Standard test negatives

[palec]

I'm looking for some kind of test negative strips. I think all enlargers came with one and I guess big companies were also supplying them for callibration purposes. Can someone point me where can I get it now? 35mm and MF would be nice.

Pal

 

[MartinP]

To test what ?

If you want to check distortion from enlarger lenses or similar then you can draw your own pattern and photograph it, or simply use a window frame. For aligning the enlarger it would probably be better to use one of the devices with dots and mirrors, self-made works fine too, after checking with a level to get the thing approximately aligned.

I have bought three brand-new enlargers in my lifetime, and none had any 'test-negatives' in the box ! Now I feel hard done by 😉

 

[palec]

I see, a lot of tests.

I meant specifically the one exposed at normal contrast (or different contrasts) with some greyscale patterns (similar to calibration colour slides).

Something like this:

I've had only one brand-new and it came with one, so I supposed it's related to all. My bad 🙂

 

[MartinP]

It looks very modern-arty. But what is it supposed to check ?! I'm still not sure of the intention, or method, of using such a negative and am curious.

Incidentally, one of my enlargers (which I still use actually) is a Meopta Opemus - made in your part of the world 🙂

 

[palec]

Well this is just one of the bunch, not all look this way.

It's supposed to help calibration of print exposure meter. When the print of such test negative is done correctly where white is white and black is black and all greys in their places, the exposure time is set to exposure meter as the reference value.

I'm curious, too, and I'd like to see such test/reference negative and check it's density and contrast. I guess, it could be something like a 18% grey card for the darkroom.

I've had Opemus 6, too, but the one with test negative was Krokus, again, made not far from where I live 🙂