What would life be without my morning pour-over? Today it's a Brazilian variety. Freshly ground, of course. The prints in front of me are from last night. They were still damp in the morning. The new darkroom in the basement is bloody cold and the prints take ages to dry down there. But now that I've brought them up to the warm living room they are literally drying in my hands. Fast. With a nice strong curl, which is getting stronger as I keep sipping my coffee. Delicious. Maybe I should get one of those T-shirt presses to flatten them. I leaf through the prints. This one's on Ilford FB matte paper. 20x25cm. The shadows have almost no detail. And the matte paper pulls it even further down the scale. Or so I think. But in the negative the shadows are fairly empty anyway, so I reckon it's alright with how black they appear. The blacks with this paper are actually quite gorgeous. They have a charcoal quality. I wonder: could this be related to the paper developer at all? I've been using Adotol Konstant, which is the Adox packaging of some old Orwo formula. This coffee is delicious... the chocolaty notes are coming through now. Not completely sure about the lady in the shadows though. I guess it's alright. There just isn't any more detail that I could've brought out there. And isn't it nice when straight lines make burning and dodging a child's game? The exposure was 17 seconds at Grade 2 on my Focomat 2c, but the sky needed 50% more for some tone. So I dodged the dark triangle at the top - which really is the underside of an overhanging highway - for 8 seconds with a straight card during the main exposure and then simply burned in for 8 seconds from the top of the building. Thus, the sky got its additional 50% and the dark rectangle remained at the original exposure for minimal shadow detail. Kentmere 400 film here, exposed at EI400. I can't fault it. It's good. But then almost anything seems to be good when shot with the Rollei. Except maybe Foma 400. What a disappointment those two rolls were. One was so bad I threw the negs away. That was my first and last try of Foma 400. It just doesn't have any speed. Cheap but no speed. Shot at EI400 they looked at least 2 stops underexposed. The coffee seems to get even tastier now. Isn't 20x25cm a bit small? Or am I just too used to 24x30cm. Maybe I should let the thought simmer and see how I feel about it later.
Hi Omar, congratulations on managing to 'move' your darkroom to Germany! Your posts are inspiring as always.
ReplyDeleteOn kentmere 400: did you develop it with d76 1+1? How does it compare to HP5+ or TriX in your opinion in 120 and 35mm?
Hello "Anonymous",
ReplyDeleteyes, this was developed in D76 1+1. The main visible difference compared to an HP5 or TriX neg is somewhat higher base fog. Other than that, looking at just prints, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference. But I don't / can't do scientific tests; there might be some measurable difference which I can not see.
Having said that, I'm not a "regular" Kentmere user and do not speak from long experience with this film. I'd bought a couple of ISO400 B&W MF rolls from every brand/make , just for the fun of it, and shot them casually. I have a lot of past experience with Tmax400, HP5 and Delta400, but not so much with the others (Foma, Kentmere and even, shame on me, Trix in MF). After I developed them all in D76 1+1 I found the Foma400 negs to be pretty useless, but the others were all fine and perfectly printable. Yes, there were some unique looks. Kentmere400 stood out with strong contrast (developed according to the Ilford film development chart) and higher base fog.
Thank you for your kindness and your reply, and I apologize if my comment appears anonymous: I logged in with my Google account, but for some reason my name didn't appear as I hope it does now.
ReplyDeleteHi Helmut. No problem at all.
ReplyDeleteAll the best...
Hi Omar - apologies for the delay in commenting! It is great to see you back up and running and a lovely looking print too - brilliant - good luck with the curl - it is a torturous thing - I've managed to mostly flatten Ilford FB by letting it air dry (goes really curly) and then putting it in a Secol sleeve and weighting it down for a few weeks (!) - it's still not perfect, but at least it isn't all cockled on the edges. You had a way of drying prints by covering them with muslin didn't you? Maybe a master class blog post would be good!
ReplyDeleteKentmere works well in Rodinal type developers - though I've not used it in MF as I've got a bit of a stockpile of TX and FP4.
Keep up the good work as always!
Hi Phil, there’s this chap on youtube - pictorial planet - who in one video was showing the flattening of a FB print in a t-shirt press. Seems to work quite well and they don’t cost an arm and a leg, so I’m quite keen to give it a try. Will probably report with a post, if I do :)
DeleteI have this print glazing thingy which I never used for glazing but for heating up prints and subsequently shoving them under a heavy weight. Worked perfectly. But I left it in Turkey.
Thanks, and all the best…
Yes please if you do get it, would like to see that in action. I was given a flat bed Photax glazer with the tensioned cloth thingy, and it didn't really work at all - it's quite old and it could be that the element has gone - it got warm but not hot.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you properly back in the saddle (as it were) too!
I rather like that print. Just wanted to note that Fomapan 400 is a bit over 200 ISO actual speed (Foma is I think the only manufacturer that publishes sensitometric curves for their films); it's not my favourite film mainly because it is too grainy for my taste, but I use it occassionaly at 200 in sheet form and find it quite decent like that curve wise (I'd say better than Fomapan 200). Have you tried drying FB prints taping them onto tempered glass? I found that the best way of getting them completely flat, I was very sceptical of that to start with, but it works to perfection even for large prints, avoids the need for extra gagets (I got a description at https://tf.photography/tips/drying). tf
ReplyDeleteHi. Thanks for the comment and suggestions!
DeleteI’d checked Foma’s data sheet and was expecting an EI of around 250, however what I experienced was more severe: at least two stops underexposure. Incidentally, this coincided with similar recent experiences discussed here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/my-oh-my-what-happened-to-foma-400.219452/
As to taping the wet FB prints onto glass, this is probably the only method I haven’t tried yet. I’ve read about it and I must give it a try. Two things that bug me though: it requires trimming the prints slightly and I like to keep my prints uniform in size (does that sound pedantic? it probably is), and I would need quite a few sheets of glass after a long darkroom session with many prints.
The trimming doesn't sound pedenatic at all, I entirely get it, it was the thing that put me off most (plus I first gave it a try with a wrong kind of a (self-adhesive) tape), but it's a very small amount (about 3mm) and after trying it, I decided I can live with it (I tend to mount everything I am happy with these days, so it's just a question of whether I have enough of the margin; the difference between 7/8" and 1" is neither here or there for that). The volume thing is, of course, an issue; I tend to take a long time working on a single print, perhaps two at a time, and I can't wash more than five sheets at the end of my sessions, so for me that scales. In fact, it was the cold pressing that was a problem in that regard, I could press at most six prints at a time, and it needed at least two weeks to do, idealy four. I know someone who swears by the t-shirt press, but I just don't have the space for another gadget anywhere in the house, especially if it was to handle 20x16 prints, so decided to try this again, and became a believer. 😊 I have five drying racks in the darkroom, and five 24x18 glass sheets to go with that (some standard UK green house glass size, I got about a dozen very cheaply from a local glassier keen to get rid of them, it's all polycarbonate these days, I use couple more in the darkroom for other things, and a few for keeping wip prints and mounts in between).
DeleteThanks for the further details Tomas.
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