I'd been meaning to try out the paper negative process for awhile now. I met this gentlemen while I was trying out my new-to-me Shen-Hao 6x12 back. When I mentioned paper negatives, he said he'd done before. He posed and then we hit the darkroom...
Jon, paper negs use an orthochromatic emulsion, some more than othrs. VC paper is more Orthochromatic than graded paper, but all Ortho is insensitive to red. That's why you can develope and print under a red safelight. Take a picture of a red brick building, and you will see what I mean. Also, this is why sometimes we have problems in a woods, as the trees filter out the blue light end of the spectrum. The old rule about exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights really works well here. I use a light yellow filter to get more sky detail, and to lighten the grass. You have to double the exposure for a yellow filter. Ortho film is a whole thing of it's own, very malleable the more one uses it.
Here's a link to a guy, Peter Liepke, doing platinum palladium prints from paper negatives, via acurator.com.
http://www.acurator.com/blog/2012/05/peter-liepke.html
I saw this beauty at Flickr:
[IMG] Paper Negatives - Michelle by Mattwd, on Flickr[/IMG]
This is a test shot to see if stacking a circular polarizing filter in front of a yellow #8 filter would darken the sky and bring out the clouds better than using just the yellow filter. With panchromatic film, an orange or red filter could be used for this, but these filters would probably result in no exposure with a paper negative.
Used Arista EDU Ultra VC RC paper, above mentioned filters, 4 seconds @ f32, Wollensak Velostigmat series I f6.8 (Royal Anastigmat), 8X10 Improved Seneca View. Negatives were developed in Gainer's original PC-sodium carbonate formula for paper, double strength of his negative developer. I like the results I'm getting with this. The tonality is about the same as dilute D-72, but development takes longer and seems more even.
I think this filtration might also work with green sensitive X-ray film and plan to test that soon.
Apologies for the uninteresting subject. I'm doing my testing around the backyard in preparation for a hoped for road trip to a scenic area later in the summer or fall.
The negative:
The same image with tones inverted, laterally reversed, and contrast adjusted:
Thanks for that, very interesting test.
Cheers Shane
I've not posted in Large Format before. I have a tail board camera that I built myself with a Beck Symmetrical lens shooting half plate. I thought I would try out this paper negative technique. Cut down some 5x7 enlarging paper to fit. I have had some fun. Here's a picture, wind is blowing, tree on the right is moving. 4 second exposure at F32.
Salt print from calotype negative - or, going back to the roots. DIY… (Just getting ready for the day the film and photographic paper industry has gone…)
The calotype:
The salt print:
More info over at Flickr: about the calotype, and about the print.
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