Settled on 2 types of film stock

[kenneth]

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having tried a number of B&W films recently due to not having used B&W film for 25 years I seem to have settled on Ilford Pan F-Plus 50asa home processed with Ilfosol 3 and Kodak Tri-X 400asa processed with either Ilfosol 3 or Kodak T-Max both of which seem to work fine. My next step is to look at different papers. I am using Ilford RC Glossy at present but I would like to explore some of the fibre based papers, particularly matt finish papers which work superbly for certain subjects. I have never had much to do with pearl finish papers as I find they are neither one thing or the other

[andybarton]

Kenneth

 

Try Kodak HC110, Dil B, for your Tri-X. I really like it, and it's incredibly economical. 20ml per film is all you need, so a litre bottle will last for 50 films. Works out at 20p per film and the results are very pleasing to my eye.

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[Don'tknowmuch]

Hello Kenneth.

I didn't like the finish of RC papers when I was doing proper photography (currently cheat in Epsonland) and settled on fibre-based glossy, and then didn't glaze the prints; just dried them face-up on a heated curvy unit which might have been a... glazer? The look is like matt on steroids; not glossy but it has a sheen of life that I don't think Matt has, but nor was it untowardly shiny. That would have been just a multigrade paper.

Jim.

[Michael Hiles]

I am very happy with Ilford Multigrade Fiber glossy. I let it air dry on screens overnight. As Jim says above, the effect is a satin-like finish. The advantage is that it produces very deep blacks and clean whites, and this surface hold sharpness better than any other surface.

 

Ilford also has a very simple procedure for archival processing, using their rapid fixer and hypo clearing agent. Really works (so far so good) and it is fast (simple washing) and cheap.

[gesper]

Forget RC. It looks like plastic and isn't archival. Fine for contact strips but not real prints. Agree with others that Ilford Fiber Glossy is great.

[kenneth]

Forget RC. It looks like plastic and isn't archival. Fine for contact strips but not real prints. Agree with others that Ilford Fiber Glossy is great.

 

Ilford Fibre Glossy?

[Michael Hiles]

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Ilford Fibre Glossy?

 

Ilford Multigrade IV Fibre Base 1K. Very fine paper - this is the kind of thing that keeps silver based printing not only viable but wonderful. This paper, used to its best advantage, produces prints that have a physical presence. Well mounted, matted and framed - this is what B&W is all about. IMHO.

[kenneth]

Ilford Multigrade IV Fibre Base 1K. Very fine paper - this is the kind of thing that keeps silver based printing not only viable but wonderful. This paper, used to its best advantage, produces prints that have a physical presence. Well mounted, matted and framed - this is what B&W is all about. IMHO.

 

 

Thank you for that but can I print fibre based paper without having a glazer?

[JBA]

I agree about Tri-X and PanF. I just recently got back my first two rolls of PanF and love it. Many of the photos were shot in very high-contrast conditions, and the film handled them beautifully. Though lower contrast overall than I generally prefer, it renders tones with remarkable subtlety.

 

It's been over 25 years since I did my own developing and darkroom work, which is no longer practical in my current circumstances. All of you who can do this are quite lucky.

[Michael Hiles]

Thank you for that but can I print fibre based paper without having a glazer?

 

Definitely! The resuls are lovely, and it helps keep you sane. Glossy prints are made by drying glossy paper on mirror-like metal sheets (called ferrotyping), and in my experience it works - sort of - about 50% of the time. I no longer have the equipment (dryer, ferrotype plates) and have not done it since the Coolidge administration, and I personally do not much like the effect. Lots of spectacular printers used/use glossy paper "unglossed" - most famous being Ansel Adams.

[kenneth]

Definitely! The resuls are lovely, and it helps keep you sane. Glossy prints are made by drying glossy paper on mirror-like metal sheets (called ferrotyping), and in my experience it works - sort of - about 50% of the time. I no longer have the equipment (dryer, ferrotype plates) and have not done it since the Coolidge administration, and I personally do not much like the effect. Lots of spectacular printers used/use glossy paper "unglossed" - most famous being Ansel Adams.

 

If it's good enough for AA it's good enough for me- Thank you Michael

[Don'tknowmuch]

Yes, that's the point; not to actually glaze it. I did have a glazer, and found it really handy to dry the prints flat by putting them on it face up. This didn't glaze anything at all but the heat dried the paper flat and did it quickly.

I can't remember how I washed the prints now I come to think of it... I dabbled again, in a crude way, with proper printing a few months ago and couldn't believe how much water I was getting through. It's one of the factors that I use as an excuse to myself not to create a darkroom again!

I'm not sure I could live with the low asa of Pan F, but am definitely looking forward to more light about and using more FP4! I rate FP4 at 80asa and it seems to come up trumps every time, but my Elmar is not only maxed out at f3.5, but doesn't even work well until f6.3 and smaller.

Let us know how you get on, Kenneth. You may inspire myself (and others?) to bite the bullet and get real again.

Jim.

[kenneth]

Yes' date=' that's the point; not to actually glaze it. I did have a glazer, and found it really handy to dry the prints flat by putting them on it [u']face up[/u]. This didn't glaze anything at all but the heat dried the paper flat and did it quickly.

I can't remember how I washed the prints now I come to think of it... I dabbled again, in a crude way, with proper printing a few months ago and couldn't believe how much water I was getting through. It's one of the factors that I use as an excuse to myself not to create a darkroom again!

I'm not sure I could live with the low asa of Pan F, but am definitely looking forward to more light about and using more FP4! I rate FP4 at 80asa and it seems to come up trumps every time, but my Elmar is not only maxed out at f3.5, but doesn't even work well until f6.3 and smaller.

Let us know how you get on, Kenneth. You may inspire myself (and others?) to bite the bullet and get real again.

Jim.

 

Jim- Thank you for that I certainly will explore the points you make. According to your recommendations on film ratings maybe I should consider Pan F at 15asa on a tripod. Have you come across this site Jim? Film and Darkroom User - Powered by vBulletin

[Guest maddoc2003jp]

It's been over 25 years since I did my own developing and darkroom work, which is no longer practical in my current circumstances. All of you who can do this are quite lucky.

 

I was in the same situation, no darkroom work (and possibility) since my high-school days (25 years ago) until I came to Japan. Because I had to find some compensation for my daily work and already went back to silver-halogenide photography I took the plunge, bought a changing bag, a developing tank, some chemicals, and started developing my own films again. At first only BW and now also C41. While developing, I have a chat with my wife or watch TV (all the wet-process can be done in the kitchen sink) and after 40 minutes, the film is developed and ready to dry. If I would drop it at one of the local pro-labs, it would take me one week at least until I have my film (BW) developed....

[kenneth]

Jim- Thank you for that I certainly will explore the points you make. According to your recommendations on film ratings maybe I should consider Pan F at 15asa on a tripod. Have you come across this site Jim? Film and Darkroom User - Powered by vBulletin

 

Jim- I meant to say Pan F- Plus re rated at 30asa what do you think? and whilst on the subject of film asa ratings, any recommendations on Tri-X 400asa?

[Don'tknowmuch]

Morning Kenneth.

I don't know anything about PanF, + or no +, so wouldn't really know I'm afraid. I arrived at FP4 (+if one must...) @ 80asa by experimentation years ago following guidelines in Ansel Adams' "The negative" and since then have noticed that much the same sort of rating appears to used by others too. However I think it's worth remembering that the difference between 80asa and the nominal rating from Ilford of 125asa is only 2/3 of a stop and one might be further off than that in the assessment of the exposure anyway! Well, I might; I don't know about anyone else. The same lowering of the asa rating would take your PanF+ to 32asa. Basically I am over-exposing the film and then slightly under-developing it - quite a common method.

Tri-X; there's a lot of users here who know it more intimately than I, but I rate it at 200asa and then under-develop it quite significantly and also try to get a bit of compensation going, but I'm still adjusting what I do.

You are in a much better position than I to experiment your way to finding the regime of exposure/developement as you are running the film right through the entirely manual process of a wet darkroom. I, sadly, have no darkroom and so my assessments of how the exposure/development works is rather obscured by my scanning the neg at which point the scanner is making some adjustment on my behalf depending on what it sees as the range of tones in the neg. I can, of course, manually adjust the scan, but if do feel slightly unconnected with what is going on. In a darkroom, of course, you only have the exposure and contrast of the paper to play with (and then the chance to do a bit of shadow-boxing to mystically spoon your adjustments onto the paper) but an assesment of how easy a neg is to print will give you a lot more feedback about what you did with the exposure/development of the film in the first place.

If I'm not teaching my grandmother to suck eggs I can suggest a day's work which would pay darkroom dividends? I should think that a day and a couple of films put aside in which you experiment away would be time well spent and allow you to more easily produce prints that correspond to what you wanted to see when you made the exposure.

The experimental day might involve you taking a roll of film and exposing to it to a scene containing a long range of tones, but varying what you rated the film at and keeping good records so you know what you did. Maybe, if you're working on the PanF, have a few cards marked up as, say 50, 40, 32, 25, and place these in the frame as you take the same picture rotating through these four asa ratings until you run out of film. Then you can snip off, say, 15cm or so of film in the dark and develop them for longer or shorter times knowing that you only need four frames in a row to give you all the data you need, again keeping track of how you developed each few frames. Very time consuming all this, but it only needs to be done once for each film type.

Then put a, say, grade 2 paper under the enlarger and see which regime of exposure and development of the film gives you the easiest printing experience, noting, of course, if the blacks or highs and general look is what you want.

The alternative to this is to just do it film by film and gently experiment in the normal course of photography, but a day written off like this would be the quickest way of making the process repeatably satisfying.

Sorry to go on, and apologies if you didn't want all this. I am aware that others here are far better at all this than I and so hope I haven't made myself look silly!

Jim.

[JBA]

I was in the same situation, no darkroom work (and possibility) since my high-school days (25 years ago) until I came to Japan. Because I had to find some compensation for my daily work and already went back to silver-halogenide photography I took the plunge, bought a changing bag, a developing tank, some chemicals, and started developing my own films again. At first only BW and now also C41. While developing, I have a chat with my wife or watch TV (all the wet-process can be done in the kitchen sink) and after 40 minutes, the film is developed and ready to dry. If I would drop it at one of the local pro-labs, it would take me one week at least until I have my film (BW) developed....

 

Do you also bulk-load your own b&w film? My local Bic Camera has available 100' rolls of Plus-X, Tri-X and TMax 100 and 400 along with bulk loaders, changing bags, etc. I've crunched the numbers, and after a small initial investment in a bulk loader, the roughly 20 36-rolls of film you will get from a 100' bulk roll will cost you only half the price of individual 36-rolls.

 

I have considered bulk-loading and developing my own film, but this means I would also need to get a scanner and learn the intricacies of scanning. I would much rather pay my local lab to continue to do a job I'm already happy with and spend more of my time out with my cameras shooting new photos.

[Guest maddoc2003jp]

Do you also bulk-load your own b&w film? My local Bic Camera has available 100' rolls of Plus-X, Tri-X and TMax 100 and 400 along with bulk loaders, changing bags, etc. I've crunched the numbers, and after a small initial investment in a bulk loader, the roughly 20 36-rolls of film you will get from a 100' bulk roll will cost you only half the price of individual 36-rolls.

 

I have considered bulk-loading and developing my own film, but this means I would also need to get a scanner and learn the intricacies of scanning. I would much rather pay my local lab to continue to do a job I'm already happy with and spend more of my time out with my cameras shooting new photos.

 

I bulk-load Tri-X, it is the film I use most of the time for BW. Roughly 200 rolls of 135-36 BW went through my cameras last year. If I would have to pay a lab for dev + scanning ...

[NB23]

I agree on the Ilofrd FB paper. I've printed about 200 11x14s in the past month on the Matte paper, and 20 on the glossy paper. Superb, as always.

Potriga, for who can find it, is probably the best paper there ever was, though.

 

I agree that RC paper is rather lame to the touch, but I will disagree on its supposed non-archivalness. It simply isn't true. RC papers definitely have their place, especially once they're framed behind a UV glass, there is no way for anyone to tell the difference.

 

The difference between RC and FB, to me, is the "fine art" appelation. For family snaps and such, it's RC. For my art stuff, it's FB simply because.

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[JBA]

I bulk-load Tri-X, it is the film I use most of the time for BW. Roughly 200 rolls of 135-36 BW went through my cameras last year. If I would have to pay a lab for dev + scanning ...

 

I've been such a film slut it's been hard to contemplate sticking with just one or two films to bulk load, but it certainly makes sense. What makes me hesitate is adding time spent developing and scanning photos to the huge amount of time I already spend shooting photos and managing them.