contact printing ??

[Alan9940]

That sort of turned me off of using Azo...I felt I needed to retreat to a safe room like the X-Ray technicians do, before I turn the light on. Of course I just got done with a four hour exposure under a 750W Mercury vapor lamp (carbon printing) -- but those lamps are out in the garage where I don't have to look at them. My neighbors think I grow weed probably (I don't...that'd be coals to Newcastle).

LOL! My wife gets a big kick out of me wearing sunglasses in the darkroom when I contact print. That's a really friggin BRIGHT light!

[Duolab123]

That sort of turned me off of using Azo...I felt I needed to retreat to a safe room like the X-Ray technicians do, before I turn the light on. Of course I just got done with a four hour exposure under a 750W Mercury vapor lamp (carbon printing) -- but those lamps are out in the garage where I don't have to look at them. My neighbors think I grow weed probably (I don't...that'd be coals to Newcastle).

I have an old Arkay Speed Dodge contact printer, I rarely use it. It has the argon lamps, something like 16 of them, each on an individual switch. Typical Azo exposures range from 2 to 7 seconds. These things were made to make huge volumes of commercial single weight 8x10 glossy prints. It does seem a bit brutal. There were all kinds of these printers in the heyday of large format portraits and commercial work. Folks that knew how to set lighting ratios and such didn't need to dodge anything, negatives were exposed and developed the same, made printing a simple process.

[j.e.simmons]

I always thought the idea of using the high powered floodlight came from Michael A. Smith who was shooting old, fogged XX film. There was lots of talk of negative density on the old Azo Forum. I found a less dense, but full contrast negative to print just fine on Azo with a regular 60-watt bulb in a reflector about 18-inches above the paper. I usually made 30-45 second exposures.

[jnantz]

Attachment 231402 Here are the 2 I finally managed to get, the darker one was for 3 seconds and for the other I bounced the light off the ceiling for 4 seconds. I see these you tube vids where they have the bulb hanging above the print and seems to take much longer?

nice !

if you have trouble with contract control with your film and not being able to use contrast filters, you might consider a double bath developer, it works great. if you can stick a light source in place of your camera's ground glass you can get a better control of your light converting your camera to an enlarger so you can use f-stops and have a way to mount contrast filters. you could probably just buy a LED that people use for their "perfect zoom meeting lighting" and it would work well, and there wouldn't be any heat to foul your lenses. might be cheaper still to buy a garage sale enlarger if you have the money and or room.

[Tin Can]

Mythical AZO

so many 'musts'

I go my way

I have seen Michael and Paula prints in person at one of the last exhibitions

Highland Park

http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/index.php

[Tin Can]

https://www.lodima.org/