rich_ullsmith1

A few dozen boxes of Azo? Wow. I've printed on some inherited Azo that expired in 1952, and it was fine. BTW, you can enlarge on it, but the exposures are long. Look through your chems and see if you have any Amidol, wouldn't be surprised if you did. Azo sings in this stuff. There's a recipe at michealandpaula.com.

Great pictorial. Yeah those reels with the wide flange make it a snap.

The Darkroom Cookbook has paper developers and toners, too. The great thing is, once you get a basic stock of chemical, you can make all sorts of stuff.

Yeah, filtration. Red really makes sky and cloud pop, but it darkens foliage. Yellow-green is great for sky and foliage. The red here would bring the building up, certainly.

 

For sharpness, maybe put the camera on a tripod. Sorry if that has already been mentioned. Also, lock the mirror up and that will eliminate vibration.

 

Beyond that, you might try diluting your D-76 to 1+1 or 1+2. Diluting the sulfite seems to help with sharpness, although I don't notice the difference unless it's enlarged beyond 8X10.

 

You can contact print in your bathroom. Two trays (develop and fix), water stop in the sink, wash in the bath. Sheet of glass and a sheet of foam rubber. Give it a try.

If you are using tap water to develop with, it's usually pretty aerated. If not that, perhaps a presoak might help. Only things off hand I can think of.

Putting the print behind glass provides something of an equalizer, IMO. Having the print in your hand is a different story.

You can contact print these in your bathroom. Two trays, sheet of foam rubber and a sheet of glass, and a light bulb. Inquire locally, find someone to give you a tutorial on contact printing and handling the negs. People are usually more than happy to help out with an interesting project like this.

It would be nice to contact print them or scan them to see what you have.

 

Anything that has survived that long and was well maintained and cared for will be of value, be it monetary or historical.

 

You need to see what you have. And find out what you can about the photographer.

With Delta 100, a minute indicated exposure is way up on the failure curve, where it's very unpredictable. I shot a box of 50 4X5's of this in pinhole, metering and doing the math, and found that I had to step up exposure in terms of minutes beyond what was recommended to get a good neg. The difference between 60s and 150s seconds, with this film, will not be a single stop, because you're already on the portion of the slope that's going straight to the moon. This has been my experience.

Marko, some films don't require reciprocity correction at the times you used. Tmax 100 and Fuji Acros are the two I am familiar with. These films would be massively overexposed if you follow "standard" reciprocity correction.

 

Something like Delta 100, Pan F+, FP4+, you might be okay. If the "correct" exposure is 60s and you gave it 150s, that probably isn't even a full stop extra because of the very thing you were correcting for in the first place: reciprocity failure!

 

You can always test a snip, but if you're lazy and impatient like me, just cut development by 5%.

John, are you concerned with chems and paper, or is it a matter of comfort? Unless your garage is OR clean, moving air might be a dust problem.

 

Maybe shoot in the spring and summer, and save the printing for fall and winter?

 

Swamp cooler's no good. Works great, but no way you can get it light tight.

 

Maybe a portable a/c unit to get the temp down, then shut it off while you're working.

 

I had the opposite problem, and I got a little heater, but then all sorts of crap was accumulating in the trays. Now I just put a heat pad under the developer, and bundle up a little. Can't really dress for hot, though.

Depends on what you want, G.

 

Maybe scan a favorite neg, and go get it printed professionally on whatever you can afford. See if that is satisfactory for you.

 

The B&W darkroom takes up space, requires plumbing, has a pretty long learning curve (although the web has made it easier) but the equipment is getting cheaper all the time, if not free. The great thing about it is you can really do nice work with rudimentary tools.

 

I'm still trying to learn the basics of digital, soley for the purpose of sharing. That has its own learning curve.

 

It all comes down to your eye. Forget about megapixels and dpi and whatever. What matters is what you see, and if you aren't happy with what you see, you either learn to live with it or search elsewhere.

That's what I was going to ask.

Pretty much what B the B said. You can still expand or contract in development with what you have, but since you didn't adjust exposure, as mentioned above, you will be pretty limited.

 

But. . .I think the beauty of shooting the same films in any given setting is, you can slightly adjust development from roll to roll to get what you want. (Low contrast scenes in one bunch, high contrast in another). You can do this by slightly altering temperature, slightly changing the dev time or agitation, or slightly changing the dev dilution. Emphasis on slightly.

If you already have people intent on buying, can you have them select their prints and then have them decide what they want?

 

Anyhow, I think 8X10 is better on 13X18; 11X14 on 16X20; 16X20 on 22X28. Not necessarily the exact print size. Straight from Adam's "The Print." Wish I had started doing this years ago, now I have all sorts of weird sized frames.

Thanks for those, Steve. Do you know, is this Efke essentially the Maco 820? My experience with the Maco has been ISO 3 with a 89b filter to get a good neg, while with the HIE a 29 red works fine.

 

Do you think the main difference between your examples is the antihalation, or different sensitivity?

What is your lab using? If it's something like D-76 which doesn't help with pushing, it makes it hard to learn about how your films handle it. Ask if they have Ilford DDX, which they should, and this will work well with all your films listed.

Yes, I do use a 2-bath for film. But only for the assurance that if I go through a lot of film, if fix 1 weakens during the session, it doesn't matter because fix 2 is completely fresh. But this method doesn't extend fixer life like it does with FB paper.

 

I would not use a hardening fixer. If you ever want to revisit your prints, play with bleaching, redeveloping or toning, you have to get the hardener out, which I think is done in a warm alkaline bath. Don't quote me, as I've never used hardening fixer.

I use Kodak Flexicolor. I got about 15 gallons for twenty bones at a closeout sale. Dilute 1+3.

 

I still do not understand the dumping of film fixer after a single use. Mix with distilled H2O, goes into a clean tank, back into a clean jug. . .where do "deposits and junk" come from? There is certainly an amount of junk that collects in a tray when printing, but even that has never caused a problem.

 

With RC paper and film, the 2-bath fix is really a matter of expediency and insurance. If your fixer cleans a leader of film, then the fixer is good. There's nowhere for the dissolved silver to go but into solution. But with fiber paper, two-bath is a must. Now the dissolved silver can either enter solution, or soak into the paper base. So, the fixer may still be active, but not be able to bring the dissolved silver out of the base. The first bath fixes, the second bath brings the dissolved silver into solution. My basic understanding.

Wait a minute.

 

First off, having never used the powdered Kodak stuff, I don't know if the hardener comes in a second packet. If it does, dispose of it. If it doesn't, I would go to a fixer that does not have a hardener.

 

Second, when diluting for use, only dilute to film strength. Even for paper. Yes, keep working solutions for film and paper separate.

 

Third, I recommend two-bath fixes for both film and paper. If a film leader clears in a minute in fresh fixer, then I go two minutes fix 1, 1 minute fix 2. Test fix 1 at the end of the session; when clearing time doubles (in this case, to two minutes) dump fix one, replace with fix two, remix fresh fix 2. Honestly, dumping this stuff everyday or every session, "one shot", is horribly wasteful.

 

For papers, same two bath method. The general times for fixing papers is 30s RC and a full minute for fiber. Constant agitation, at film dilution. To save time, I pull RC prints at 15s and fiber at 30 and transfer to a holding tray. The second fix can done en mass for RC prints, and at least two at a time for fiber (back to back).

This additionally aids in washing, as the print has not been in a fixer tray for more than thirty seconds at a time.

 

I hope I'm not muddying up the water here.

There was one? (hint: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis.)

To respond to the "fifty shots by chance, if you get a good one, so what." Sure. But something I have noticed: when I have unlimited time to make exposures, that is, today, tommorrow, the next day, and the next week, the process is much more deliberate and results in more prints on the walls. Honestly, I don't completely subscribe to the "decisive moment." Sure, following a group of children --not your own-- with your camera will result in decisive moments by the second, right up until the parents and police get involved. Tell them you are searching for the decisive moment, see what happens. I think it's disingenuous to pop off a couple hundred frames, pick one out and say aha! The decisive moment! No luck, all anticipation and skill!

I'm hearing about the same things I've found with HIE. f8 @250 or f11@ 125 in bright sun and a 25 or 29 red filter. D-76 neat for 11 minutes. And for the Maco, metering at ISO 6 with a 89b filter gives negs that are too thin, IMO, and would be better metered at ISO 3, as was suggested.

Anything diluted from stock is best as a one-shot. If you're using a stock developer undiluted, you can dump a third off and replenish if you have several films to develop.

Unless an image has historical significance or context, a technically sublime print trumps all. IMO. A technically perfect, handcrafted print will appear different in different daylights and moods. It never wears out.