Replacing Agfa FB...

I've been printing on Agfa FB for the last 8 or 9 years and am now
trying to find a substitute.

Does anyone have any recommendations? And any comments on how their
recommends differ from Agfa?

Tried Ilford FB Warmtone and Multigrade IV today. Quite liked the
Warmtone - seemed to have a surprisingly good tonal range at grade 3 -
3 1/2.

I tried flashing with it - a flash seems to take around double the time
Agfa did to fog. But when I tried flashing (a little below the fogging
level) it killed the midtones.

Only did one print on the Multigrade IV - a jazz print, very
underexposed negative. Grade 5 didn't seem to be as high in contrast
as I'm used to. Split printing completely failed to work (by the time
I'd printed the shadows down to black, the midtones were overexposed).

Can anyone give me any guidance / comments on Ilford FB Warmtone and
Multigrade IV?

Thanks
Gareth

"Gareth" schreef in bericht
oups.com...
I've been printing on Agfa FB for the last 8 or 9 years and am now
trying to find a substitute.

Does anyone have any recommendations? And any comments on how their
recommends differ from Agfa?

Tried Ilford FB Warmtone and Multigrade IV today. Quite liked the
Warmtone - seemed to have a surprisingly good tonal range at grade 3 -
3 1/2.

I tried flashing with it - a flash seems to take around double the time
Agfa did to fog. But when I tried flashing (a little below the fogging
level) it killed the midtones.

Only did one print on the Multigrade IV - a jazz print, very
underexposed negative. Grade 5 didn't seem to be as high in contrast
as I'm used to. Split printing completely failed to work (by the time
I'd printed the shadows down to black, the midtones were overexposed).

Can anyone give me any guidance / comments on Ilford FB Warmtone and
Multigrade IV?

Thanks
Gareth

Hello Gareth,

Here you can see http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/wwpal.html the
Ilford equivalents for Agfa products.

Greetings,
Hans

http://surf.to/HansBrouns

Why are you flashing? Of all the insane things I have ever heard,
flashing tops the list...

People spen years trying to develop the proper safelights, and then
iiots like you FLASH your paper?

I have NEVER flashed paper. NEVER!

Gareth wrote:
I've been printing on Agfa FB for the last 8 or 9 years and am now
trying to find a substitute.

Does anyone have any recommendations? And any comments on how their
recommends differ from Agfa?

Tried Ilford FB Warmtone and Multigrade IV today. Quite liked the
Warmtone - seemed to have a surprisingly good tonal range at grade 3 -
3 1/2.

I tried flashing with it - a flash seems to take around double the time
Agfa did to fog. But when I tried flashing (a little below the fogging
level) it killed the midtones.

Only did one print on the Multigrade IV - a jazz print, very
underexposed negative. Grade 5 didn't seem to be as high in contrast
as I'm used to. Split printing completely failed to work (by the time
I'd printed the shadows down to black, the midtones were overexposed).

Can anyone give me any guidance / comments on Ilford FB Warmtone and
Multigrade IV?

Thanks
Gareth

Why are you flashing? Of all the insane things I have ever heard,
flashing tops the list...

People spen years trying to develop the proper safelights, and then
idiots like you FLASH your paper?

I have NEVER flashed paper. NEVER!

Gareth wrote:
I've been printing on Agfa FB for the last 8 or 9 years and am now
trying to find a substitute.

Does anyone have any recommendations? And any comments on how their
recommends differ from Agfa?

Tried Ilford FB Warmtone and Multigrade IV today. Quite liked the
Warmtone - seemed to have a surprisingly good tonal range at grade 3 -
3 1/2.

I tried flashing with it - a flash seems to take around double the time
Agfa did to fog. But when I tried flashing (a little below the fogging
level) it killed the midtones.

Only did one print on the Multigrade IV - a jazz print, very
underexposed negative. Grade 5 didn't seem to be as high in contrast
as I'm used to. Split printing completely failed to work (by the time
I'd printed the shadows down to black, the midtones were overexposed).

Can anyone give me any guidance / comments on Ilford FB Warmtone and
Multigrade IV?

Thanks
Gareth

You should try it then!

It needs to be carefully controlled, of course - which means you need a
second enlarger. Stop down the lens to its minimum aperture; crank the
enlarger to full height then do a test strip with half the paper
covered throughout the process (use, say, 1 second intervals). Count
the number of exposures! This is important.

Now, when you look at the test strip, you need to pick the point before
the paper fogs. This is where the covered half of the paper is
critical - it gives you a white to compare the other side of the paper
to. Work out the point just before the paper fogs. (for which you'll
need to know the number of exposures)

Flashing is extremely useful for blown highlights - especially where
burning isn't practical (e.g the highlights are caught up with other
detail)

The theory is that you are reducing the amount of light from the
negative needed to register on the paper - useful for very dense parts
of the negative.

You can also partially flash a sheet of paper - i.e one area only - to
avoid closing shadows & midtones in the other areas.

I should also say that I've been taught flashing by one the best fine
art printers in Australia.

But back to my question, Ilford Warmtone FB doesn't seem to respond
well to it - at least when I flash to a point just before the paper
fogs. Maybe I need to back it off a little.

Gareth wrote:
You should try it then!

It needs to be carefully controlled, of course - which means you need a
second enlarger. Stop down the lens to its minimum aperture; crank the
enlarger to full height then do a test strip with half the paper
covered throughout the process (use, say, 1 second intervals). Count
the number of exposures! This is important.

Now, when you look at the test strip, you need to pick the point before
the paper fogs. This is where the covered half of the paper is
critical - it gives you a white to compare the other side of the paper
to. Work out the point just before the paper fogs. (for which you'll
need to know the number of exposures)

Flashing is extremely useful for blown highlights - especially where
burning isn't practical (e.g the highlights are caught up with other
detail)

You should hardly ever have blown highlights. I'll bet you're using
T-Max 400, arent you?


The theory is that you are reducing the amount of light from the
negative needed to register on the paper - useful for very dense parts
of the negative.

You can also partially flash a sheet of paper - i.e one area only - to
avoid closing shadows & midtones in the other areas.

I should also say that I've been taught flashing by one the best fine
art printers in Australia.

But back to my question, Ilford Warmtone FB doesn't seem to respond
well to it - at least when I flash to a point just before the paper
fogs. Maybe I need to back it off a little.

I never flash either. In case I might come across the need of darkening
highlights to make them show more detail, I use filter #00 of my VC head for
a _local_ burn-in. I occasionally make prints this way, none ever showed any
tracks of this kind of burning in, as it only affects the highlights and
leaves midtones and shadows unchanged.


"UC" schreef in bericht
oups.com...
| Why are you flashing? Of all the insane things I have ever heard,
| flashing tops the list...
|
| People spen years trying to develop the proper safelights, and then
| iiots like you FLASH your paper?
|
| I have NEVER flashed paper. NEVER!
|
| Gareth wrote:
| I've been printing on Agfa FB for the last 8 or 9 years and am now
| trying to find a substitute.
|
| Does anyone have any recommendations? And any comments on how their
| recommends differ from Agfa?
|
| Tried Ilford FB Warmtone and Multigrade IV today. Quite liked the
| Warmtone - seemed to have a surprisingly good tonal range at grade 3 -
| 3 1/2.
|
| I tried flashing with it - a flash seems to take around double the time
| Agfa did to fog. But when I tried flashing (a little below the fogging
| level) it killed the midtones.
|
| Only did one print on the Multigrade IV - a jazz print, very
| underexposed negative. Grade 5 didn't seem to be as high in contrast
| as I'm used to. Split printing completely failed to work (by the time
| I'd printed the shadows down to black, the midtones were overexposed).
|
| Can anyone give me any guidance / comments on Ilford FB Warmtone and
| Multigrade IV?
|
| Thanks
| Gareth
|

Nuh - won't touch it. I did a jazz series a few years ago - shot it
with my M6/M7 with Tri X rated at around 1600 and developed in Xtol.
Hard to print neg.s went with the territory.

These days I used Tri X in Xtol for pretty much everything

But, in all seriousness, I think there would be few photographers who
didn't have any neg.s that wouldn't benefit from flashing - including
large format, landscape photographers. And I know a few who use it.

Cheers
Gareth

"Gareth" wrote

Stop down the lens to its minimum aperture; crank the
enlarger to full height then do a test strip with half the paper
covered throughout the process (use, say, 1 second intervals). Count
the number of exposures!

I put marks on the paper/easel at regular intervals with a magic-marker.
It makes counting out invisible test strips much easier: "how many
no-seeum exposures did I make before I see this one?"

I have had luck running a flash test strip series as a second exposure
on top of the normal pictorial one. Again, as Gareth suggested, half
the paper is covered when the flash test is done.

I put a heavy ND filter in the enlarger for flashing, it makes it
exposure times longer and easier to deal with.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
To reply, remove spaces: n o lindan at ix . netcom . com
Fstop timer - http://www.nolindan.com/da/fstop/index.htm

I agree on what you wrote, Gareth, but I consider local burn-in with a soft
filter much more accurate, as it leaves the other parts of the image
unaffected, while flashing covers the whole print. Don't be afraid of trying
it!

Jan


"Gareth" schreef in bericht
ups.com...
| Nuh - won't touch it. I did a jazz series a few years ago - shot it
| with my M6/M7 with Tri X rated at around 1600 and developed in Xtol.
| Hard to print neg.s went with the territory.
|
| These days I used Tri X in Xtol for pretty much everything
|
| But, in all seriousness, I think there would be few photographers who
| didn't have any neg.s that wouldn't benefit from flashing - including
| large format, landscape photographers. And I know a few who use it.
|
| Cheers
| Gareth
|