To my eye, Lupex is quite a bit warmer than Lodima; both developed in MAS Amidol formula. However, I agree that when viewing a Lupex print on its own, it will tend to look neutral.
To my eye, Lupex is quite a bit warmer than Lodima; both developed in MAS Amidol formula. However, I agree that when viewing a Lupex print on its own, it will tend to look neutral.
Greetings, Bob -Originally Posted by bob carnie
I am not familiar with Lupex, having cut my teeth on earlier contact papers, Lustrex, Contactone, and Azo. Azo was kind of the last man standing, and gained popularity through the promotion of Michael Smith. He said it was Dody Weston Thompson, Edward Weston's last assistant, who told him his prints lacked something, and suggested Amidol and a silver-chloride paper; he chose Azo. As you may know, Michael made a large purchase of the remaining stock of Azo from Kodak, and used it for many years until his personal stock was depleted. And then, with his great energy and ambition to continue with Amidol and a silver-chloride paper, he pursued the manufacture of Lodima with great success.
So, your question was about developers. Twenty years ago I used my 1906 Amidol with some Azo I got from Michael, and obtained the predictable results. I used Cole's (Weston) formula for the Amidol developer, but that was a personal choice. I was doing a great deal of projection printing at the time and also tried the Ansco 130 (Glycin) developer (slightly modified) with Azo. I liked the result. Ansco 130 is my favorite print developer with the current choice of papers.
I know that you like the work of Brett Weston, who was a strictly Amidol man up to the last years of his life. He switched to LPD, with his usual stunning results. You may want to also consider this as a developer.
Back to Lupex, I have heard that the contrast needs to be tamed; Michael said of Lupex, the grade #3 was similar to his Lodima grade #4. As to print color, that can be modified by knowledge of how chemicals within a formula interact; Potassium Bromide and Benzotriazole are your friends!
Sounds like a fun project.
Best,
Merg
I have used Ilford Bromophen with Azo and Fomalux. I like the results. Another paper to consider is Fomatone. It's got quite a bit of silver chloride in the emulsion. It tones like crazy. Kodak Blue toner (gold) gives a define slate blue.
Thanks Merg. and all others , we are purchasing this paper 16 x 20 in size and I will discuss this with the young man driving this idea and we will try a few of the developers suggested .. The Bergger large roll ortho film is really stupid expensive at this point, so the only niche options I can see for it in my world is to take a Contact paper like Lupex and make Silver negatives off my Lambda.. I believe this will be an incredible mixture, most of my current clients are using high end Phase One equivalent cameras so the tonality , crispness , contrast of this combination should be superior to Inkjet to Ilford Warmtone contacts that I am currently doing, Right now in the middle of a show of work from the 60's where I am using Ilford Warmtone semi matt with inkjet negs made from the original scanned negatives. I have done a lot of work in this field lately and I think it may be a way for silver papers to still be relevant in our modern times... using custom made negatives allows me to do all the work on screen and make negatives that are incredibly accurate to the screen once I find the sweet spot on the enlarger contact setup. One would say go with the existing negatives, but with historical work this is not always possible as the amount of paper wastage getting to a final print, ( it takes me 6 sheets minimum) and the current price of silver paper makes enlarger printing only for a select few projects... not to mention anyone using digital now can have silver prints. With the ortho film and Lupex I think I may satisfy my print sniffing attitude as well be able to introduce a lot of young workers to this form of print for their projects.
I will take a couple of I phone pics of my set up as I print this week to show how I am using old and new.
Can't wait to read of your results, Bob. I think that tailored digital negatives combined with Lupex is going to be a wonderful combo. The contrast of Lupex is definitely an aspect of printing that requires consideration, but a custom made digital negative should easily mitigate any issues in this regard.
Mas amidol. The Lupex is a little contrastier than azo 3 so the option to use a water bath comes in handy.
Tried the water bath technique, but it didn't prove all that successful for me. The best technique I've found for taming inherent contrast of Lupex is David Kachel's SLIMT. This allows me to knock the contrast back just a tad more than the water bath. You can, of course, get quite drastic with SLIMT, but I just want to take the "edge" off. I will admit that it takes more work to pull a Lupex print that really sings, but, when ya get it right, it's a beautiful thing!
I am using digital silver negatives that are calibrated to paper dev combo... no need for water bath .
I have a print from a digital negative by Tim Layton using Lupex and in a variation of Weston's amidol recipe, I think. It has citric acid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPjUQUoOYM Compares it to MGIV contact print.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks