New Ilford Positive Papers.

[Keith Tapscott.]

http://harmantechnologynews.com/2IQ-4GVU-77VU59V96/cr.aspx
These can be used for pinhole cameras and in some film-sheet holders.

[Ron Marshall]

Paper is not dead!

[David de Gruyl]

uh, Polaroid without the convenience or expense? Or am I missing something? (granted, if you prefer dealing with paper developing to having a reproducible image, it might be useful.)

I like that it is available, but I don't see much use for it for me.

As an aside: what is a LOMO type camera?

[Pawlowski6132]

How do you dodge and burn in 1/125 of a second??

;^)

[csant]

They should rather make Ilfochrome paper and chemicals more readily available…

David, Lomo is the hype of the moment - a Lomo camera is a cheap crappy plastic thing that will "help" you taking creative photographs… As an aside: paper and reproducible image don't exclude each other…

[JoeV]

Ahem ... Lomos may be "cheap plastic crappy thing", but they use rollfilm, which, during its manufacture, is often cut from the same master rolls from which we get large format sheet film; or, at least, the profits from the selling of rollfilm to Lomo and Holga users helps underwrite the expense of manufacturing master rolls of sheet film.

In this day and age, all film is good. It's too late to fight antiquated wars over small vs large gauge film, when film itself is a dying breed. We need to thank, embrace even, our small-format brethren, for they are helping to prolong the day when film is no longer available.

As for this reversal B/W paper, it offers the promise of one-of-a-kind, in-camera images onto a fiber based support that, after toning, could be a very nice photographic artifact. What's not to get?

~Joe

[csant]

In this day and age, all film is good. It's too late to fight antiquated wars over small vs large gauge film, when film itself is a dying breed.

Joe, you must have misunderstood me - I wasn't saying that the hype Lomo cameras are currently having was bad :) but that still doesn't make of those cameras anything but a crappy thing (in my very personal view). I am thankful for anything film (but then, once film is gone, you can start making your own emulsion or plates…)

[David de Gruyl]

They should rather make Ilfochrome paper and chemicals more readily available…

Does Harman own the rights to the Cibachrome process? Er, I mean Ilfochrome.

[David de Gruyl]

paper and reproducible image don't exclude each other…

Two options that I can think of: first is scanning and the second is "paper negative" which sort of requires a negative. In the case of positive paper, you can make the FB paper translucent and print through it, but it would require an internegative, I think.

It seems like a long an grueling process to get to the stage that a film negative leaves you right off the bat. I understand the reasoning behind using paper negatives in pnihole cameras, if you do not already have the inclination to deal with / waste film, but you might as well use regular paper for that.

[Tim Meisburger]

I think this is great just for its education value. When I was in Indonesia recently i made a red light out of a plastic sandwich box, and made and developed contacts in a closet for my nieces and nephews, and they were entranced watching the images appear. It would be very easy to do something similar with homemade pinhole cameras and this paper in schools. Real missionary work...

[Oren Grad]

Does Harman own the rights to the Cibachrome process? Er, I mean Ilfochrome.

No. Ilford Imaging, in Switzerland, does.

[ic-racer]

This is great.

The next thing they should make is continuous ortho positive film that uses standard paper developer with a base that passes UV light. That way you can enlarge your favorite negatives and make platinum prints with a single step in between.

[jnantz]

i'm already shooting 11x14 and 7x11 portraits with regular photo paper
but i have to contact print or scan / invert them,
this would be a great alternative!



How do you dodge and burn in 1/125 of a second??

;^)

its asa 6ish ...
i don't think you will be shooting at 1/125S ... ;)

[Jay DeFehr]

I think this stuff might be a good candidate for a project I've been trying to put together involving photographing here in the arctic. I wonder how it might take to blue toner?

[bvstaples]

Does anyone know if it's available through any US distributors, or do we have to order it through the UK?

[Daniel_Buck]

Interesting. Wonder if it's going to be super contrasy like the Efke positive paper? I'd love to use positive paper, but shooting directly to the efke paper i get super high contrast, like maybe two stops worth of latitude.

[Henry Ambrose]

This is interesting.
In camera, one of a kind, original art.
Each one.
What you shoot is what you get.

Speed is ISO 4 to 6, that's pretty slow for people but may be doable with lots of light.

[Hector.Navarro]

it's good to hear that Ilford is introducing new products. Positive paper is not something I'm interested in, but it's great to have such a tool available.

[dsphotog]

Seems kinda slow for a pinhole camera, but might be cool in an 8x10 camera shot wide open. this could also be used, under an enlarger, to produce enlarged negatives.

[Daniel_Buck]

Ordered a pack of 4x5 and 8x10, will see how it compares to the EFKE positive paper :-) It's listed on that harman site as "High contrast" so I'm not getting my hopes up to high. But we'll see :-)

[ic-racer]

I glanced through the datasheet. It covers pre-flashing, but it does not discuss modulating contrast with different paper developers. I wonder if it would respond to a "Selectrol" developer.

[Ginette]

The technical info of the FB is here http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2010421151622042.pdf

This is a good news that Ilford develop such new papers. They should put a feedback on their site that we express our appreciation.

[nolindan]

continuous ortho positive film...

Ultrafine duplicating film:
http://www.ultrafineonline.com/ulcotodufi.html

I've used the stuff for making salted paper prints and cyanotypes and it works well for both. The film is made for duping x-rays and the base is heavily tinted.

[David de Gruyl]

Ultrafine duplicating film:
http://www.ultrafineonline.com/ulcotodufi.html

I've used the stuff for making salted paper prints and cyanotypes and it works well for both. The film is made for duping x-rays and the base is heavily tinted.

How do you determine exposure? (I assume you are using an enlarger)
Also, How do you develop it?

[EdWorkman]

I've used that xray dupe since Kodak's disappeared. It takes some testing to get a good exposure. And I've been thru that again as the last box i got differed from the earlier- seems maybe 50% faster. I deal with a variety of negs ca. 70 years old, shot by many different individuals so the overall density varies from thin to boilerplate, as does contrast. I have contacted negs under the enlarger without lens and tried enlarged negs. The "current" film, which I bought at least a coupla years ago seems to be fast enough for enlarging, albeit at exposures measured in minutes. I have also tried contrast control [reduction] by preflashing. As I don't have precise control over the flash I flash a sheet and cut strips to test leaving enough for the final exposure on a piece that is from the same preflash. Seemed to kindof work. It's easily developed in paper developer, although film develpoers allow for reduced contrast and longer development times. In paper developer I have trouble with mottling at 60 sec or less, so greater dilution or film developer is easier to work with. my results have varied from stellar to OMG, and probly only part of the OMG can be blamed on the original. BTW, I have used enlarging to locally modify contrast by dodging and burning. It can be a pain with 5 minute exposures, as in several tries times 5 minutes. Practice makes better if not perfect. The film is Thomas safelight safe and notched for emulsion side. The emulsion is softer than ILfodak film, but I don't have as much trouble as I do with the two-side neg film.

[EdWorkman]

And another thing
I wonder if Ilford has considered a glossy CONTACT paper for those of us who need practice before we ruin Lodima, or like me, have yet to produce an image worthy of lodima.

[samwang]

The biggest problem with this paper is the contrast - it's available as grade 3-1/2 to 4, almost unusable except in extremely low contrast situations.

These days, one good way to do pinhole is still with paper negatives - thankfully enlarging papers are still available (though grades 0 and 1 are long gone). At the pinhole workshop I taught here in Nanjing, China, last week, in lieu of scanning the paper negatives, we simply photographed them with a digital camera, reversed tonality and orientation, fixed with curve adjustment in Photoshop, and output with an Epson printer. Great results - students were introduced to the darkroom for the first time, and got very excited working with images from a cardboard tea box or can.

Sam

[Wallace_Billingham]

What would be sweet would be for Ilford to make a batch of paper for paper negs that was cut to fit standard sheet film holders. It is a real pain to trim them to do so

[Keith Tapscott.]

The biggest problem with this paper is the contrast - it's available as grade 3-1/2 to 4, almost unusable except in extremely low contrast situations.

SamI am sure that someone could design a suitable developer that will help to optimise tone reproduction.

[dave_whatever]

Ahem ... Lomos may be "cheap plastic crappy thing", but they use rollfilm, which, during its manufacture, is often cut from the same master rolls from which we get large format sheet film; or, at least, the profits from the selling of rollfilm to Lomo and Holga users helps underwrite the expense of manufacturing master rolls of sheet film.

I'm not sure this is true, at least for the emulsions I've seen datasheets for (Fuji and Kodak E6 films) 120 and sheet film are manufactured on entirely different bases.

[Robert Skeoch]

So I put a sheet of paper into my 8x10 film holder. I make a one-of-a-kind original portrait that I develop in the darkroom and sell as exclusive.
What's not to like about this. Something unique that a photographer can charge a premium for.
-rob

[Daniel_Buck]

So I put a sheet of paper into my 8x10 film holder. I make a one-of-a-kind original portrait that I develop in the darkroom and sell as exclusive.
What's not to like about this. Something unique that a photographer can charge a premium for.
-rob

I would agree, it's kind of fun, some folks like knowing that there isn't a negative and when they have the print, they have the only print that can't be re-produced without scanning the original. I myself kind of like this, not for any exclusivity reasons, but just because I think it's more of a challenge, and more fun I think.

But the only thing that's keeping me from using positive paper more often, is the crazy amount of contrast I get when developing!

[ic-racer]

So I put a sheet of paper into my 8x10 film holder. I make a one-of-a-kind original portrait that I develop in the darkroom and sell as exclusive.
What's not to like about this. Something unique that a photographer can charge a premium for.
-rob

People may subliminally like it better than a 'standard' photographic portrait, because it will be the image of themselves they see in the mirror.

[JoeV]

I've used the Efke positive paper and have done a considerable amount of "testing" with it, to determine the best ratio of in-camera exposure to preflash exposure. What I've found suggests that it has considerable reciprocity failure, worse even than many films. For reference, conventional paper negatives have virtually no reciprocity failure up to exposure times of at least several minutes, so they can sometimes end up being faster in pinhole cameras than using sheet film.

With the Efke positive paper I found the only reliable method of getting a repeatably good exposure was to calibrate the preflash and in-camera exposure to one set of times, and always use that same exposure time and preflash amount. Then you compensate for variations in subject brightness by the aperture.

One thing I haven't tried is low-contrast developers, like Soemarko's, which some have reported works well with taming the inherently high contrast of Freestyle's Arista APHS ortho litho film.

One other tip about controlling contrast is, instead of using pinhole lenses, shoot these intrinsically high-contrast papers with a glass (or otherwise adapted refractive) lens near wide open; the soft, out-of-focus areas of the image will naturally tame the excess contrast of the emulsion. This works surprisingly well; pinhole images are often an extreme test of contrast control, because you never get enough out-of-focus areas (unless the pinhole is the size of a pencil).

~Joe

EDIT: I've done so much "testing" with my pack of Efke direct positive paper, compared to the number of "keeper" images, that I've decided that this is the business model chosen by Efke, to ensure maximum usage by making the paper as difficult as possible to work with. ;)

I'm only (slightly) joking. I have a similar suspicion about the Impossible Project's instant films.

[sapata]

I think this is great just for its education value. When I was in Indonesia recently i made a red light out of a plastic sandwich box, and made and developed contacts in a closet for my nieces and nephews, and they were entranced watching the images appear. It would be very easy to do something similar with homemade pinhole cameras and this paper in schools. Real missionary work...

While in this photography event in Paraty, Brazil ( http://paratyemfoco.com/blog/ ) a month ago I met these guys from "Cidade Invertida" or in english "Inverterd City".

The project consists in a camper trailer transformed in a big pinhole camera and dark room where people could walk inside and see how a basic camera works. You're then invited to see the image projected in a large white wall and from there, play a bit with the focus by changing the stops (a cheap lens can also be placed instead the pinhole). You can choose the size o the paper and photograph by exposing for a few seconds the positive Ilford paper. The result can be seen "instantly" since the trailer also works as a dark room.

The whole thing might be familiar to the most of us but some people (specially the digital generation ) still don't have a clue how it works. The "Cidade Invertida" go around Brazil in association with museums and cultural/social projects, teaching traditional photography to people from either University level and schools.

I'm intending to use soon, I have a Petzval lens finally mounted in my 4x5 and because the ISO is very slow should work better.

Has anyone used here already ? Any tips ? Can I use Rodinal to develop ?

[Bill_1856]

How does one process the stuff?

[sapata]

The trailer has a space for the trays with chemicals
so everything is processed inside.

[Thalmees]

http://harmantechnologynews.com/2IQ-4GVU-77VU59V96/cr.aspx
These can be used for pinhole cameras and in some film-sheet holders.

Thanks.

[Greg_Thomas]

I've used the Efke positive paper and have done a considerable amount of "testing" with it, to determine the best ratio of in-camera exposure to preflash exposure. What I've found suggests that it has considerable reciprocity failure, worse even than many films. For reference, conventional paper negatives have virtually no reciprocity failure up to exposure times of at least several minutes, so they can sometimes end up being faster in pinhole cameras than using sheet film.

With the Efke positive paper I found the only reliable method of getting a repeatably good exposure was to calibrate the preflash and in-camera exposure to one set of times, and always use that same exposure time and preflash amount. Then you compensate for variations in subject brightness by the aperture.

One thing I haven't tried is low-contrast developers, like Soemarko's, which some have reported works well with taming the inherently high contrast of Freestyle's Arista APHS ortho litho film.

One other tip about controlling contrast is, instead of using pinhole lenses, shoot these intrinsically high-contrast papers with a glass (or otherwise adapted refractive) lens near wide open; the soft, out-of-focus areas of the image will naturally tame the excess contrast of the emulsion. This works surprisingly well; pinhole images are often an extreme test of contrast control, because you never get enough out-of-focus areas (unless the pinhole is the size of a pencil).

~Joe

EDIT: I've done so much "testing" with my pack of Efke direct positive paper, compared to the number of "keeper" images, that I've decided that this is the business model chosen by Efke, to ensure maximum usage by making the paper as difficult as possible to work with. ;)

I'm only (slightly) joking. I have a similar suspicion about the Impossible Project's instant films.

Impossible Project is definitely milking the market with their sell everything they produce no matter how bad it performs attitude. To their credit they do put well written disclaimers on their films.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to your review of the Ilford paper!

[Vlad Soare]

How does this paper work? How does it give a positive image without resorting to a reversal process? :confused:

[CCB]

Is the Ilford paper available from a stateside retailer?

The problem I have with the Efke paper is that it is not consistent
from batch to batch.

[zcary]

I tried this paper, and its crazy in contrast.

Havent done any pre-flashing yet, i lost interest.

I rated the speed of the paper to about ISO 4-6.

Maybe its more useful if the contrast could be tamed, or if youre looking for really dramatic effects.

Also the paper needs to be cut to the right size before it can be loaded into a standard film holder.

[Brian Ellis]

Two options that I can think of: first is scanning and the second is "paper negative" which sort of requires a negative. In the case of positive paper, you can make the FB paper translucent and print through it, but it would require an internegative, I think.

It seems like a long an grueling process to get to the stage that a film negative leaves you right off the bat. I understand the reasoning behind using paper negatives in pnihole cameras, if you do not already have the inclination to deal with / waste film, but you might as well use regular paper for that.

Why is it a "long and grueling process." As I understand it, this is just like a paper negative except it's a positive paper - put the paper in the camera, make a photograph, process the paper. No need for a negative, no inter-negative, no scanning (though I guess you could if you wanted to make some adjustments, just as you can scan any print). Not that processing film (or a paper negative) is that big a deal but this paper does eliminate that step (plus the cost of the film) so it shouldn't be long and grueling. But perhaps I misunderstood my quick reading of the announcement.

[Keith Tapscott.]

I tried this paper, and its crazy in contrast.

Havent done any pre-flashing yet, i lost interest.

I rated the speed of the paper to about ISO 4-6.

Maybe its more useful if the contrast could be tamed, or if youre looking for really dramatic effects.

Also the paper needs to be cut to the right size before it can be loaded into a standard film holder.This might be of interest.
http://www.thewebdarkroom.com/?p=509

[Philippe Grunchec]

Do you think film developer would tame the contrast and keep good blacks?

[deadpan]

I met an Ilford employee last week. He had some samples of this paper that had been shot (by some students) on a Sinar 8x10. The result was impressive (really good tonal range), and looked fantastic (it was pearl fiber paper).

On the back of the image was all the pre flashing notes (it was something like 13 seconds @ F11 on an enlarger!)

I have no idea if the paper I was shown will fit in a holder straight off, but my ilford RC paper fits right in with no trimming needed (8x10)



I tried this paper, and its crazy in contrast.

Havent done any pre-flashing yet, i lost interest.

I rated the speed of the paper to about ISO 4-6.

Maybe its more useful if the contrast could be tamed, or if youre looking for really dramatic effects.

Also the paper needs to be cut to the right size before it can be loaded into a standard film holder.

[sapata]

I fiinally had a chance to use the Ilford Positive paper. I loaded 3 dark slides and did a few shots around my flat to test.

I did no pre-flash, just took the reading with the light meter set at ISO4 and had a go.

The result is only one decent shot printed. Considering I don't have a dark room, I own one tray and the paper were processed with Rodinal, I guess it's not so bad. The 2nd shot it's ok only after adjustments in photoshop but the originals are either too dark or too bright...

I'd love to hear criticism and suggestions... Thanks !