Making slides from 35mm bw negatives
Making slides from 35mm bw negatives
berci said:
Hi,
I was wandering if I copied my Tri X negatives with a slide copier onto Tri X, would I get Tri X slides?
Has anyone ever tried this?
Berci #:-]
Yes, you would get positives, but they would not look very good, as Tri-x is not optimized as a positive film, and it has a tint to the film base.
The Professional way to get b/w slides from b/w negatives is to contact print the negatives onto "Positive Release Stock" made by Kodak for making release prints of black and white movies.
This is a blue sensitive material that can confidently be handled and processed in normal b/w safelite darkroom, and developed by inspection in a developer such as Dektol print developer. It is quite capable of making beautiful projection slides from well exposed b/w negatives.
I am not aware if this film is still available, but it used to be available in 35mm 100ft bulk cores, just like the bulk rolls of camera films such as tri-x. It was very economical, costing a fraction of what the average camera film cost, and it has an ISO of about 8. You can (as I stated earlier) handle this in a bright orange safelight, and cut off a strip of it, and using a contact printing frame, sandwich it and a strip of 35mm b/w negatives together, and then expose this, just like a proof sheet, to the light from your enlarger, then you can process the strip by hand in a tray of dektol, although for fixing you would want to substitute a fixer designed for film, rather than the weaker fix normally used for prints. Then wash for a few minutes, photoflo and hang up the strips just like camera film. (although shorter). Processed in this way, the result is a beautiful full tonality transparency of the original negative. The base of this film stock, when processed and dried, is crystal clear.