Contact Printing

So here's what happened.

 

I USED to have a darkroom and a nice 4x5 enlarger. It went with

the house in a divorce, and then there were years of labs donig

the work I should have been doing, and rental darkrooms when I

was lucky enough to find one.

 

Then I was given an 8x10 camera as a gift, and I have found

myself in the contact printing business.

 

WOW. It's a little embarrasing...the quality I was missing all

those years.

 

So I am interested to know who else does contact printing as

final printing. And if you wouldn't mind, what materials in what

combos you prefer. I am currently using Agfa paper, some Azo I

got from Michael Smith (except I cannot seem to get the range or

color or blacks as perfect as I would like) and some Zone VI,

recommended by Per Volquartz. The negs are Jobo rollo pyro

processed and I have been experimenting with Neutol in various

dilutions, Amidol, and the AA Dektol/Selektol Soft combination.

 

Thanks!

Lots of us do contact prints, for one reason or another. For me it is a matter of space and convenience. I have some 4x5 Azo and Ethol LPD that Dan Smith sent me a while back. I also have various boxes of Kodak fiber and RC papers that I usually develop in Dektol. The negatives are mostly TMax 100 and FP4 plus. Occasionally, I do cyanotypes too, just for fun.

Keep it simple- reduce the number of variables. Keep track of how you got any given print. Work for a year and you'll have answers.

Start getting into platinum printing which is a contact process...

David

I'm using pretty much the same process as you. 8x10 HP5, AZO,

Dektol and Sel. Soft. I bought #3 AZO and still can't get the

blacks I want. Or the total contrast, for that matter. My question

is: In a paper touted to have a loooong scale, like AZO, is this

another way of saying the paper is flat? Do I need to make negs

the way I've heard platinum printers do, that is overexposed and

overdeveloped relative to silver? Am I missing some important

idea here? THANKS AND GOOD LUCK

How are you guys developing your negatives? PMK negs will be too flat for #2 AZO. Your best bet is to switch to straight ABC.

--Aaron

ALL the information you need to know to get the best possible contact prints is located in the Azo Forum at michaelandpaula.com

Hi David. I've recently begun shooting 8x10 and contact printing as well. I've been using HP5 and developing by inspection in ABC Pyro 1:1:1:7. I've not been able to afford any Azo yet, so I've been printing on my usual enlarging paper; Ilford MG IV FB WT, and developing in Dektol. I haven't had any problems getting the kind of contrast that I like, which tends towards high, and I shoot in very flat light for portraits. My development times in ABC run between ten and fifteen minutes, which is higher than some others have reported. The negs that print best for me look much denser than what I was used to enlarging. Hopefully M.A. Smith will respond to your post, as I'm sure that he can help you get the results your looking for with Azo/Amidol. I have fallen in love with contact printing, despite the compromise paper/developer combo I'm using. The simplicity and intuitive nature of developing by inspection and contact printing suit my disposition well. I also appreciate the option of using alternative processes, like Platinum printing, which I intend to investigate when finances permit. A platinum print is like nothing I've seen and archivally unrivaled. Using the 8x10 camera and contact printing have sharpened my compositional skills (cropping is not an option for me) without the imposition of formalism that I expected to suffer. While not appropriate for every subject, LF is not the creative obstacle I presumed. Like every tool, it represents a compromise, but for me, the benefits far exceed the costs. Welcome to a small, eccentric community of dedicated photographers. I have been consistently amazed at their generosity and support, and I hope that your experience will be as rewarding as mine has been.-jdf

http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@97.1e9mavMBXpQ^2289418@.f30dde1/5591

 

David,

 

I do both. Sometimes the contact print is "it." Other times scale is important, or there is a lot happening that is locked into the negative and not visible in the contact. I used to like Azo, but right now I use Agfa Classic and Forte Warmtone, and sometime the Ilford Warmtone. Usually use Neutol WA (never the normal), and a wee hit of selenium. It is much harder for me to make a good contact print than a good 20 24. The exposure is so critical, and manipulation is positively occult -- you can't really see what you are doing. Michael Smith has some good printing tips on his website. One advantage of Azo (and to a lesser extent the warm tone Forte, }is that you can throw some light on the subject. With Classic it's important to have warm chemistry.

After getting my feet wet in Pt/Pd (about as far as I've gotten too) I decided I needed a bunch more contrast and started fiddling with Freestyles APHS graphic arts 8X10 film. It's about 40 cents a sheet. I arrived at a workable dillution in Rollo Pyro and have made some of the most fun contacts. The Azo is surprising. I have one pic of an antique truck that is so dense I turn my 60 watt lamp on and go do something else for about 26 - 34 minutes. You think I'm kidding but it's a picture that has sold. Tonality with that stuff is incredible because the grain's microscopic. It's not all I use, and admittedly it is frought with challenges and problems but part of the fun is some of the best pics wouldn't have happened for 2 bucks a sheet, but 40 cents! what the hell. Another way I've gotten a little extra punch in the contrast with my fp4+ is to develop, rinse with plain water, give about a 45 second bath in some Dektol, stop, and fix. It punches up the highlights for pt/pd with normal film.

Generally, when people do not get the range of tones with Azo

they have heard about, it is because they are developing their

negatives in PMK Pyro, rather than ABC. There are extensive

discussions about this on the Azo Forum at

www.michaelandpaula.com. I would recommend that you forget

the Jobo Rollo Pyro and switch to developing by inspection with

ABC Pyro. I believe you will see an immediate difference.

 

It is also important to make negatives that are not thin--neither

underexposed nor underdeveloped.

 

Michael A. Smith

Photography and divorce don't mix........My first wife got the house and both cars which I had before I met her, I tried to point out to the Judge that she could only drive one car at a time, but no dice.

 

What happened to the enlarger if I can ask?

Go here for a site that deals w/the alternative processes................. http://www.cyanotypes.com, Domenico Foschi who posts here has some tremendous work on this site among others.

As of yet I don't use it for printing negatives as large as 8x10, but I bought one of those humongous Arkay contact printers (the ones with 18 seperately switchable bulbs) on Ebay to use for doing proof sheets.

 

Of course, it's WAY to bright as is for use with enlarging papers, but I took two layers of .9D neutral density film of the sort that is used to control studio lighting, sandwiched them between two sheets of clear plastic and taped the edges to make it easy to handle and keep clean, and installed it over the frosted glass in the printer. This allows a three second exposure with Kodak Polycontrast III, and still gives enough illumination through the filter to allow lining the paper up with the film. The platen will handle 8.5 x 11 inch paper nicely. I can't see why this would not work well in contact printing 8x10 negs.