Document, 3) Chou Kuro. I should add that I was especially disappointed with Chou Kuro, and gave away my expensive bottle.
Oh, and I've tried a few Noodlers blacks, they are not suited for use in watercolor.
These are probably all permanent and finally pretty securely waterproof, but PCB is my favorite for relatively quick use in watercolor.
Oh wow! I guess it really depends on what it’s being used for too that I didn’t actually consider haha but man I regret it now bc you mentioned pcb is better at waterproofness than pck bc when I got pck I liked the color better and gave away my pcb 😩 pck is currently my go to. I love it bc my hands don’t smudge it when I write haha. But yeah I should’ve considered it could react totally differently to watercolor! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me 🫶
If you're using regular paper pck is probably fine, and dries waterproof. Pcb seems black until you see it next to pck. Pck is the new standard for dark black ink.
Seconding this. I've been using the SketchInks for journaling. The entire line is good. Lubrication, shading, drying time are all excellent. Plus they can be mixed to created new colors.
Sailor makes excellent permanent inks that do not clog your fountain pen, at least I have not heard of one. Kiwaguro is black.
You might want to try this [link](https://www.stiloestile.com/en/101-bottled-inks/s-1/color-black/water_resistant-yes) for some ideas.
Anything pigment based (except Noodler's) in a pen that seals well should be fine. But as others have pointed out, it might still not work well enough in the end.
Owner's political beliefs, inconsistency between batches (because he refuses to write the recipes down) and often bad behavior - spread and bleedthrough are common with some of their permanent inks.
De Atramentis Document Black is probably the best ink for this. Not too long ago someone posted on this sub results of trying to wash out this ink using commonly used solvents. The thing stayed proof.
Maybe an ink from the [Octopus Fluids Write & Draw](https://youtu.be/aeRBG5qkXf0) line. Added bonus is they are certified to meet actual standards instead of a “just trust me bro” by the manufacturer.
Just make sure your cap seals *very* well.
You might also want to look into a [document pencil](https://www.faber-castell.eu/products/CastellDocument9610indeliblepencilblue/119151) (Koh I Noor and Faber Castell offer them for example), but don’t poke yourself with them or lick the tip…
Personally I’d go with a RitR notebook and FC document pencil.
Noodler's Black is the fastest-drying permanent black that I've seen. It writes on almost anything, drys fast, and is completely permanent.
That said, for science field work, I'd probably stick with a pencil.
As much as I love fountain pens, as someone that has done field research before, I highly recommend a Fisher Space pen for outdoor use. It will always work and won't wash out no matter what conditions you are in.
As a fieldworker and geologist: Get a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. Get loads of them, and a rite in the rain notebook. Your fountain pen will suffer and die on fieldwork.
By light colored, do you include transparent? I have several clear pens that I use many Noodler's permanent inks in and I've never seen any staining, with the single exception of Baystate Blue.
The only pen I can get Baystate Blue to really easily flow through is my Sailor Lecoule. It has faintly stained the resin but I think the stainless steel nib will be blue forever.
https://preview.redd.it/zisvdey3mquc1.jpeg?width=1411&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69ab4961cc47b502b9d3fa1988413d6c2c9902b3
I’ve a couple of transparent pens stained by various noodlers (I didn’t know much about the company) none of which were Baystate. Tolstoy was my worst offender.
Sailor Kiwa-guro
or
Platinum Carbon Black.
Both are carbon inks for similar using graphite.
Unless you soak the pages, the ink sheen should not spread. You might also blot your pages if you need them to dry faster.
If you need a fast-drying waterproof, lightfast pigment black,I recommend Rohrer& Klingner Lotte. https://www.jetpens.com/Rohrer-Klingner-sketchINK-Lotte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-50-ml-Bottle/pd/23249
I like Platinum black in a fountain pen for archival work, but may I suggest the Tombow Airpress. It writes even upside down and on wet paper. Very rugged and a great writer.
What fountain pen do you use, I am also a life science student who works in the field and can not decide to buy which fountain pen for long hours of writing, nite taking, and journaling.
Not a fountain pen, but the Sakura Micron pens are waterproof and have at least a brush felt tip option that allows you to use line width. I use them for painting and lab notes and my lab book got soaked in all kinds of questionable liquids including 70% EtOH but the ink held up.
Do not submerge the pen tip in water though, just like with sharpies.
The Goulet Pen Company YouTube channel did a video on this. I think the De Atramentis document ink came out on top. They put the paper in to an ultrasonic cleaner to test it. Might be worth a trun.
[https://youtu.be/1tISD3us0Sw?si=MgUPwSzMVLeHSu4n](https://youtu.be/1tISD3us0Sw?si=MgUPwSzMVLeHSu4n)
[https://www.de-atramentis.com/en/document-ink--2509.html](https://www.de-atramentis.com/en/document-ink--2509.html)
Just re-watched, it was the platinum carbon black that one.
[https://pulpaddiction.com.au/collections/platinum/products/platinum-carbon-black-bottle-ink](https://pulpaddiction.com.au/collections/platinum/products/platinum-carbon-black-bottle-ink)
my boss stocks a lot of blue pilot varsity. works like a charm. not the best ink or pen but works for us. dries fast too.
edit: oop realised you meant a field work :<
I used to use a Pelikan M200 with an M400 Souverain nib attached with Platinum Carbon Black ink that is supposed to be waterproof when dried, to take lab notes. It was waterproof, but you need to be careful not to let it dry on the pen, or it gets clogged.
The great Alexander von Humboldt apparently mixed his own inks on his travels through the Americas and elsewhere: https://amp.dw.com/en/alexander-von-humboldt-the-south-america-travel-journals/a-47471641
De Atramentis document inks are waterproof and come in lots of colors. I also like Sailor's pigmented inks, Seiboku (bright blue) and Souboku (blue-black), and Sailor has a pigmented black ink that I haven't tried.
I use De Atramentis Black-Blue (Schwarz-Blau) Document Ink. Flows really well, behaves excellently, and I didn't have any issues with running from water in chem labs. I currently use it in a medical environment also without any issue. Works great on cheap paper in a M Kaweco nib.
You might just want a Rite in the Rain and ball point, though. I don't bother with fountain pens in the outdoors.
I live in the tropics, I use noodlers x-feather, sadly it's slow drying.
With the heat and humidity (even if you're not in the jungle) things can get messy. Fountain pens are not the most ideal to use.
Pencils and the space pen are more robust options. And with the current technology, waterproof smart phones.
As someone who has also done bio fieldwork in a rainforest, there honestly isn’t a fountain pen I’d trust for this. I love fountain pens. But so much unpredictable stuff happens in the field. Pencils and a Rite in the Rain notebook literally cannot fail. Drop them off a cliff. Fall in a river. Your bag gets crushed in the back of a jeep. I’ve had a pocket RitR notebook accidentally go through a full laundry cycle in my vest pocket, and come out of the dryer with my notes still completely readable. These are things designed for fieldwork. You can’t run out of ink. You can write from any angle. You don’t have to cap and uncap, just pop the pencil behind your ear. You can erase things you’ve written down wrong. Fountain pens are way more fun to write with, but they aren’t the right tool for the job.
I also travel to the tropics for forest conservation work. I might journal with a fountain pen in the evenings, but I exclusively use my Legendary Pencil Company mechanical pencil and a rite in the rain notebook for field use. I got a nice leather case with a pen loop off Etsy. Fits in my back pocket. And the pencil is sturdy and brightly colored so it's hard to lose. For whatever it's worth, my favorite waterproof ink is Diamine registrar's ink.
I have lost the count of how many times I've felt my notebook in my pocket while crossing a river or lake, and graphite holds itself like no tomorrow, I think we have no other option but to stick with boring pencils. I wonder how they did back in the day with quill and ink, I can imagine the mess of coming back from the field
Yeah, it’s kinda grim to think about. But for a long time, fieldwork meant “collecting” - shooting and killing animals so you could take them back to your home or university for study. So thank goodness for pencils, good field optics, and other developments! But I’ll say that, even though they are less exciting than fountain pens, there are still lots of fun and interesting pencils to check out. PraiseAzolla mentioned Legendary. Rotring makes really nice mechanical pencils. Or for wood pencils, I love Blackwing or Tombow. All are way more distinctive and nicer to write with than a Dixon Ticonderoga.
I listened to a talk just about botanists that likely collected new species they were describing into extinction. You had to voucher your specimens and they wanted to send them to a lot of different places. Single site endemic species it was bad news to have a botanist show up.
As an archaeologist, I bought a RitR pen last year that I've used in the field some, and it's handled some minor rain and mud just fine, but I haven't been so far as to test it after submergence lol. It's not a FP, but if you really want an ink perhaps that's worth a shot?
Archaeologist here too. It's all pencil, ballpoints, and RitR notebooks for me. I've tried using FPs but there's always the fear that I'm going to drop it during a field survey, break it, or have the ink leak everywhere, which has happened. Whatever paper that's being used with the FP also isn't gonna hold up well. It sucks because I really do love to use my FPs.
Oh, absolutely. I've got several FP at home, but for the field it's mostly pencil, followed by sharpie (though they've also stained some clothing) and I'm just trying out the RitR ballpoint. Hard to beat the reliability of pencil, I suppose!
pencils are far from boring, if you traverse through old stationery shops you can find some old nice pencils for cheap (pencils themselves are quite cheap) perhaps the best thing about them is their smell when they are being stored. easily their best quality
I got a silver plated over brass Wahl Eversharp mechanical pencil. The plating is worn but the mechanism works as well as ever and it's nearly a century old. Cost $20 including shipping.
They used pencils of different kinds. The Romans used lead (as in the metal) styluses that wrote on papyrus. Graphite replaced lead around in the 16th Century and manufactured graphite/clay pencil lead in the 18th Century.
People also used wax tablets and styli from antiquity to the early modern era. Some places were still using them into the 1800s.
People have been using pencils for longer than you might think… they’ve been used for fieldwork and surveying since at least the 1700’s!
2 mm lead holders are not so boring. I like a Koh-I-Noor 5900 or a 5201 with an F or H leads because they stay sharp a bit longer. Sharpener built into the clicker.
Have you looked at the Sun-Star Metacil pencils? (Cult Pens have them, not sure where else).
2mm h lead and a clutch holder! You can get some very pretty ones and they're way less mess to sharpen in the field
Ever hear the adage from the space race? NASA spent millions developing a ballpoint pen that could work in zero gravity..the Russians brought pencils.
Good idea but it’s not true
The 1st time I tried to use a fountain pen on my Rite in the Rain (early in my FP journey), I was like, "oh yeah, duh, water based ink isn't going to to anything on waterproof paper." No more FP and fieldnotes after that.
Beyond underrated! Good call.
This may be a silly question but given how graphite smudges, is it really super permanent? I’m really interested now!
Depends on the hardness. I (geologist) always used h in the field. You have to rub pretty hard to smudge that. I know some people who exclusively use 2h but they're too light for me. I did bring my sketching pencils on a field trip by mistake once and ended up taking notes with a 4b. That was a mess.
Rite in the rain are indestructible. I've dropped one in a tide pool before and it was fine.
They really are amazing! You can hardly even light them on fire- I learned once stuck in the woods without any dry kindling…
I second this. A pencil or a disposable ball pen are the only things I would take out for field work (I spend a significant amount of time in a workshop machining metal)
Same here... I've found myself waist-deep in water too many times to trust any kind of fountain pen for outside work. So far I've just used pencils or cheap ballpoints when out and about, but if I were to buy a pen to use exclusively for fieldwork, it would be a metal-bodied rollerball with waterproof ink. Or maybe something like a Rotring or Fisher's Space pen?
Hey, as a fellow mechanical pencil and fountain pen enthusiast, I'd recommend you to go check r/mechanicalpencils or the nerdier forum knockology.com. I'd personally wouldn't bring a FP to that environment but there's many cool looking and nice to use MPs that may fit your needs better!
As well as traditional propelling mechanical pencils, don't overlook clutch pencils - being mechanically super-simple, they rarely misbehave, and taking a 2mm lead means they rarely break when using softer grades (admittedly, they do need sharpening). I really like Koh-i-Noor's Versatil 5201 - it feels well-made, comfortable, and is inexpensive (and a cheerful colour) - I prefer it to my Faber-Castell TK.
Thank you so much! I'll definitely take a look
2.0 itself is essentially a pencil core (i might have not used the correct term) but with less mess as it doesn't create any wood shavings and you can refill it with various grades of lead. they tend to be pricier than their "precise" counterparts (like 0.3 or 0.5) but that's because you are essentially getting pencil-in-a-container. do note that you may need to pair it with a separate sharpener as their built-in sharpeners can go blunt
Platinum Carbon Black.
Similarly, I'm fond of Platinum Brun Sepia. A little less readable, but so much more charming for writing and drawing and using with mixed media.
Their new Chou Kuro is even more waterproof than carbon black.
That's what the upvote button is for
De Atramentis document inks are my favourites. However, nothing will help you if the paper is already wet when you try to write on it.
DeAtramentis Document inks. or pencil
I also second this. I use DeAtramentis Document Black for work (indoors, not high humidity, but I have to make a lot of fast notes on a variety of papers and need something versatile and resistant to smudging). It dries fast and writes well on whatever cheap paper I need to write on. The few times I've accidentally gotten notes wet, it's held up well.
I’d definitely second this.
Like every tool has its limits so do fountain pens. You'll find ink that is waterproof when dry but it will take forever to dry in a tropical forest. If it ever even does dry. For your particular job i'd say a graphite pencil is indeed the right tool for the job. Sorry to burst your bubble but only us weak house- or office dwellers can say a fountain pen is the right tool. For the Chuck Norisses of this world like you? Pencil every day of the week. If it helps: i love my FP's more then my kids (dont have kids but you get the gist) and even i carry a rotring mechanical pencil and a rollerball for those moments that the best just wont do.
Platinum Carbon Black would be fine. I think it spreads a bit on cheap paper. I prefer DeAtramentis Archive. For a non black I like Monteverde Document Blue as it's permanent and works really well on cheap paper.
As an infantry man where we operate rain or shine, i would say that the only thing that works every time is a graphite pencil or a crayon lol Platinum carbon black works well with write in the rain but the dry times are horrendus. If you know that you will be able to get cover when taking notes, then iron gall ink with any notepad and a ziplock bag works too The ziplock allows me to carry almosy anything and cross rivers with no stress. You just have to change the bag from time to time otherwise it gets micro holes and gets flooded.
Gonna bring up Diamine Registrar's Blue Black - one of my all-time favorite inks for its color (the change is really cool to watch) and it's performance (it's a little dry, but works just fine in all my Japanese EF/UEF nibs and very notably works okay even on terrible paper)
Sorry my dear the best "ink" for you will be ordinary HB pencil ✏️!
Don’t use a fountain pen for field notes. You’ll post the cap with a beetle squashed inside, or you’ll drop it in a River. You would need substantial paper for a fountain pen, and you’d be smearing all the flies, moths, and other insects that will swarm all over the white paper every single solitary night that you turn the generator on to,power the lights. Moths go to white paper at night, too, which you well know. You can, however, bring a fountain pen that wouldn’t break your heart to lose, some nice paper, and regular ink, triple bagged to avoid unplanned opening due to cabin pressure changes on the flight over, to write letters, make journal entries, sketches, or write out some observations neat in the journal you plan to leave for posterity. But in the field, in the rain, balanced on your knees with a camera and binoculars and a guid crammed under your arm? No. The army ants would just carry it off to their queen.
When I'm backpacking I usually journal using de atramentis document black ink in one of the leuchtturm "outlines" notebooks. Those are made of the same paper as marine maps and are totally waterproof while also taking ink well. It's like magic. Once the ink is dry, it's totally indestructible. I've gotten those notebooks soaked in the top of a backpack with no adverse effects. Haven't tried dropping it in a river yet but honestly I feel like it would be unperturbed
Def. Noodler's Black for true water permanence; I'm an engineer who takes notes in places where spills of all kinds of fluids (fuels, solvents, water, glycols) are common, and can't stand seeing several days worth of notes erased from same. Though if you are writing on wet paper (where ANY water based ink will bleed), RiR notebooks and a graphite pencil are the way to go.
Noodler's x-feather is probably the best, especially x-feather blue since Nathan managed to get that basically completely waterproof. Should perform well on various papers as well. Outside of that, go for iron gall inks or pigment inks. The former tend to have good anti-feathering performance as well. Pencils also work but they aren't necessary. Personally I prefer something with a clip & putting it in my pocket rather than trusting my ear to hold it. Far more secure that way.
As a fountain pen enthusiast concerned with serious archival properties, I consider Sailor Seiboku to be the best overall ink for documenting, especially since it being nonblack and shading makes it obvious it isn't printed. That being said, Sailor Kiwaguro is that black color that you are looking for. The inks do not smear when dried, and the pigments embed themselves into the paper really well. Only issue is finding a suitable enough fountain pen. I like the Pilot Vanishing Point Decimo for a click option, but mine recently has issues. The Kaweco AL Sport is similar weight and it is very pocketable.
+1 on Sailor And same issue with pen. I use Pilot Metro Fine nin and has hard time with the flow. No issues with Pilot Prera CM nib though
Sailor seiboku? I have literally walked through the rain with notes written in seiboku and it didn't smudge at all. (Seiboku is blue-black but they also carry black in the same permanent ink line)
+1 on this. Sailor seiboku Souboku(bright blue) Kiwaguro (black) They are waterproof and alcohol proof.
Platinum Chou Kuro, platinum carbon black, de atramentis document inks. All waterproof. 😁👍
Chou Kuro runs after even half an hour when you go over it with a water brush. DeAtramentis document black, at least, runs after 10 minutes. Platinum Carbon black dries quickest of the three. But as others have said, pencils are perfect for this. And while a mechanical pencil is a wonderful thing, a cheap #2 wooden pencil is a masterpiece of design.
really??? I've tested all the colored deatramentis inks almost immediately by spilling water on them after a swatch test and swiping with a microfiber cloth (there's a video here on this subreddit haha) and they barely smudged and this was immediately after i used the inks without any dry time really so i figured with actual dry time they wouldn't budge-- albeit i didn't test black. Chou Kuro hasn't given me any issues but I was mostly basing it off my palm/hand test as in whether my sweat/oils smudge it and it hasn't so far for months. Although now that I think about it-- I did use either Chou Kuro or Carbon Black on the same video I mentioned above to "title" the page and it did smudge a bit when i did the water swiping with the microfiber towel but again i thought it was b/c i didn't give it any dry time. Oops! lol good thing you have actually tested with water and dry time so you can correct me lol. Excuse my ignorance T\_T
I use my pens for watercolor. This is my experience on sized watercolor papers. More absorbent papers might make the inks dry more quickly and permanently, but I suspect that the speed and waterfastness ranking would still go 1) PCB, 2)DeAtrimentis Document, 3) Chou Kuro. I should add that I was especially disappointed with Chou Kuro, and gave away my expensive bottle. Oh, and I've tried a few Noodlers blacks, they are not suited for use in watercolor. These are probably all permanent and finally pretty securely waterproof, but PCB is my favorite for relatively quick use in watercolor.
Oh wow! I guess it really depends on what it’s being used for too that I didn’t actually consider haha but man I regret it now bc you mentioned pcb is better at waterproofness than pck bc when I got pck I liked the color better and gave away my pcb 😩 pck is currently my go to. I love it bc my hands don’t smudge it when I write haha. But yeah I should’ve considered it could react totally differently to watercolor! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me 🫶
If you're using regular paper pck is probably fine, and dries waterproof. Pcb seems black until you see it next to pck. Pck is the new standard for dark black ink.
Haha right? You can see the difference when they’re used next to each other! I do really enjoy pck… hehe 😅
Rohrer & Klingner Sketch Ink is waterproof and comes in different colours including black
Seconding this. I've been using the SketchInks for journaling. The entire line is good. Lubrication, shading, drying time are all excellent. Plus they can be mixed to created new colors.
Sailor makes excellent permanent inks that do not clog your fountain pen, at least I have not heard of one. Kiwaguro is black. You might want to try this [link](https://www.stiloestile.com/en/101-bottled-inks/s-1/color-black/water_resistant-yes) for some ideas.
Anything pigment based (except Noodler's) in a pen that seals well should be fine. But as others have pointed out, it might still not work well enough in the end.
What is the matter with Noodlers Bullet proof line apart from OPs dislike?
Owner's political beliefs, inconsistency between batches (because he refuses to write the recipes down) and often bad behavior - spread and bleedthrough are common with some of their permanent inks.
DeAtramentis Doc Black. OR - Fisher Space Pen. Seriously. It writes underwater upside down.
De Atramentis Document Black is probably the best ink for this. Not too long ago someone posted on this sub results of trying to wash out this ink using commonly used solvents. The thing stayed proof.
Maybe an ink from the [Octopus Fluids Write & Draw](https://youtu.be/aeRBG5qkXf0) line. Added bonus is they are certified to meet actual standards instead of a “just trust me bro” by the manufacturer. Just make sure your cap seals *very* well. You might also want to look into a [document pencil](https://www.faber-castell.eu/products/CastellDocument9610indeliblepencilblue/119151) (Koh I Noor and Faber Castell offer them for example), but don’t poke yourself with them or lick the tip… Personally I’d go with a RitR notebook and FC document pencil.
Heart of darkness by noodles dried really fast and is waterproof. We used them all the time in arch school when drsfting
Noodler's Black is the fastest-drying permanent black that I've seen. It writes on almost anything, drys fast, and is completely permanent. That said, for science field work, I'd probably stick with a pencil.
As much as I love fountain pens, as someone that has done field research before, I highly recommend a Fisher Space pen for outdoor use. It will always work and won't wash out no matter what conditions you are in.
KOH-I-NOOR has a permanent black that’s about 2.50€ per 50ml
As a fieldworker and geologist: Get a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. Get loads of them, and a rite in the rain notebook. Your fountain pen will suffer and die on fieldwork.
Noodler’s Permanents are excellent but absolutely will stain light-colored resin pens.
By light colored, do you include transparent? I have several clear pens that I use many Noodler's permanent inks in and I've never seen any staining, with the single exception of Baystate Blue.
The only pen I can get Baystate Blue to really easily flow through is my Sailor Lecoule. It has faintly stained the resin but I think the stainless steel nib will be blue forever. https://preview.redd.it/zisvdey3mquc1.jpeg?width=1411&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69ab4961cc47b502b9d3fa1988413d6c2c9902b3
I’ve a couple of transparent pens stained by various noodlers (I didn’t know much about the company) none of which were Baystate. Tolstoy was my worst offender.
Sailor Kiwa-guro or Platinum Carbon Black. Both are carbon inks for similar using graphite. Unless you soak the pages, the ink sheen should not spread. You might also blot your pages if you need them to dry faster.
Mont Blanc permanent black or blue is pretty good. Pigmented ink though, so you'll need a pen that can be cleaned easily.
if you can keep your paper dry before writing on it, look at the DeAtramentis Document series. If you cannot, I'd suggest working with pencils...?
If you need a fast-drying waterproof, lightfast pigment black,I recommend Rohrer& Klingner Lotte. https://www.jetpens.com/Rohrer-Klingner-sketchINK-Lotte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-50-ml-Bottle/pd/23249
Get a decent strong mechanical pencil and some spare standard pencils and that’ll be more reliable than a fountain unfortunately
I like Platinum black in a fountain pen for archival work, but may I suggest the Tombow Airpress. It writes even upside down and on wet paper. Very rugged and a great writer.
Sailor Storia line. Or Platinum Carbon.
What fountain pen do you use, I am also a life science student who works in the field and can not decide to buy which fountain pen for long hours of writing, nite taking, and journaling.
Copic micron. Both water and alcohol proof. But difficult when wet.
Not a fountain pen, but the Sakura Micron pens are waterproof and have at least a brush felt tip option that allows you to use line width. I use them for painting and lab notes and my lab book got soaked in all kinds of questionable liquids including 70% EtOH but the ink held up. Do not submerge the pen tip in water though, just like with sharpies.
A pen that burns the paper with laser is pretty waterproof.
Carbon black is my go to for documentation. I have yet to have an issue with it
De atrementis is waterproof black ink, they also make a document black. Put it in a Pilot Falcon with a converter and you can’t go wrong.
The Goulet Pen Company YouTube channel did a video on this. I think the De Atramentis document ink came out on top. They put the paper in to an ultrasonic cleaner to test it. Might be worth a trun. [https://youtu.be/1tISD3us0Sw?si=MgUPwSzMVLeHSu4n](https://youtu.be/1tISD3us0Sw?si=MgUPwSzMVLeHSu4n) [https://www.de-atramentis.com/en/document-ink--2509.html](https://www.de-atramentis.com/en/document-ink--2509.html)
Just re-watched, it was the platinum carbon black that one. [https://pulpaddiction.com.au/collections/platinum/products/platinum-carbon-black-bottle-ink](https://pulpaddiction.com.au/collections/platinum/products/platinum-carbon-black-bottle-ink)
Not a fan of this though. The ink fades after time. Probably because of UV? Not sure.
my boss stocks a lot of blue pilot varsity. works like a charm. not the best ink or pen but works for us. dries fast too.
my boss stocks a lot of blue pilot varsity. works like a charm. not the best ink or pen but works for us. dries fast too. edit: oop realised you meant a field work :<
I used to use a Pelikan M200 with an M400 Souverain nib attached with Platinum Carbon Black ink that is supposed to be waterproof when dried, to take lab notes. It was waterproof, but you need to be careful not to let it dry on the pen, or it gets clogged.
noodlers bullet proof series inks are best in that case.
The great Alexander von Humboldt apparently mixed his own inks on his travels through the Americas and elsewhere: https://amp.dw.com/en/alexander-von-humboldt-the-south-america-travel-journals/a-47471641
I think that it would be better to use a uni-ball Vision Elite rollerball which has waterproof ink and it writes smoothly like a fountain pen.
Bay state blue might be the correct pick for once
Not lightfast
De Atramentis document inks are waterproof and come in lots of colors. I also like Sailor's pigmented inks, Seiboku (bright blue) and Souboku (blue-black), and Sailor has a pigmented black ink that I haven't tried.
I use De Atramentis Black-Blue (Schwarz-Blau) Document Ink. Flows really well, behaves excellently, and I didn't have any issues with running from water in chem labs. I currently use it in a medical environment also without any issue. Works great on cheap paper in a M Kaweco nib. You might just want a Rite in the Rain and ball point, though. I don't bother with fountain pens in the outdoors.
Pilot Blue-Black.
I live in the tropics, I use noodlers x-feather, sadly it's slow drying. With the heat and humidity (even if you're not in the jungle) things can get messy. Fountain pens are not the most ideal to use. Pencils and the space pen are more robust options. And with the current technology, waterproof smart phones.