Can you give me ideas on doing contact prints with limited space?

So I am planning to do contact prints for my 4x5s. Space is very limited, so what is the most compact way of doing contact prints? I dont mind a DIY project, I just need ideas as I am drawing a blank right now. I am also going to be using direct positive paper but when I want something faster in speed I want to use some TXP320. Thank you all.

Bathrooms are fine. Block out the windows. You need a stable table or perhaps the countertop if you have enough room. A bulb in a socket or one of those reflectors with the pressure clamp you can get at Home Depot work well. You might even paint the reflector white with appliance paint. You can vary the height of the socket/reflector or the power of the bulb. I use a Printfile proofer to hold the negative/paper sandwich.

Or, you can use a 35mm or MF enlarger for the light source if you have enough room. This gives more control over the light because you can adjust the aperture on your lens.

There is the difficult way and the easy way.
In both cases get a piece of 1/4in clear glass plate cut to about 8x10 and have the edges smoothed. This lays over the sandwich of neg + unexposed paper. A safelight is needed, red will work and is easy to find used.

The difficult way is with an improvised incandescent lamp hanging somewhere above the paper and a manual lamp on-off switch somewhere on the lamp wire and a timer that beeps seconds.

The easy way is using an enlarger with lens to project light onto the baseboard and an automatic timer for the light and Ilford variable contrast (multigrade) contrast adjustment filters somewhere in the enlarger (there are three methods).

The drawbacks of the difficult way are poor control over lamp brightness (a dimmer might help) absence of multigrade contrast filtration and, if everything is taken down after use, there may be poor repeatability.

Use a camera flash as the light source. Point it at the ceiling. Very repeatable, very accurate timings, small and compact. Most decent flashes have adjustable settings from full power to 1/125 power so you can adjust as needed to get the contact print looking how you want.

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Originally Posted by blue4130

Use a camera flash as the light source. Point it at the ceiling. Very repeatable, very accurate timings, small and compact. Most decent flashes have adjustable settings from full power to 1/125 power so you can adjust as needed to get the contact print looking how you want.

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That is just plain nutz. 'Most decent flashes' do not have adequate power for contact prints compared to a lowly 40W bulb in an inexpensive reflector.

Contact printing Ilford Multigrade RC I ended up with 7 watt bulb about 3 1/2’ above the contact frame, this was with multi grade filters. I started out with a 40 watt bulb and my exposures were way to short. You just have to experiment and find what works.

I’ll have to see if I have photos of the setup, pretty simple, light and reflector from Home Depot.

Roger.

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Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net

That is just plain nutz. 'Most decent flashes' do not have adequate power for contact prints compared to a lowly 40W bulb in an inexpensive reflector.

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I think he was offering a way to contact onto the TXP 320, which would need way less exposure.

When I was studying at RIT in the 1970s, strictly for convenience, used the bathroom in our apartment as a darkroom. Also did a lot of night shooting, and the darkrooms in the Photo building were closed when I got through shooting. Piece of plywood over the sink and cabinet to give me sone "counter" space. 35mm Durst enlarger was placed on to of the seat of the toilet. Over 3/4 of the tub was a sheet of plywood to put my trays on. Bathtub was filled with about 6 inches of water and was used for my first wash. After fixing the prints, just dropped them into the water. Because of the layout, had to start with the developer on the right and stop bath and fix going to the left... took a while for me to get used of the direction of the flow. Was shooting 35mm and 8x10. Raised the 35mm Durst enlarger's head as high as it would go when making contact prints. sink was used for processing 35mm and 11x14" trays on top of the plywood for processing my 8x10 negatives. Safe light was jury-rigged to hang from a shelf above the tub. Was pointed towards the ceiling. Only problem was that the ceiling fan also had a light in it when the fan was turned on. Simply disassembled it and removed the bulb. Having the ceiling fan on was essential in that closed space. Processed more than a hundred rolls of 35mm film and around a hundred sheets of 8x10 film in hat bathroom converted to a darkroom. Chemicals stored in gallon jugs in my bedroom closet. Apartment temperature was 68 degrees, so never had to cool or warm up my chemistry. Chemistry was always free for student use, imagine that! Made quite a few exhibition quality prints back then in that bathroom. Only thing I didn't do in that bathroom was tone my prints... was far easier to do them in batches in one of the Photo building's darkrooms under more controlled (illumination wise) conditions.
Many years later was in a Condo for a few years and also used the bathroom as a darkroom. This time a bit more elaborate using a Durst CE1000 enlarger on a rollable cart. More counter space (with piece of plywood over the sink's cabinet) proved to be invaluable. Instead of filling the tub with 6 inches of water, used a 20x24" tray with a Kodak syphon.
Limited facilities are no excuse.. one just has to adapt. Remember reading about W Eugene Smith using a very temporary darkroom in Japan without heat, but still proceeding to print his amazing images.

I recall my dad using a dedicated contact printer for 4x5. Basically a box with white and safe lights at the bottom, frosted glass above, and a simple hinged pressure plate to hold the film and paper together. I suspect the hardest part in building one would be even illumination.

Attachment 182513

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Originally Posted by Rain Dance

I am also going to be using direct positive paper but when I want something faster in speed I want to use some TXP320.

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Can you explain what you mean by this? One of those is a paper, the other is a film. What do you intend to be contact printing on to what? Do you mean that in general you'll be using direct positive paper to make your prints in-camera, but when you need more speed you'll use TXP and need to contact print that on to paper?

Keep in mind that contact prints from TXP usually look radically different from in-camera prints made with direct positive paper, although in printing TXP there are choices you can make that will give you results that are closer to what you will get from DPP.

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Originally Posted by Rain Dance

Space is very limited, so what is the most compact way of doing contact prints?

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The thing that demands the most counter-top space is usually the processing, not the exposure, since most people process paper in open trays, and you need separate trays for at least developer, stop bath, fixer and wash. Some people are comfortable using trays stacked in a rack. It's also possible to process paper (or film) in a drum by pouring the required solutions in and out and rolling the drum to keep the solution moving over the exposed paper.

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Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net

That is just plain nutz. 'Most decent flashes' do not have adequate power for contact prints compared to a lowly 40W bulb in an inexpensive reflector.

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My stack of oriental fiber based contact prints would beg to differ. With my flash bouncing off a white ceiling, I was only at 1/4 power on a canon 550 ex. I've done roughly 60 prints this way and have no issues.

Here are some examples done with a flash.

Attachment 182514
Attachment 182515

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Originally Posted by Gary Beasley

I think he was offering a way to contact onto the TXP 320, which would need way less exposure.

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No, contact printing onto fiber based paper. Oriental FB to be exact.

A contact printer already mentioned is probably the simplest and most compact. You still see these occasionally wherever used gear is sold but prices can be anywhere on the map.
Remember you'll still room for trays & drying.

I've tried several methods and the one I settled on requires an enlarger, any format (I've been using an old Meopta for 127 format) cheap or free is good, with a clean lens.
This gives you a light source, red filter, a place to plug in a timer, and a base board. Considering you can find an old 35mm enlarger pretty cheap this solves a lot of problems with a pretty small footprint. There used to be a Russian import that was self contained in a small suitcase you might be able to pick up cheap and store it under a bed when you aren't using it. I keep my Meopta under a plastic garbage bag on a shelf in a spare room.

Next comes a Printfile Contact Proofer, very basic gizmo you can buy new or used. Once again not very expensive but to me it's worth it---I've used a sheet of heavy glass but fingerprints were a problem as well as the potential of dropping the glass in the dark while getting it out of the way or worse, trying to register the negative with the paper.
A frame I used to have, designed for Printing Out Papers, was hard on my fingers (and I'm no wimp) because of the stiff springs which held the back on. If I ever get in to POP I think I'll look for a POP frame using pivoting brass springs.
The Printfile Proofer sits on the enlarger's base board so there is often no increase in the size of the footprint.
I like using a timer though some prefer using a metronome and I understand there are even apps for timing, but I got mine for next to nothing in a box of stuff so that's what I use. It doesn't take up much room, hardly any in fact.

You'll need trays---no getting around this that I am aware of. You probably already have a set of these for souping your film.

You'll also want a safe light. I've been using a short string of red led Christmas lights I bought at CVS when they were closing out their Christmas stock. There are of course other options. Freestyle has a nice 5x7 safe light and you may still find some NOS red screw in incandescent safe light bulbs you can screw into an already existing light fixture or desk lamp. I still have a GE Guide Lamp (plug in night light) that used to come on a card 2 for about a buck,

For drying prints I built some drying screens using wood, screen beading and nylon window screen. I used amber shellac to protect the wood from moisture but you could certainly use more conventional aluminum frames and vinyl spline. I like wood frames because I find them easier to stack and keep some space for air to circulate.

For flattening prints I have two slabs of polished granite, scraps from custom counter tops I found for free on Craig's list. I tried these on the recommendation of Mr Kirk Gittings and they do work nicely!

Oh and I use a piece of cut cardboard to wedge into the window frame in the bathroom to keep in the darkness.

I hope this helps.

edit---I also use a Kodak exposure guide to determine the length of exposure, similar to a step tablet. No longer marketed by Kodak, Delta, IIRC, still makes a copy.

You may use a RGB LED bulb like this one (some $10):

Attachment 182518

Press red button to have a safe light, and to terminate exposure...

Then you can do amazing split grade printing with regular Variable Contrast papers. Rather exposing with white light you make 2 consecutive exposures with green and blue, if you expose more with green or with blue then you vary the contrast, so you don't use filters.

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-co...Multigrade.pdf

Note that exposing with green it's the same than exposing with yellow, as yellow (from that bulb) is green plus red, and red does not expose the paper. The same with blue and magenta. Using Yellow and Magenta has an adantage over using Green and blue, as you see better the image on the paper if you want to burn/dodge something in the image.


Another useful acquisition would be a ($10) 0.1Lux (min) Lux Meter like this one:

Attachment 182519

This allows to check illumination power. You may fade the LED bulb to have longuer or shorter exposures, and measuring lux will allow to guess how you should adjust exposure time. Also this is very useful to calibrate film, camera checking apertures of lenses, etc... and it's also $10...

If you don't have a contact printing frame, use a very flat base, and place a thick glass (say 8mm) on the film, just glue two handles in the glass for convenience

Pere, great suggestions.

Simple and cheap.

Found this low power bulb likes yours. https://www.amazon.com/5430net-Stand...75284510&psc=1

Lux meter is optional, IMHO. https://www.amazon.com/Leaton-Digita.../dp/B018QLIVSC


I use Amaxon as a search engine for many products. B

But Amazon is often the highest price...

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Originally Posted by Pere Casals

You may use a RGB LED bulb like this one (some $10):

Attachment 182518

Press red button to have a safe light, and to terminate exposure...

Then you can do amazing split grade printing with regular Variable Contrast papers. Rather exposing with white light you make 2 consecutive exposures with green and blue, if you expose more with green or with blue then you vary the contrast, so you don't use filters.

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-co...Multigrade.pdf

Note that exposing with green it's the same than exposing with yellow, as yellow (from that bulb) is green plus red, and red does not expose the paper. The same with blue and magenta. Using Yellow and Magenta has an adantage over using Green and blue, as you see better the image on the paper if you want to burn/dodge something in the image.


Another useful acquisition would be a ($10) 0.1Lux (min) Lux Meter like this one:

Attachment 182519

This allows to check illumination power. You may fade the LED bulb to have longuer or shorter exposures, and measuring lux will allow to guess how you should adjust exposure time. Also this is very useful to calibrate film, camera checking apertures of lenses, etc... and it's also $10...

If you don't have a contact printing frame, use a very flat base, and place a thick glass (say 8mm) on the film, just glue two handles in the glass for convenience

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Originally Posted by Randy Moe

Lux meter is optional, IMHO.

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Randy, I agree... I made a lot without the Lux Meter...

But I found it's useful to investigate a close match between the ilford contrast filter grades and the split grade printing with our particular LED bulb... with Ilford filters we have same base exposure for some filters, and twice for the higher contrast filters, this is very convenient. Having a table that cross links to the ilford grades with Green/Blue exposures in Lux·Second is quite nice...

Those bulbs are usually well calibrated, in the sense that when we fade down the illumination with the IR remote control then the light "hue" is mostly well mantained, but it's nice to check it.

With an enlarger when we close the diafragm one stop then we know that we have to expose twice, but if we fade down the RGB bulb we have to adjust again exposure by wasting paper, if we have the lux meter we can nail the new exposure directly.

It also can be done with a Lux Meter app in the phone... this is also a consistent way, but readings are more relative because the sensor in the phone is more or less directional so every phone is a bit different, I started using that, but I found that having the real values in Lux from an standard lumisphere was better. Well, given the cost... :)

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Originally Posted by blue4130

Most decent flashes have adjustable settings from full power to 1/125 power so you can adjust as needed to get the contact print looking how you want.

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Flashes with manually adjustable power output are usually towards the higher end of the price range (although some 3rd party units are more affordable). Also, they generally allow only to attenuate the output in steps of one stop, which may be sub-optimal for contact printing purposes (I'd find it pretty annoying in any case). Thirdly, for thinner negatives and faster papers, the minimum output of the flash may still be too high (particularly if it only goes down to 1/8 power) to get a decent print, leaving you to fiddle with a variety of cobbled-up ways to further reduce the light level. Fourth, many flash units have a green 'ready' indicator, which may fog the paper if it's too close to it. It'll have to be masked.

While a flash in principle will work just fine (your examples prove it), it's not the way I would recommend. An enlarger with a filter head (color or multigrade) is of course convenient, but takes up some space. The old-school suggestion of a low-power bulb (incandescent or even white LED), a switch and a timer/metronome is fool-proof, dirt-cheap, takes up virtually no space and is very flexible. An LED bulb may even be fitted in a little box with one open side and a filter drawer so a piece of green or blue transparent plastic can be slid in, allowing for split-grade printing. When using an LED light source, buy one that has no 'cool-down' delay. Some cheaper white LED bulbs have a brief afterglow that may make short exposures difficult to manage. Most LED bulbs are virtually instant on/off.