shooting enlarging paper as film

[Steve M Hostetter]

i wanna shoot some Foma Variant 312 multi grade enlarging paper as film how would I go about setting the iso speed..? thx

[PaulRicciardi]

It's probably going to be around ISO 6. To get a more specific EI set up a test,

Get three film holders, load 5 total pieces of paper.

Get a grey card, put it under a steady, unchanging, direct light source. Set your meter to ISO 6, meter the grey card. Then shoot 5 frames each at the same aperture. Vary your exposure by shutter speed. Shoot exposures at the following:

2 stops under meter's reading
1 stop under meter's reading
meter reading
1 stop over meter reading
2 stops over meter reading

That will give your EI (exposure index)

If you don't want to waste paper on test frames, I'd just shoot it around ISO 6, maybe ISO 1.5

For reference, Efke positive paper is ISO 1.5
Hope that helped

[Toyon]

You might be interested in a new Adox product - positive paper. It allows you to create prints directly in camera.

[Steve M Hostetter]

I'll rate one at iso 6 and do 2 frames in studio before hand .. thx Paul

Toyon,, Adox cool I'll remember that thx

[jnantz]

it seems that photo paper can have a relative asa / iso from 1ish to 25,
depending on the light and the paper.
bracketing is a great idea, and remember that a paper negative that
looks nice and dense, might not be the best to print. sometimes a thinner
negative prints better ( and scans better ) that something 'dense+contrasty'.

good luck!

john

[Don Wilkes]

Steve: Unless you're planning on doing most of your shooting indoors, do NOT do your testing under studio lighting. I believe that paper will have much different ISOs under daylight and tungsten.

Cheers,
\donw

[Steven Barall]

Just an aside... Back in the day before there was 8X10 Polaroid, my old bosses used to shoot 8X10 Azo on studio still life jobs. With the clients standing there the assistant would run back to the darkroom and process the paper and then they would judge from the negative image. Clients used to spend a lot of time standing around. Thank god for fancy lunches, cigarettes and alcohol.

[Andrew]

I haven't done this since I was in school but I remember very contrast images and black shadows with zero detail

recently I've been thinking about trying paper negs again and I've been reading about "preflashing" the paper ie give it a brief controlled exposure that's not quite enough to cause any visible exposure but then when you make your image there's just that little exposure already in the shadow areas so you get some detail showing up but it shouldn't really change the highlights

you'd have to experiment a bit

here's a link to a side by side comparison and I think the fashing improves the image
http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?m-1153793328/

[John T]

Hi Steve,

Is this a double weight paper? When I used to do paper negs, I found that single weight papers fit into all my film holders. but some double weight papers only fit into some of them (but I don't remember which ones).

[PaulRicciardi]

For anyone interested, lower contrast film developers seem to wring continuous tones out of normally high contrast paper,

I've been able to get some respectable stuff out of the efke positive paper in diafine

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3016/3250855160_0c4531e269.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3502/3254257706_e97b9deb0f.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3437/3248882234_59cd824267.jpg

[jnantz]

i have had great luck using plain olde ansco 130 ( sometimes used, sometimes fresh )
and a water bath to process my paper negatives. i don't usually use fresh paper either,
some is about 15+ years old ( agfa grade 1 ) some is younger than that
( 6 year old ilford fb mg wannabe from photowarehouse or kodak fbmg / polymax fine art ).
fogged old paper does wonders for contrast ;)

[Tim Meisburger]

Thats a great portrait. Lovely!

[Toyon]

Correction: Freestyle sells Efke, not Adox, positive paper.

[dwross]

Paul and jnanian,

Your prints are really beautiful. Great work.

d

[jnantz]

tim and denise

thanks :)

john