The black & white transparency process and dr5 - who's used it/them?

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Hello from France

If I can add my 0,02 euro to the discussion, I have so far never used the services of DR5 mostly due to high potential transatlantic postage costs.

However I've had AGFA SCALA film (120 rolls, hence not quite on-topic here) processed on a regular basis by PhotoStudio 13 near Stuttgart in Germany.
Various sources of information tell me that PhotoStudio 13 is now offering B&W slide processing from a variety of B&W films available now, not only AGFA SCALA, for which the available stock is empty except in 135 rolls.
B&W reversal tests are reported (in German) here for a selection of B&W films distributed under the Rollei brand
http://www.aphog.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=18394


In the last century I have processed some B&W slides at home with the now defunct Tetenal kit.
One of the issues nowadays is the ban of Potassium Dichromate, once the standard chemical for the bleaching stage after 1-st development.
FOMA offers a replacement kit where Potassium Permanganate is used instead of dichromate. FOMA has a special B&W reversal film named FOMAPAN R-100, but it is available only in 135 rolls.

One of the readers and contributors of the French MF+LF forum galerie-photo, Claude Eichel, has extensively tested the classical dichromate-based reversal process up to the 8x10" film format.
He has summarised his experience in this article (in French)
http://www.galerie-photo.com/inversi...oir-blanc.html
but due to the ban of potassium dichromate, the recipes are now obsolete (and should in principle not be used for safety reasons).
However, the article mentions a list of web sites related to B&W reversal processing, hence it is interesting to follow what is going on today, B&W slides are not something from the past, one could even anticipate that the supply of color slide film will disappear faster than B&W slides!

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Regarding experience I have with printing from B&W slides, I have basically used two methods
- scan of the B&W slide with a high-end scanner like an Imacon in order to extract the maximum densities properly, followed by a print on a DURST lambda machine. I do not mention attempts I made with an amateur-grade flatbed scanner, since the results are not satisfactory with respect to the quality of a projected B&W slide I have as a reference since I made my first B&W slides in 1978!

- [for 120 films only hence off-topic] scan on a Fuji Frontier machine and print with a B&W inkjet printer.
The Fuji Frontier does an excellent job, far better than an amateur-grade flatbed scanner, and due to the lower scanning costs, if you do not have access to a drum scanner or an IQsmart or an Imacon, you should give a try to the Fuji Frontier if you do not want to print a huge mural poster.

[Stephen Collector]

David Wood is now based in Denver, Colorado. He does lovely work! He can both process negs with his nitrogen burst processor and create the b&w transparencies. Highly recommended!

[Tin Can]

Not a lot additional from me, but a guy did HP5 11X14 reversal in my darkroom a couple years ago, with me assisting. Trial and error to get the process down. Traditional process with Potassium Dichromate. He wanted them for light box display.

We had usable ones pretty quickly, but I have not tried it since then and I believe he is no longer shooting 11x14.

The process was very easy once we realized that re-exposure times are the opposite of regular thinking, if that makes sense.

Makes me think of trying it with 14x17 Ektascan!

[Corran]

He wanted them for light box display.

Cool, did he do it? Any pictures of his lightbox?

[Tin Can]

Cool, did he do it? Any pictures of his lightbox?

He did it. But I have no pictures. They were his private property. I won't disclose his name either.

I know you guys all want pictures but some us are really against posting here or anywhere. You know why.



I also never post pictures of clients without a written model release.

[Corran]

I'm not interested in pictures of him, I want to see what the transparency looked like in a lightbox frame, and find out more info on his frame build.

[Tin Can]

I'm not interested in pictures of him, I want to see what the transparency looked like in a lightbox frame, and find out more info on his frame build.

Of course! We are talking about his images on the film! It was personal content. Not of him.

[richardman]

dr5 website has plenty of images to see. I think the best thing to do is to send a couple sheets to DR5 and see what they look like.

[Kirk Gittings]

I saw these at a photo trade show a decade or more ago. They were quite beautiful but I never figured out what I needed them for?

[Light Guru]

I never figured out what I needed them for?

Yea being as we shoot large format here unless your going to use the large format positive as the final display medium it just seems like a unneeded extra cost.