35mm negatives and liquid emulsion

[colmmccarthy]

Just curious.

 

I do most of my b&w printing with liquid emulsion, using MF enlarged

or 4x5 contact prints. I've always read that negatives smaller than

120 format aren't suitable for liquid emulsion printing, but I find

that a little hard to believe given the quality of 35mm enlargements

I've been able to put to conventional papers.

 

I'm planning a project that I think will be better suited to 35mm,

but I'd still like the final prints to be liquid emulsion.

 

Has anyone made liquid emulsion prints from 35mm negs, and if so, do

you have a link to some of your results?

 

And yes, I'm way too busy with other projects to try it out myself

right now.

 

Cheers

 

Colm

[christian_harkness]

Hi Colm, sorry I don?t have any links. I have NEVER heard anybody say that one can?t use 35mm negs. I consider that a nonsense statement, of course you can. I do imagine that the print will look a bit different than it would from a larger neg. ? just as it would on regular paper.

[joseph_wisniewski]

It's not a question of image quality, it's a question of total light output, and the low sensitivity of liquid emulsions. How are your exposure times on conventional papers, with your enlarger, for your 35mm work and medium format work at, the apertures you like for your enlarger lenses?

 

My own experience was with "Liquid Light". Good results were possible with 35mm, but dang, exposures ranged up to a half hour for an 18 inch image using my Durst with a 50mm El-Nikkor at f16. I typically printed on irregular surfaces, and needed a bit of boost for the DOF...

 

On a smaller (say 8x10 or 5x7) flat surface (sheet aluminum, glass, etc) opened up to f5.6, I could get the exposure down to around a minute.

 

What liquid emulsion do you use? Silverprint SE1 (aka Luminos Silverprint), Maco Black Magic, and Liquid Light Ag Plus are supposed to be a lot faster than the original Liquid Light.

[colmmccarthy]

Thanks for the info. FYI, the last place I read about not using 35mm was in the book "Silver Gelatin", but it always sounded like bollocks to me.

 

30 min exposures?? I think the longest I've had is maybe three minutes at f8 or f11 projecting a 36" x 24" on the floor. That's using Silverprint - I stopped using Liquid Light as I thought it was too slow.

 

Anyhow, thanks for dispelling the myth.

[jo_humberstone]

Hi Colm,I have sucessfully printed out using Jessops version of the Liquid Emul;sion. I used in on artists oil painting canvas, and my exposures were around 40seconds at F8, 70m, 15y. All detail was present, and I was quite pleased with the results I got.

Regards, Jo

[jo_humberstone]

Hi Colm,

Hopefully, I've attached an image - not the world's best, but it should give a good idea.

Jo

[kenneth_pargett]

Colm,

 

All I use are 35mm negs. In fact, I've decided they are totally sharp enough to not bother with developing 120 film anymore, especially for liq. emulsion prints. Then again, my personal taste is toward abstract or rough emotive type prints.

 

I began with Luminos and LOVED the contrast (fairly high) and deep blacks. My base exposure is 100 seconds at f/8.

 

I experimented with Liquid Light just last weekend. I cut 11/14 paper in half (7x11), coated up 6 pieces, and tried f/8 for 50 seconds - it was virutally blank! What they say about LL being slow is completely true.

 

I tried again, opening it up 2 1/3 stops - f3.5 at 50 seconds - and it was very faint. Wow. What am I going to end up, 3 days with the room lights on?

 

Not joking here - I turned the room lights on and developed a scrap - it was totally black, in fact, very beautifully black. There is hope. I left the other pieces in the paper safe and decided to try again when I had a lot more time. My timer only goes to 110 seconds -I'll have to turn it on again a couple times to see what I can get.

 

Back to your original question - you are hand coating paper, and putting it under the enlarger. It's usually buckled; it cannot lie perfectly flat. The high quality 35mm lenses and film of today in this case are not an issue at all. The limiting factor for quality is not the size of the neg, it's the quality of your coating, the paper, and whether or not you used a tripod.

 

Here is a small resolution digital photo of a print of my daughter, taken with a standard 70-240 Nikon zoom and 3200 speed film. It's on Luminos Liquid emulsion (not the VC version). It was exposed at f/8 for 100 seconds and sepia toned. This photo doesn't show that the print is clear, deep, grainy, and yet sharp.

 

 

I'd like to hear how it goes for you!

 

Ken Pargett

Nebraska City, NE

 

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