AZO Printing

[michael_kadillak3]

I got out some AZO yesterday that I have been wanting to use with some 8x10 contacts. I tried to expose the paper with illumination from my enlarger and could not get sufficient exposure even with long times. When I turned on the room lights for 4-5 seconds, I got what I needed. A bit on the blue side, but Amidol will cure that problem. How do you dodge and burn (if necessary) given the unique nature of how to expose this paper? It is so slow, that dodging and burning are not as required as with other papers.

 

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Thanks in advance.

[paul2]

Michael,

 

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I am no expert, but I have been down the same road. AZO is slower

than enlarging paper, so you would do best with a light source that

is brighter than your enlarger. I have used (with good results) a

cheap aluminum reflector with a 100 watt bulb about 3 feet above the

negative and paper. (At Home Depot such a reflector costs about $3.)

I had trouble at first finding the appropriate wattage and height,

but you can figure this out with a bit of experimenting.

 

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As for dodging, you probably want to get your exposure times to be

long enough (30 seconds?) so that you can do work carefully. Adjust

the height or wattage.

 

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For some reason, I think that dodging and burning a contact print is

easier than an enlarged projected print. This may be because you can

lay whatever you are using to dodge right on the glass and not have

to worry about making the right size shadow puppet.

 

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Take a look at the "Darkroom: Printing" archived threads. There are

some good contact printing discussions here.

 

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Have fun,

Paul

[dk_thompson]

I use an old contact printer...not the frame, but a bona-fide contact

printer (with multiple bulbs, masking frame and hinged lid) for Azo.

Way back when contact prints were in, this was the way to do it. I

have used old Arkay printers that had 20+ bulbs, although mine only

has 9. The lamps are in an array so that you can switch them on & off

individually. So, if you want to "dodge" the foreground, you turn off

those bulbs...and so on. There are about 2 or 3 levels of diffusion

glass, so you can lay in tissue & masks in between the bulbs & the

glass, to hold back areas as well. You can also use tissue paper or

wax paper and cut out masks (and tape, or use a tacking iron to hold

them to the masking frame). You can get an amazing amount of control

this way. My exposures on Azo are around 5 sec. or so, and I run a

voltage stabilizer on the unit as well. I use it mostly for duping

negs though (same speed as Azo). Contact printers are still made, but

they're very expensive beasts (big too) used in long roll commercial

printing. I bought mine, an old Burke & James, from a used camera

store several years ago...it was hiding under a table covered in dust.

Few people seem to know how useful these things can be.....they're

dirt cheap now. BTW, the old Oriental Portrait paper was a great paper

on a contact orinter as well. It was a graded warm tone fiber paper,

that wasn't as slow as Azo, but still really slow under an enlarger.

Any kind of enlarging paper is a real bad choice for a contact

printer...if you're looking for books on the technique, just about any

photo book from the 20's-50's should have info about using these

printers.

[nathan_congdon]

Azo is much slower, and exposures using a regular enlarger lens will

be impossibly long. However, using an enlarger, if you happen to

have one around, is kind of convenient for the other controls it

gives you (distance from the paper is easily varied to control length

of exposure, etc.) I would always just pull the enlarger lens out of

my enlarger and expose the paper directly with the light coming

through where the lens was. I got quite reasonable 30-40 sec

exposures for Azo. Very easy to dodge and burn, though maybe it is

with a bare light bulb, too, which I have never tried.

 

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Good luck,

 

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Nathan

[james___]

I use my enlarger with the lens taken out. The enlarger can be lowered

down to make the light more intense if need be.

[struan_gray]

I once knew someone who did B+W contact prints with a

photocopier. If you use one with an over-size bed for the format

you're using you get a very even light. Dodging and burning was

done with masks he laid under the film.

[dk_thompson]

Man, what a great idea! I guess you could use just about anything,

even an old flatbed scanner. You really can get alot of control by

using masks & diffusion layers, or matte acetate. The beauty of it is

that it's repeatable as well. Stoufer is about the only company left

that still makes contact printers, and they probably cost more new

than an office sized copier would.

[dan_smith]

I still like the light above the paper. I found using a cheap quartz

halogen lamp from KMart (the kind on a telescoping arm) works well as

long as I diffuse it a bit to get rid of hot spots. Normal exposures

for my negs & Azo run aroung 20-30 seconds. A nice benefit of dodging

this way is that it is fairly easy. Burning is easier yet. Cut out a

few different shaped holes in a mat board & burn to your hearts

content in very small or larger areas. You can burn this way with

enough control to match overly bright window views on the negative.

I have also used the enlarger with lens removed but found I have to

tape over the lens stage extension where the focus comes down or

specular reflections show up on the print. Same thing with keeping a

drink in a glass near the paper... the pattern of the glass was

reflecting on the paper & giving wierd exposure patterns & it took a

bit for me to figure it out. Silver, chrome or glass near the paper &

light during exposure can sure bring a few surprises.

The old Edward Weston way of a light bulb hanging from the ceiling

still works just fine. Whatever you do make sure it is consistent so

you can get repeatable results.

[david_goldfarb]

If you use a condenser enlarger with the lens removed, you might want

to put a diffusion screen in the negative carrier.

 

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I was doing this without any diffusing material and started noticing

that many of my prints had a small dark spot in the middle. Sometimes

it was obscured in the detail of the print, so it took me a while to

realize that it was the projection of the bulb on the paper.