Imago Direct latent image retention

[locutus]

Hi all,

I have been shooting some Imago Direct indoors for 'still life practice' and i find that aesthetically i like this material, so now i want to take this outside.

From reading the instructions one thing worries me, they state that development should be immediately after exposure.

How critical is this in practice? For example if i develop my exposures 24 hours later how will that affect the resulting image?

Currently i develop inside of a daylight tank with a mod54 and with 4 minutes development time in Macoprint i get both clean blacks and whites and exposures look fine (within the 'latitude' and spectral sensitivity of this paper...) This would however rule out development-by-inspection.

If i delay processing after exposure would i need longer developing time or otherwise compensate?

If someone has some experience and tips to share, it would be greatly appreciated :-)

[Ted R]

The data sheet for this product states that processing should be immediate following exposure. How to interpret this? Minutes of time are probably not a problem. One hour might be a problem. In my personal opinion 24 hours is not immediate. Perhaps you can ask the manufacturer? It will depend to some extent on storage conditions. This is something that would be easy to test with an experimental exposure of two frames, one is processed immediately, one is held for 24 hours unprocessed and then processed using the same conditions, compare the two frames.

[locutus]

Yup, i guess i will just have to try with the same exposure on 2 sheets and develop them 24 hours apart. Emailing the manufacturer is also a bit difficult as they dont really have their own website (as far as i could find).

However the emulsion is supposedly the same as Ilford Harmon DPP (from looking at the data sheets the spectral sensitivity graphs are exactly the same) so i could ask them about retention expectations on their paper.

I'll shoot them an email and if i get a reply i will write here, if someone else has some experience with this please let tell :-)

[Mark Sampson]

Looks like you're boldly going where no man has gone before... not easy to do in 2016. Post your results when you have any!

[locutus]

Post your results when you have any!

Any.....Now there is a challenger! :-D

I plan to go to my local 'protected nature park' (read: the swampy forest with paths near my house) as soon as weather permits, shoot some sheets during the day and process them in the evening, lets see if this is practically viable......

[locutus]

I had a day out and shot 6 sheets of Imago on a stormy baltic coast.

Firstly; i shot every composition with both a EI of 1.5 and 3, this was obviously wrong.

All shots came out heavily overexposed complete whites with only very faint ghost images. The borders are perfectly black, so i guess the processing was fine.


The image that had the most legible image on it was:



Imago FB, EI 3, F/22, 8 Seconds, Fujinon 180mm

I shot all sheets between 12:00 and 15:00 and processed them at 19:00, i'm not sure if the delay itself had any effect as i would expect that if it had i would actually not have had perfect whites.

processing followed:

Maco Ecoprint 1+9 4 minutes using a Mod54, initial agitation and then one inversion every minute. Stop and Fix as for normal FB paper.


I'll try some more sheets soon but then at EI6, and i fear i have to read into the esoterica of preflashing. Another thing to try is to use a 3 stop grad ND.

[Jac@stafford.net]

I truly appreciate this thread. Great thanks to locutus for persevering.
I'm hooked!
.

[Mark Sampson]

Well, you're on the path now. Don't give up!

[locutus]

Thanks for the comments.

Atleast it is a fun path, there is a nice Polaroid style immediacy to it.