Direct camera exposure on Ilfochrome

[Philip Caithness]

Has anyone tried exposing via a camera directly onto Ilfochrome paper. In order to do this you would use a very large format camera (8x10 or greater) a nd a custom made 'film' back to hold the Ilfochrome paper.

You would be producing strictly one off images, but what would the quality be li ke? Would it be better than using a slide file. I'm just contemplating this as s omething to much around with.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Regards, Phil.

[Lars Åke Vinberg]

Isn't color paper for tungsten light? Unless I am mistaken, you would need a color correction filter for daylight (85B?)

[Ken Burns]

Phil:

Why would you need a custom made back? Why not just use a standard 8x10 film holder? You might have to trim the paper size a little bit, but you might not.

You definitely would have to make color corrections as mentioned above. An 85 series filter would be a good place to start, but some additional fine tuning of the color balance would probably be necessary. The Ilfochrome would have a very slow "film speed rating" so there would probably be fairly long exposure times that could result in some color shifts that you would have to correct for with CC filters. A little experimentation should take care of that.

The image you get will be reversed left to right, but that would be correctable by photographing a mirror image of the scene.

[Fender]

Phil,

Another issue is that, unlike film, the color balance in each packet of paper is slightly different. Before I went to a digital darkroom it used to take me 4 or 5 sheets to get the color calibrated each time I opened a fresh pack of paper.

-harry

[Pete Andrews]

I suspect that the contrast and colour saturation would be too low to be useful.Slide film has a mid-tone gamma of 2, and Ilfochrome is made to reproduce this exaggerated contrast, as well as being balanced for tungsten. The HC version might work.

[Erik Gould]

I've made pinhole camera images using ciba (ilfo) chrome in the past and got some fun results. I added the 85 blue filtration as was mentioned to get the stuff close to daylight balance, and my exposures were as one would expect very long. 60 min + as i recall. as far as being better than trans film, I would say no, but if you are interested in a unique look, and want to have fun, then yes. The image will be reversed too, like a d-type or tin type. signs will read backwards, etc.

[Sean Billy Bob Boy yates]

Hasn't Willie Anne Wright been doing this a good long while?

http://www.pinhole.com/exhibits/southland/statement.php3

[Gustavo]

If you care to see samples of something close to this google Carol Henry she does works that is similar to that, she exposes the paper via projection and then makes an LVP to make prints

[Gustavo]

http://carolhenry.com/

[jonsmith]

I have been doing it regularly. Here's a sample:



I use 85B or 85C filters. Sometimes I'll try one of each, and I usually prefer the 85B. I use ASA 3 which includes the filter factor.

Generally you need full sun for a nice image. Cloudy days don't look right, even if the exposure is correct. You almost can't give it enough exposure. When in doubt, give it more.

True, the image is backwards, but I scan them in, and could flip them if I wanted to. Generally I avoid having typography in a shot.

They usually need some color correction, but many look nice on the wall without it. Brown dirt tends to look pink. Blue skies and green trees look very nice.

Color balance is best towards sundown. Morning and mid-day tend to be off. Direct light hitting trees just before sundown is the best scenario.

I like the motion you get from wind blowing the foliage and things like that. Usually I use 4-5 second exposure. Sometimes as much as 1 minute if I want more depth of field.

I think it's just as reproducible as any other method today, just scan it in and print corrected copies digitally. That's how any lab would make prints for you.

I'll probably stop doing it though, because of the processing. The chemicals only last a month so I was saving up exposed sheets to do all at once, and trying to cram a lot of shooting into that month. Kind of hard for me, so I am going to stick to black and white for a while.