The joy of printing

Freakscene said:
@Jonathan R was talking about 25 years ago. But it is easy to do today too.

In Germany, not so far away, Fotoimpex have several print developers Erik, and Moersch Fotochemie makes some really innovative ones including several suitable for, and a kit specifically for 2 bath development. Freestyle Photo in the US makes a Selectol Soft copy off the shelf.

It’s also really easy to make Selectol Soft yourself:

Water 52C. 750mL
Metol. 12.3g
Sodium sulfite (anhydrous) 36g
Sodium carbonate (anhydrous). 30g
Potassium bromide 10% solution. 18mL
Cold water to make 1L

Scale it up as you need it. You can buy the chemistry from dozens of sources. It works extremely well as the ‘soft’ developer with Dektol/D-72.

I showed someone how to print on graded paper in two baths on Thursday. It’s not so hard.
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Yes the two tray Dektol/Selectol soft method was widely used back in the graded paper days. I haven't used that combo for over 20 yrs.... Ansco 130 or Ethol LPD are my go-to developers.
 
Sinar Norma Handy Test 65mm F8 No 3 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Sinar Norma Handy Test 65mm F8 No 4 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Sinar Norma Handy 4x5 Test Ilford HP5+ 65mm F8 Super Angulon at Fll. Kingwood Gardens Mansfield Ohio, waiting for the Solar Eclipse to occur. HANDHELD camera focused hyperfocally. The cosine effect causes corners to be darker, could be improved with my 65mm F8 Schneider Center Filter. Silver image 8x10 print Omega DII 180mm Rodagon laser aligned, Arista #2 RC paper processed in Dektol 1:2. Print copied with Sony Nex 7 30mm Nex Macro Lens.
 
JohnWolf said:
@Darthfeeble. Very nice. What’s the shelving strip? And are the pictures matted? I have an office wall that would be perfect. Thanks.

Ed. I think I see the matting.
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They are matted, I got a bunch of 8' 1x1/8" plastic lathing , overlapped one on the other to create a Z and screwed them into the wall. The pictures fit in the landing and are secured at the top with those Command picture hanger strips, the ones that are sort of like velcro. Then painted to match the wall to keep them from taking away from the pix. Everything is available at the local big box hardware store.
 
Darthfeeble said:
They are matted, I got a bunch of 8' 1x1/8" plastic lathing , overlapped one on the other to create a Z and screwed them into the wall. The pictures fit in the landing and are secured at the top with those Command picture hanger strips, the ones that are sort of like velcro. Then painted to match the wall to keep them from taking away from the pix. Everything is available at the local big box hardware store.
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Thank you. It looks like a great approach.
 
Nokton48 said:
Sinar Norma Handy Test 65mm F8 No 3 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Sinar Norma Handy Test 65mm F8 No 4 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Sinar Norma Handy 4x5 Test Ilford HP5+ 65mm F8 Super Angulon at Fll. Kingwood Gardens Mansfield Ohio, waiting for the Solar Eclipse to occur. HANDHELD camera focused hyperfocally. The cosine effect causes corners to be darker, could be improved with my 65mm F8 Schneider Center Filter. Silver image 8x10 print Omega DII 180mm Rodagon laser aligned, Arista #2 RC paper processed in Dektol 1:2. Print copied with Sony Nex 7 30mm Nex Macro Lens.
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Stunning! I think the vignetting adds substantially to the image (particularly No.4). I also think that sometimes what we've been told is a technically perfect image can get in the way of an aesthetically strong one. This is a perfect example that works because of that "imperfection".
 
Freakscene said:
@Jonathan R was talking about 25 years ago. But it is easy to do today too.

In Germany, not so far away, Fotoimpex have several print developers Erik, and Moersch Fotochemie makes some really innovative ones including several suitable for, and a kit specifically for 2 bath development. Freestyle Photo in the US makes a Selectol Soft copy off the shelf.

It’s also really easy to make Selectol Soft yourself:

Water 52C. 750mL
Metol. 12.3g
Sodium sulfite (anhydrous) 36g
Sodium carbonate (anhydrous). 30g
Potassium bromide 10% solution. 18mL
Cold water to make 1L

Scale it up as you need it. You can buy the chemistry from dozens of sources. It works extremely well as the ‘soft’ developer with Dektol/D-72.

I showed someone how to print on graded paper in two baths on Thursday. It’s not so hard.
Click to expand...
Yes, I know Fotoimpex of course, I used to buy my paper from them, Adox. They made this paper themselves, with technology from Agfa. However, they were not so bright to buy the "basic board paper" (photo paper without silver/gelatin layer) for their production of the Adox paper from Ilford. Ilford then raised the price of their basic board to such an extent that Fotoimpex could no longer produce the Adox paper for a competitive price. That was the end of their Adox-adventure. Now Ilford is the only producer of photographic paper in the world. Go figure!
 
Erik van Straten said:
Yes, I know Fotoimpex of course, I used to buy my paper from them, Adox. They made this paper themselves, with technology from Agfa. However, they were not so bright to buy the "basic board paper" (photo paper without silver/gelatin layer) for their production of the Adox paper from Ilford. Ilford then raised the price of their basic board to such an extent that Fotoimpex could no longer produce the Adox paper for a competitive price. That was the end of their Adox-adventure. Now Ilford is the only producer of photographic paper in the world. Go figure!
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Erik, what about Foma paper which is still available?
 
Erik van Straten said:
That is from Hungary or the Czech Republic, isn't it? I never tried it, I've never seen it here for sale.
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It is widely available in North America. Very fine line of paper... sold in both Canada and by major US retailers like B&H and Freestyle Photo. It is also sold in Germany by Fotoimpex, in France, the U.K., Finland, Italy, Spain....
 
Erik van Straten said:
That is from Hungary or the Czech Republic, isn't it? I never tried it, I don't know anything about the quality.
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Adox MCC 110 is sold out. Why?

You were indicating you didn’t understand why prices were going up which suggests you don’t know why. Yes I’d you’d thought about it a minute you might have come up with the reason.
www.rangefinderforum.com www.rangefinderforum.com

Foma is good. Adox are still making paper - they just haven’t made another run of MCC110. Their Lupex is superb for contact printing. Slavich is also still manufacturing paper, although it is now more expensive than Ilford.
 
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Jonathan R said:
You are right, it was! Is there still any use for a 2-developer approach now that we have Multigrade?
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Only to modify the highlight contrast. The lack of highlight contrast variation with changing filters in VC papers is the main reason I keep a stock of fixed grade paper. But you can also modify it to some degree with different developers. I quite like the look of both Ilford and Foma FB papers in Defender developer then in Selectol Soft.

Defender high contrast developer

Water @ 50C/125F 1500 ml
Elon/Metol 7.5 gram
Sodium Sulphite 142 gram
Hydroquinone 39 gram
Sodium Carbonate 283 gram
Potassium Bromide 3,5 gram
Add water to 3000 ml - do not dilute further.

This is an interesting developer. You put the print in it, and for a little while nothing happens, but then the image just explodes onto the paper. If you pull it quickly and put it into Selectol Soft, you can modify the look of the highlights quite a lot for a given contrast grade. You can do the same with Moersch SE 20C and SE30.
 
Here is Freestyle’s Selectol Soft: LegacyPro Select Soft Paper Developer (Makes 1 Gallon)

On the off chance that anyone comes across formulae or packaged developer for Selectol without the ‘Soft’, this is a completely different developer, a warmtone developer that is a commercial version of Kodak D-52.

Kodak D-52 Paper Developer
Water (125 deg F)---------------------500 ml
Kodak Elon (Metol)--------------------1.5 grams
Sodium Sulfite (Anhydrous)-----------22.5 grams
Hydroquinone-------------------------6.3 grams
Sodium Carbonate (Anhydrous)-------15.0 grams
Potassium Bromide (KBr)---------------1.5 grams
Water to make------------------------1.0 liter

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Dilute the stock solution 1:1 and develop for about 2 minutes.


Naming things is hard, but Kodak were terrible at it. There are numerous instances of Kodak naming different things the same name, sometimes similar (Tri-X and Tri-X Pro were completely different films) sometimes completely different (a paper and a camera both called Medallist).

Marty
 
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