Anything Ansel Adams said about cold lights would be about as relevant these days as Purina Stegosaurus Chow. Colorheads make VC printing very convenient; but I do know how to do the same thing on a cold light using split printing technique, among numerous other tricks. The V54 cold light is blue-green. Yellow filters would attenuate some of the blue and facilitate low contrast, while magenta attenuates green and facilitates high contrast. That can be simply dialed in on a colorhead, in a fully variable manner. What a V54 cold light is particularly good at when split printing is use of a deep green versus deep blue filter. Get high-quality glass ones for over the lens usage, just like you would for a camera. Most of the time my negatives are exposed and developed correctly enough that I don't any supplementary filtration. Or I might just need to tweak a little with one filter or another after the primary plain-light exposure. It's all fun and worthwhile with respect to the learning curve.
I'm not clear on which tube you are getting from Louise; is it the V54? For the past twenty years I have been using the Aristo D2-Hi V54 tube with a 750 Dimmer and 1200 Contactor. The price at the time for the tube was $240. I have been very happy with this set-up. Perhaps I should check with Louise for a replacement to have on hand. Hope the new tube works out for you. I needed the dimmer to obtain longer exposure times with this bright light.
I really like the high-output V54 because I do frequently split-print using very deep 47 blue and 58 green filters, sometimes with the added density of a sandwiched unsharp mask. But at other times, that degree of light output has to be tamed. A sheet of neutral density lighting gel above the negative carrier will do that. But that's on one of my 8x10 units. My ole D2 is currently headless.
Looks like Tiffen does. Interesting idea too of using straight blue or green over say the Ilford filters for extreme split grade printing. That lets a lot of light pass through I take it (over the Ilford filters)?
Not necessarily. I use above-the-negative blue and green Rosco filters and the transmission of the blue one is really low, though it does seem maybe a half stop faster than an Ilford #5 filter with my V54-equipped Aristo head. The green filter is Rosco #389, the blue one is Rosco #68. Steve Sherman told me about these. I got both filters from Adorama, about $7 each for a 20x24 sheet.Interesting idea too of using straight blue or green over say the Ilford filters for extreme split grade printing. That lets a lot of light pass through I take it (over the Ilford filters)?
Last edited by Steve Goldstein; 16-Jan-2019 at 10:54. Reason: Additional information, add quote for context.
FWIW, one several VC papers (Fomabrom 111, MC-110 and Bergger Prestige), I can get more contrast using a #47 blue filter than I can using maximum magenta filtration with my Chromega heads. I use this rarely, but when I need it, it's handy to have. I use Wratten gels and a filter holder below the lens for this.
Best,
Doremus
So cool, I just never considered going with straight blue and green but it makes total sense (and is what LED heads do as was as I recall?). I think the only thing I'm worried about is the fact that the V54 doesn't emit any red (e.g. to help with composing, not for anything related to the paper). If I do an LED head I think I'll include some red LEDs for that purpose (maybe that can be turned off during exposure). But maybe I won't miss it that much *shrug*
Since you mention Bergger, can I ask what you think of it? As I recall they only do FB paper and I'm still using RC. I wanted to try FB later this year perhaps. Big issue is I don't have a great way to clean FB prints in my darkroom as well so I'll need to figure out another solution. But I like Pancro 400 enough that their papers peaked my interest.
58 green and 47 blue filters are sharp cutting, and very dense. 47B is even darker. If you were exposing a typical pan film, a 58 green would require three stops of compensation, a 47 blue, generally four stops. So visually, it's kinda hard to dodge and burn using these unless your primary light source is rather bright. But that certainly doesn't mean printing times will be significantly slowed down. Quite the contrary. That's because the high-contrast layer of VC papers is specifically blue sensitive, and the low-contrast layer, green sensitive. So blocking ALL of the other color light does not have the same effect as it does with human visual sensitivity. Tiffen still makes em, as well as Formatt, I believe. Gels can also still be readily found; but I prefer glass. But of course, using less intense blue or green filters will allow at least some of the other color light through, and work much like progressively deep magenta or yellow filters.
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