Anyone contact printing 4x5?

[RodinalDuchamp]

As far as print technique how do you guys do it? Straightforward? Special tricks you don't mind sharing?

[jp]

Yep. Mostly cyanotypes and sometimes normal silver prints.

I do a lot of soft focus, and that doesn't scale to different sizes nicely; it's ideal for contact printing. Some soft 4x5's print fine at 8x10 but no larger. Images without great detail work well at smaller sizes. I use a split back printing frame for all my contact prints.

Here's a little video where I bleach and tone 4x5 cyanotypes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTD-y_2TVvI

[Sirius Glass]

On occasion I will make 4"x5" contact prints.

[Oren Grad]

As far as print technique how do you guys do it? Straightforward?

An enlarger baseboard. On top of that, a thin piece of glass. On top of that, a sheet of variable-contrast enlarging paper. On top of that, a negative. On top of that, a thick piece of glass. Hovering above all that, the enlarger's color head, which serves as a handy variable-contrast light source. That's all.

[DG 3313]

The 4x5 contact print is how I display my old favorites and new stuff around the house. I have some rustic iron hangers with film clips on them and rotate my 4x5 contacts. 4x5 contacts are great to stick in the snail mail to family members and to have ready in the camera bag to show the police what I'm up to.......you bet, I contact print on 8x10 RC paper cut into 4- 4x5 (ish.) prints.

[DannL]

If you don't have this book, you might try this link.

Page 67 onward explains what would take me an hour to type.

[Pete Roody]

If you enlarge you are using enlarging paper. If you contact print, it opens up many more possibilities. Don't compare a contact print on enlarging paper to an enlargement. That is not a true comparison. Look at the alternative prints here to get an idea of what you can do.

[ShannonG]

I contact 4 x 5 sometimes for refrance,,but have recently been contacting with another neg in the enlarger and turing it and doing photograms with objects on top,,,,,,just for fun....

[cuypers1807]

I went to the Lewis Hine exhibit at ICP a few years ago and the photos were all 5x7 contact prints. It was a big show but the small prints provided an intimate experience. It was a bit weird seeing small versions of the photos I have seen blown up all over the place. I didn't care for the giant frames they were in.
I have made 4x5 contacts but don't do it much mostly because 4x5 is an odd size to frame. I do contact print 4x5s on the Ilford postcard paper to send to friends though.

[dave_whatever]

I have contact printed 5x4" in an improvised setup in the bathroom - towels hung over the window to make it dark, landing light turned off, using a D-cell Maglite with the reflector head removed, about 6ft away from the paper as a light source with normal Ilford RC 5x7" paper - exposures were of the order of 30-60 seconds. Used an old picture frame as a contact frame. Got some quite nice results. Moving house this year (hopefully) so there's every chance of a less heath Robinson setup on the cards.