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Making B&W prints from Kodachrome Transparencies?


kenneth

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Where did you read that, Kenneth?

 

Is this what you mean?

 

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/pdf/ae31.pdf

 

Thank you Andy. No I don't believe that is it. I read about it in various books one of which was Monochrome Darkroom Practice by Jack H Coote page 301. Focul Press Publication- ISBN 0-240-51061-5. I bought this excellent book second hand through Amazon UK for 1 penny they had other copies. I can highly recommend it

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0240510615/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1248127332&sr=1-5&condition=all

Edited by kenneth
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If you are doing film all the way, you should get a 16511 (see your other post), and I would try loading the camera with XP2 or Kodak 400CN to make an internegative. These films should provide a very long tone range that would help with the inherently contrasty Kodachrome. Print on Mutligrade paper and adjust the contrast using the printing filters. You could even monkey around with filters on the copy lens as if you were filtering the original scene.

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What are your darkroom resources? I think the best quality reporduction would be to make a negative on 4x5 b&w film. I used to make 4x5 color internegatives from 35mm transparencies before digital scanners and the results were great.

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What are your darkroom resources? I think the best quality reporduction would be to make a negative on 4x5 b&w film. I used to make 4x5 color internegatives from 35mm transparencies before digital scanners and the results were great.

 

I am limited to 35mm i.e. Leica format. Is it possible in this format? I have also added a post regarding copying slides but it seems that this way would be more straight forward- there again maybe not

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Unless you make an inter-negative, you are going to need to find some positive paper. I have never heard of that, but then again, I've never looked into doing this.

 

Maybe when Kodachrome was popular, there was something made. The book you refer to was published in 1982, and the world was a very different place then.

 

Have you spoken to any pro printing companies? (There are still a few around)

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I suppose you could make internegatives on 35mm film by making contact exposures. Place the positive on top of the negative emulsion to emulsion with a piece of glass over the top. Place the films on a black surface and beware of Newton rings from the glass. It might be tricky handling the film in the dark and you will have to experiment with your exposure time. Once you figure out your exposre it should be pretty consistant between transparencies.

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I have read about the theory of the topic less than half a century ago.

 

The difficulty lies with the color sensitivity of the paper you make the prints on. Red and even orange light is largely ignored by the typical emulsion. That's why b/w darkrooms are not all that dark.

 

The rest appears to be plain lab work. It's called reversing development or some such (I tranlated the term rather loosely from German).

 

As far as I remember, the process went something like that:

 

- Expose your print. Use much light, i.e. drastically over-expose the print-to-be

- Develop the print (as far as I remember) using an ordinary developing agent

- Stop the development

----And now comes the trick ----

- Dissolve all the silver out of your print (sorry, I haven't the foggiest notion about how that was accomplished)

- Expose all of the silver halogenide remaining in the emulsion using a plain room lighting.

- Develop again; this time in plain light if you like

- Fixing the print ought not to necessary since there is no light sensitive material left in your print. Washing would be advisable, I think.

 

The process is actually quite the same as for b/w positive slides.

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Thank you for that Phillipe it seems as though copying the slide with a Leitz slide copier might be simpler, that is if I can pick one up somewhere. Something like the Leitz 16511 copy stand I mentioned in another thread of that heading

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Unless you make an inter-negative, you are going to need to find some positive paper. I have never heard of that, but then again, I've never looked into doing this.

 

Maybe when Kodachrome was popular, there was something made. The book you refer to was published in 1982, and the world was a very different place then.

 

Have you spoken to any pro printing companies? (There are still a few around)

 

Another tome that I have talks about reversal paper called Kodak Transtar. Maybe I need to explore that. Anyway I will keep searching. The things we do to avoid digital !

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A few suggestions;

 

Buy a slide copier (a simpler version of the Leica copy device which should preferably be used with an SLR and a T2 adaptor - you could buy any cheap manual SLR like a Zenit even!).

 

Have colour prints made of the slides you like, then photograph those (obviously there will be some loss of quality along the way).

 

Project the slides to a smallish size and photograph the projected image (again with some loss of quality).

 

Outsource - get the B&W internegs made by a pro lab.

 

I'm sure that there used to be a B&W paper for printing from slides but it's pretty safe to assume that it's long gone.

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Thank you- you could be onto something here. I have e-mailed them to see if I can get samples as it would seem that thier product is only available in the States unless I am mistaken. I will be interested to see if anyone else has knowledge of this. Have you used it? It looks quite contrasty but for mountain slides it might be perfect thank you again

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it would seem that thier product is only available in the States unless I am mistaken.

 

It appears to be available in other parts of the worlds:

This paper is the same paper sold in Europe as Kraus Silver Gelatine Reversal Paper.
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I tried making b&w photos from slides in the wet darkroom.

 

First expose slide to the paper. (you now have negative image on the paper)

 

Than put the exposed paper on the top of unexposed one and turn on the light. Papers should face each other with glossy side.

 

Develop as usual.

 

Down side is that you need two papers to make one image..and possibly some lack of sharpness. Of course,..both papers must be completely clean and dry.

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