Thin B&W paper

[imagedowser]

In the early '60's Kodak had a very thin weight paper. I believe it was listed as "A" weight Kodabromide or Medalist I don't remember (shocker) .... Is there any such animal now? Would probably make great paper negs, it was of course FB since there was no RC in the dark ages.

[Payral]

Slavich Unibrom still exist as single weight paper. It's Russian made.

[Phil]

Here's some info from Kodak Photographic Papers - 1967 printing (Kodak Publication No. G-1):

"Surface A is a smooth, lustrous surface on a white, lightweight folding stock. It is used frequently for French-folding greeting cards, prints to be attached to reports and theses, and salesmen's sample picture books."

The A paper was available on papers Ad-Type (a contact paper), Kodabromide, and Polycontrast. These were all listed as WH (white) LW (light weight) paper base for this surface.

An interesting note - there were 4 paper weights available at that time - SW, DW, LW, and MW (single, double, light, and medium)

--

The Kodak 1981-1982 photographic product reference guide shows Ad-Type, Ektamatic-SC (for stabilization processing), and Polycontrast were still available in A surface.

[Mark Sampson]

The Kodak A-surface lightweight papers were discontinued around 1988, and I've seen nothing similar since then. 'MW' was Kodak's designator for RC papers, which have been around longer than most of us might think; the early versions were known as 'Resisto' and 'Resisto Rapid' in the ?'60s?.

[Maris Rusis]

If you really need thin thin pictures the emulsion layer can be peeled off a finished resin coat image. Just split the paper at a corner and peel gently. Practice (more than a little) makes perfect!

[Harold_4074]

I have some of that---but it's bound into my theses from the early 1970s! It was strange stuff to handle, with about the stiffness of waxed paper.

For paper negatives, I doubt that it would be much different from any modern paper, assuming that you are planning to print emulsion-to-emulsion. The thicker bases will absorb light and make for longer exposures, but probably diffuse the light about the same as the lightweight stock.

Useless factoid of the day: ordinary photocopy paper, subjected to 40,000 PSI between polished platens, becomes translucent and almost clear enough to read print through. Now, if we could just do this at 8x10 inches.....

[Colin Corneau]

Interesting this came up now...

I bought some ERA paper on a trip to China last summer (RC type). It's about 10x12, and wow, is it thin. It actually curls, after drying, which is very weird to my mind, for RC paper.

Quite like the stuff, it gives a very different look and result with my images (from an initial few prints, it seems that midtones, darker midtones and shadows print a fair bit darker, although retaining detail). But the thinness is what I noticed immediately...may be worth a try if you can get it.