I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has problems with
Ilford Multigrade RC. The blacks just don't get coal-tar black,
no matter what. I've even tried straight (undiluted) developer
to to avail. I account it to a design characteristic of the
paper. I may need to go to fixed grade papers, but would rather
stick with multigrades if at all possible. I like Ilford
because of the cost, but Kodak just looks richer.
I talked with my dad last night and he will be bringing with him
some darkroom equipment this week. My wife is having surgery
tomorrow (cancer related stuff) and my parents are coming to
help out with the girls for a few days. Anyway, he has an
OLLLLD Federal 4x5 enlarger. It was a diffusion enlarger that
he put a couple old condensors in to up the speed a bit. He
thinks that everything is still there to convert it back to
diffusion. I figure that this enlarger, with my newer higher
quality lenses, and a cold light source might be a good
combination. We'll see as I'll have to chip off a ton of rust
first. It's been years since this beast has been fired up. But
if it works, I've got some 6x7 negs that need full-frame
printing.
He'll be bringing with him developing cans and reels and a
couple other items I've been needing. He's rather excited about
it as I think he'll want to get his hands wet and use MY
enlarger too. I offered full, unlimited access to the Nikon
Coolscan which got his attention too. For several years I lived
in apartments that weren't conducive to darkrooms so I "stored"
all my stuff in his darkroom where he used it a lot. He was a
bit bummed when I reclaimed the enlarger.
My "darkroom" is actually a workshop area in the basement.
Unfortunately the water/sink is on the other side of the
basement, but I've got plenty of space and good stable
temperature control. I'll need to figure out something for
tabletop space as I have room for one enlarger and four trays.
The second enlarger will dictate my moving the chemestry to
another spot. Our house came with an old steel office desk that
my wife made us get rid of--took four football players to budge
it. Too bad, since it would have been perfect. Hmm...
Shelves? I've seen a "closet darkroom" where somebody used a
step-ladder to hold developer trays. Have to figure out
something. I've got to be careful about bringing home another
table, though, as my wife doesn't really appreciate "stray
cats". I've got the space, just not the table surface. Maybe
the card-table will work for the chemicals.
Thanks to those who responded with "soup" recommendations. I'm
going to have to go on a fast learning curve here. I've shot
tons of Ilford Pan-F, but always had it lab processed in
whatever they used. My negs aren't extremely contrasty, in fact
they are rather flat in comparision to Plus-X. I've also
encountered a very scary situation where they are FADING! I'm
really concerned about it as I'm losing some of my best B&W
work. I think it might have to do with incomplete fixing or
poor rinsing.
However, Ilford Pan-F is a supurb film and seems to have gobs of
gradient. One thing I've found with the Kodak T400CN is that
there is plenty of highlight and shadow detail, but the midtones
are really muddy. Plus-X, Pan-F and TMax 100 have much better
midtones.
One thing I've learned repeatably in the past is to reduce your
variables. To up the quality of your work it is best to
standardize as much as possible, otherwise you are chasing
things around too much. Multigrade paper is a wonderful thing,
but maybe this is a variable this I'm having too much difficulty
controlling. I have too many types of film to print from:
Pan-F, Plus-X, Tmax 100 and 400, Tri-X, Neopan, T400CN... I can
get really good results printing from Plus-X and Tri-X, but
everything else requires tons of work to get anything decent
from. I'd like to standardize my film types in B&W like I have
in Color (Velvia, Provia-F and Portra NC). What I'm looking for
is the ability to get nice solid blacks, sparkling highlights
and smooth gradients through the midtones. T400CN gives me nice
highlights, grainy blacks and lousy midtones. It is a beast to
work with as the base is so dark too. Tmax has beautiful
midtones, but burnt out highlights. Tri-X is easy to get nice
everything but the grain kills me. Pan-F is fading on me which
means I have to run such a hard paper grade that the emulsion
scratches are ghastly. Out of frustration I usually end up
sticking some medium format Tmax in the enlarger to cool my
nerves.
Somebody sent me some souping recommendations for the films I
outlined. What is interesting is that there are variations to
the resulting ISO speed of the film. So much for shooting right
on. Lots of learning to follow... Probably what will happen is
that I'll select a combination based on maximum
price/performance than idealism. Chances are that no matter
what I choose it will be discontinued shortly anyway.
Just a comment regarding scanning resolution vs grain: I did a
maximum resolution scan of a Tri-X neg and compared the "grain"
with a chemical print I made of the same frame. Even though the
film grain is larger than the pixels, the pixels are not round,
nor do they vary in size and position. It really takes about 9
pixels (3x3) just to get a halfway realistic representation of a
single grain. The scan appears NOISY as compared to the
photographic print as during the scan a pixel may pick up the
average of several grains or it might pick up just the center of
a single grain. This is a subject of interest to me, because I
KNOW that Provia-F is as close to grain-free as possible, but
digital scans seem to pick of "grain" that isn't there in a
normal photographic printing process. Setting up Vuescan to
operate in a multipass mode helps a lot, but...
Whatever film I pick up, I'll probably get a ton of it to save
some money. Price over Principle?
Ken N.
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