Paper negative vs film

[Robert Hughes]

I shoot paper all the time because I'm poor. It's slow. It's orthochromatic and high contrast. Preflashing helps. Yellow filters help. It costs $.40 a sheet, and glossy RC contact prints very well.

It definitely provides a different look than film.

And, as we discussed a few weeks ago, you can also shoot x-ray film - IE 100 at less than $.40 per sheet.

[jnantz]

YES-----------Would love to see your work and others

hi john

there are a few threads floating around where i have posted paper negative images ...

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...9&d=1234113732
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...8&d=1234113694
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...9&d=1246553040
and most recently on the last page of the water's edge thread ...

i have more but not "here" ...

john

[csant]

and most recently on the last page of the water's edge thread ...

Aha, thanks for confirming my suspicion it really looked like a paper neg… Great work, btw!

[jnantz]

thanks csant!

john

[rwyoung]

How long do you pre-flash??

Just another broke photographer talking to a peer, thanks John

You pre-flash for as long as necessary to NOT produce extra density. Pretty easy to test in the darkroom.

Once you know how long the maximum time is (and of course you recorded how your enlarger or light source is set up so the process is repeatable) you can always pre-flash a little bit less. That part you figure out after making some test exposures and a little bit of developer testing.

I think it took all of an hour and a couple sheets of paper to find what I am happy with.

YMMV of course! And changing papers means a new test. I suppose I should re-test when I open a new box too.

[BetterSense]

You pre-flash for as long as necessary to NOT produce extra density. Pretty easy to test in the darkroom.

I flash more than that. I flash enough to put detectable tone on the paper if its immediately developed. I don't think a little "base fog" will hurt my images, in fact I think it helps them.

[rwyoung]

I flash more than that. I flash enough to put detectable tone on the paper if its immediately developed. I don't think a little "base fog" will hurt my images, in fact I think it helps them.

Could be. I'm pre-flashing just to "take up the slack" in the curve.

In what way do you think the base fog is helping?

[BetterSense]

simply contrast reduction. Often when contact printing the shadows of the print are properly exposed before the highlights are, requiring careful burning. Heavy preflashing ensures I'm preflashing "enough" while the slight amount of fog introduced doesn't really do anything, and if it does, it's in holding the deep shadows back when printing.

[Darryl Baird]

I occasionally shoot paper negs for a quick test or proof, but I tested some papers for a potential large architectural project in the future... using some vintage optics. I took the advise of Russ Young (who frequents the forum periodically) and use Ilford warmtone VC with a yellow filter... thus lowering the contrast a bit. What hasn't been discussed here so far (I think) is the ability to develop paper by inspection and also using lower contrast developers and dilution techniques. Also, uncoated optics will open up those shadows more than modern (contrasty) optics.

here's a sample: 8x10 paper neg.

[Tony Karnezis]

I haven't done any paper negs but I know someone who has. Check out the work of Chris McCaw. No preflashing necessary--the sun simply burns holes in the paper. Very cool stuff.

http://www.chrismccaw.com/SUNBURN/SUNBURN.html