Oreintal Photo Papers?

[mygreycard]

Anyone have any experience using Oreintal Photo Papers? I have been out of touch with what papers are good to use. I used to use Agfa years ago, but sadly found out that they are not making it any more.

http://www.orientalphotousa.com/ns_vc_rcII.htm

[memorris]

I have uses the neutral tone and warmtone Oriental papers. They are good paper. The blacks in the neutral tone paper are very black. The warmtone has a nice richness. I do find however that the Ilford warmtone is a richer paper and have switched to it for almost all of my printing. I recently saw some prints made by Jodie Forster on the new Adox paper and it seems like it may rival the Ilford Warmtone paper.

[Bruce Douglas]

I used Oriental Seagull graded papers back in the 1980s and loved it. I have recently started using their variable contrast cold tone fiber based paper.
I think I am finally getting the nice neutral tone and dense blacks from it that I want. I need to work with it some more.

It is definitely worth a try and last time I checked it was reasonably priced, in a relative sense!

Bruce Douglas

[Michael Graves]

To my eyes, Oriental VC-FB is an excellent neutral paper. I did not care for their warm tone. The two papers I favor most are the Adox MC and the Oriental VC. Each is slightly different in print color after toned in selenium, the Oriental being slightly cooler, while the Adox takes on more of the typical selenium color. My VC cold light head give me just a bit more contrast at maximum hard on the Oriental, the Adox can go VERY soft if I need it to.

[Drew Wiley]

If you're thinking of the old Oriental Seagull graded bromide papers, the current version
has a similar look and toning characteristics, but seems to have a little less snap, and
hasn't been successful in Grade 4 (grades 2 and 3 are fine). The VC paper has improved dramatically, but there are other VC papers out there, both warm and cold
tone, which I personally prefer to any of the current Oriental products. This is a great
time for high-quality silver papers, and the best VC fiber papers are now fully equal to any of the classic graded papers, or in my opinion, even better.

[Kevin Crisp]

The VC-FB is a very nice paper capable of deep blacks. I like it toned in selenium and not. It tones rapidly in selenium in just a couple minutes even if you use the "archival" dilution. It doesn't have the occasional quality control problems of my frozen stock of Forte.

The graded 2 and 3 have been fine too, haven't tried the grade 4. It keeps a really long time in the fridge.

[DanK]

I use Oriental VC FB and prefer it over Ilford Galerie MG, and the older Agfa MCC. The VC Coldtone FB is my primary - deep blacks, crisp whites, seems to have a full range for my printing (cold light) - it also tones very well. Selenium appears to slightly increase the range of the paper, but I prefer Sepia, and it performs very well in Patterson Sepia (although out of production - I'll have to find a replacement soon)

The Warmtone FB MG, is also excellent - similar to the cold tone in properties, I just prefer to add my 'warmth' through toning....I have used this paper (warm tone) for Lith printing with excellent results (the cold tone doesn't work as well with Lith.)

Thanks,
Dan

[Arne Croell]

I used to use Agfa years ago, but sadly found out that they are not making it any more.


The direct successor of Agfa MCP and MCC are the Adox MCP and MCC papers available from Freestyle. Essentially the same emulsions made by former Agfa employees, in the case of MCC on a white base instead of the Agfa off-white one.

[tgtaylor]

Lately I have been using 8x10 Oriental VC-RCII Paper for work prints. It's an excellent paper with a decent amount of silver and the price is right: Just $50/100 sheet box from B&H. No exposure correction is needed for grades 2 to 3.5 which makes choosing the right grade for the print a snap once the exposure is settled on. Also I found that the density and exposure on the RC version translates to the Oriental fibre version.

The other day I was on the Oriental website and noticed a statement that the current emulsion is the same as the emulsion AA used for his masterpieces. AA, I'm sure, used the graded fiber version. Does anyone know what grade he used for his "masterpieces" such as Moonrise? Also I assume that like myself he started an image using a Grade 2 and once the correct exposure was found evaluated the visual effect that a different grade would bring to the image. Does anyone know his work flow? I don't believe that graded paper comes or came in half-grades so it would have been difficult to print in a half grade without VC paper.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

That would be a pretty misleading impression, Tom. Most of AA's printing was done prior
to Seagull G Bromide being on the market. He did use it sometimes later in life, and of course mentioned it in some of his how-to books pulished around that time. But the version
of G involved is long gone. Various grades would have been selected depending on the image. The later rendition of G (just being phased out now), as well as the graded versions
of Seagull (there have been several) came out after his death. The image tone characteristics have been maintained per common dev and sel toner etc, but otherwise
not the same thing. I still have a bit of the original G paper in 20X24. Guess I should use
it before it goes bad.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh ... workflow. I only know from the books he was apparently more comfortable starting
with a softer grade (2) and working toward higher contrast from there. I have never done
it that way myself, and never even bothered buying Grade 2. Grade 3 seemed to bag 90% of anything I printed without futzing around.

[Tony Lakin]

Ansel varied the contrast with fixed grade papers by adding small amounts of Selectol soft developer to his standard Dektol developer as described in his book 'The Print' Beers divided developer can be used for the same purpose, also techniques such as pre flashing and water bath development can be used either seperately or combined, selenium toning will also increase contrast slightly, so great control of contrast is possible but not as convenient as printing on VC papers.

[Robert Bowring]

I have been using Oriental FB VC paper for a long time and have found it to be an excellent choice. It works well with my Aristo Variable Contrast head. It really tones well in Selenium.