lodima paper - what's the deal with it

[HeinrichVoelkel]

Please my friends, explain it to me, what is the Lodima paper? Why? What can it do for me?????

Regards
Heinrich

[Wayne]

Its an Azo contact printing paper clone. It can make your photography look really good to yourself.;)

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

If you have a suitable UV copying process working....

[Brian Ellis]

Lodima is Amidol spelled backwards. It's a graded contact printing paper developed by Michael Smith to replace Azo when Kodak stopped making Azo. Some people like it a lot, I've never used it but I did use Azo. For my tastes Azo in Amidol was too warm.

[John Bowen]

Lodima is Amidol spelled backwards. It's a graded contact printing paper developed by Michael Smith to replace Azo when Kodak stopped making Azo. Some people like it a lot, I've never used it but I did use Azo. For my tastes Azo in Amidol was too warm.

Brian,

One of the beauties of AZO and Lodimas with amidol is the ability to vary the print color by reducing the Kbr to cool or increase the Kbr to warm the print. You can also add benzatriazole to cool the image tone.

Best,
John

[Drew Wiley]

John - that's a characteristic of many silver papers, not just chloride contact papers.
Of course, you might especially like a particular look you achieve this way with
Azo or Lodima, but in principle it can be done with KBr vs benzotriazole in many other cases, even with developers other than amidol. But it's nice you brought it up,
because it's a wonderful tool for fine-tuning image tone.

[Mark Sampson]

So, to answer the OP's question, Lodima is a b/w paper made for contact printing. It's too slow for enlarging, and was designed to replace Kodak Azo paper, which was discontinued by Kodak in 2005 after a 107-year production run. The photographers Michael A. Smith and his wife Paula Chamlee went to the effort to have Lodima designed and put into production, and they are the source for it. It's said to be very high quality (I haven't used any) and it's the only paper of its kind on the market. If you make large negatives and contact-print them, you should be capable of making beautiful prints on Lodima. I'd try it if I shot 8x10 or larger.

[Gem Singer]

www.michaelandpaula.com

Click on Azo and follow the writings about Lodima as a replacement for Azo.

[Daniel Stone]

its BEAUTIFUL paper. Spend $200 and get yourself the chemicals, and a 100sht box of G3 paper. Pyro negs work the best IMO, but I've made some great looking contact prints from general "enlarging" negatives(4x5's and 6x7cm), and they worked great.

contrast control:

using amidol with water bath development, you can tame almost any amount of contrast in an over-exposed/developed negative. Go ahead, develop your film to crazy ends, it can probably be recovered using this method :).Not always, but most of the time.

color of prints(mentioned above):
most people mix their own developer(amidol) from scratch, due to cost. It isn't a cheap developer, but being able to adjust the varying levels of KBr(up or down in amount) to achieve the right "color" for your tastes.

I've just began using this paper, but already, I'm producing prints that I've dreamed about in terms of tonal separation and overall quality. The surface of the paper is perfect, IMO, and the lighter paper stock(about 1 1/2 weight) is nice in the hand too :).

just try some, and you'll be able to "see" what we're referring too

-Dan

[Vlad Soare]

John - that's a characteristic of many silver papers, not just chloride contact papers.
Indeed, but to a much lesser degree.
That's one reason why people (myself included) mourn the death of Forte Polywarmtone. It was extremely responsive to small changes in development. I don't know of any enlarging paper currently in production that comes even close to Polywarmtone from this point of view, let alone to Azo or Lodima.
Chloride papers can look anything from olive to blue, while today's enlarging papers merely exhibit a slightly warmish or coldish tone.

Heinrich, people love silver chloride papers mostly because of their straight characteristic curve. This makes it much easier to get very deep blacks in your image, while at the same time preserving good separation and detail in the areas of "almost black". It also makes it easier to get good separation in the highlights. You can achieve this with ordinary enlarging papers, given a carefully chosen and lighted subject and some dodge/burn, but silver chloride papers make it much easier.
If you have a negative that you've struggled to print well on enlarging paper and you're still not completely satisfied, or feel that somehow it could be better, try to contact print it on Lodima, developed in amidol. You'll probably see a difference.

[Philippe Grunchec]

How does it compare with Fomalux FB 111?

[Shen45]

Can anyone who is using Lodima and shooting BTZS methods provide me with an ES for grade 2 and grade 3.

Steve

[Wayne]

Indeed, but to a much lesser degree.
That's one reason why people (myself included) mourn the death of Forte Polywarmtone. It was extremely responsive to small changes in development. I don't know of any enlarging paper currently in production that comes even close to Polywarmtone from this point of view, let alone to Azo or Lodima.

Indeed. And it doesnt need expensive amidol to produce beautiful prints. So I hope you and everyone else who misses it has registered/committed to buy more so that Adox can revive it. There is no obligation, but if enough people dont commit it wont happen.

Go here now ---> http://www.polywarmton.com/English/register.php

Really, as an enlarging paper with so many good qualities not found in other enlarging papers PWT must have a much wider appeal and potential consumer base than a contact printing paper, but people need to make their interest known to make it happen.

[Drew Wiley]

I used up the last of my Forte Polywarm last year, so can't make a direct comparison
with other papers I'm contact printing at the moment. I have plenty of Azo on hand,
but it's not my favorite stuff. Haven't tried Lodima yet, but in my case, there are other
ways to get even better midtone separation. Unsharp masking in even more versatile
with film than in PS, because you can fine-tune the micro-density over the full scale
of the print, and not just tune up the edge effects. Really, the micro-contrast has to
exist on the film first, and then you figure out how to make the print read it. The curve
structure of chloride papers makes this easier with "thick" negatives, which have been
developed for midtone and highlt expansion, but might blow of the highlight on a
conventional projection paper. But there's more than one way to skin a cat. And I've
found ways to get magnificent tones on papers other than Forte too, without the
occasional mfg flaws which sometimes existed on that paper. I'm not trying to convert
anyone away from chloride papers, which do tend to have their own look, but am just
implying that it's fun to explore the options. But frankly, I preferred the look to some
of the old time chloride papers to azo.

[Wayne]

I've got an open box of Azo in the freezer that I haven't touched in years in favor of my (rapidly vanishing) Forte papers. I'm not saying Azo/Lodima arent fine, just that if enough people bought it to make manufacturing that worthwhile then surely we can make a return of PWT, an equally excellent but more versatile paper, also worthwhile. If it sounds like I'm trying to get more people to commit to buying it, its because I AM!!! I'M RUNNING OUT!


OK I'll shut up now. :o

[Vlad Soare]

I did sign up for a couple of boxes of Polywarmtone as soon as I found out about the project. I can't remember when that happened. I think it was more than a year ago.
Every paper is nice in its own right, and I couldn't just pick one and stick with it. Lodima is great for some applications, but not for others. Polywarmtone was great for some pictures, not so great for others. I'd love to be able to choose just one paper and use it exclusively, but I don't think this will ever happen. :)