Wasn't that what he intended the last time?Originally Posted by John Bowen
Wasn't that what he intended the last time?
Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com
Not to throw cold water on a hot iron, but has anyone addressed the issue as to the warranty this new paper may carry? I would certainly be interested in trying any new paper, but I would never venture more than one box to begin with. Buying $5-10K worth of an unproven paper is way beyond a risk that I would undertake without some guarantee, in writing, as to the long-term storage of such a product.
Does anyone know the keeping properties of Lodima? Please correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that Kodak Azo was one, if not the only, silver chloride paper that had good keeping properties. It is well proven that Azo keeps very well for over forty years, but what guarantee as to keeping properties do you get with Lodima? I have not seen any guarantee?
This is a completely new product, with untested and unproven keeping properties. What happens if my $10K stock of Lodima should go bad after a few years in storage? Do I get a refund? Do I get replacement paper? Or, am I just out of luck? There are far too many unanswered questions to risk a large sum of money without some sort of understand as to who stands behind the product and what the terms are in case something goes wrong. Just something to consider. I would certainly be interested in purchasing one box of 8x10 to test. I will not be sending $10k!
John, Sandy king is in your neck of the woods and is a master carbon printer. You should do yourself a favor and get a hold of Sandy and see what I mean. I will still use some Lodima as I know the quality that Michael and Paula demand. There are images that are not as well presented in carbon as they would be on a silver chloride paper. Lately my series on the survival of the Black Oak in Yosemite on carbon are outstanding. I have printed some of these images on Azo and even though they are nice they do not even come close to my carbon prints. Bold statement I know, but take a look at Sandy's prints and then tell me I'm wrong.
Jim
Will it work in my Epson 7900 ?
Lodima is for contact printing negatives...in a darkroom...but go ahead. I'm sure it'll go through your Epson just fine after you've fixed it.
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Hard to believe people still do that in 2009.
Doug,
Some of us are still using big wooden cameras to produce the negatives that we use for contact printing, amazing eh!
Pete
Blacky,
Somewhere, either here, APUG or most likely on the Azo Forum, MAS has addressed the keeping properties of Lodima. They have run "advanced aging" tests to determine if the paper would keep over extended periods. Keep in mind, the largest purchaser of this paper will be MAS and he certainly would want it to keep for a while. I know the fall order of Lodima was limited to 250 boxes, so perhaps you could not participate at that time. But at least 250 of us have had the opportunity to try Lodima in our own darkrooms. Many folks were upset about the disappearance of Grade 3 Azo, and the initial run of Lodima was nearly identical to grade 3 Azo, except the Lodima was more than 1 stop faster.
No, I wouldn't expect someone who wasn't familiar with silver chloride emulsions to make a large purchase, but if you decide to purchase a single box in grade 2 and grade 3, you will be helping the cause. For that we are all appreciative. There are many folks in the contact printing world that are familiar with Azo, I would hope this group would stretch a bit so they would be ordering more than a single box in each grade. For this to come to fruition we will need those folks full participation.
Azo wasn't the only silver chloride emulsion with extended keeping properties, Haloid and Convira are two others I have tried and they held up well for being 50+ years old. I believe the extended shelf life is a characteristic of Silver Chloride emulsions.
I happen to be in a position to do a little more to support this effort and I have chosen to do so. Where as your fears are that the paper may not keep, my fear is that this only happens once and if we don't buy it now we may never have the chance to order it again. Had MAS been able to stockpile a lifetime supply of Azo for himself, this project may never have even been conceived. I don't expect MAS to make the same mistake twice. I expect he will purchase his lifetime supply now. I don't know, but I expect he will. I intend to purchase my lifetime supply now. What if the current manufacturer goes out of business? What if some crucial ingredient to the emulsion is no longer available? What if MAS can't get enough orders for a 2nd run?
With regards to the contrast level of the inital run, I was able to get a print that came very close to Rochester Grade 2. This took a rather severe water bath where I had something like 5 or 7 seconds in the Amidol followed by the waterbath. The details of my experience are posted on the Azo forum. The point is, the paper is very versitile and contrast can be controlled via waterbath if you use Amidol as your developer
Jim,
Yes, I am very much aware of Sandy, but I have never seen a Carbon print. I own Sandy's Carbon/Carbo book. With my limited time to devote to photography these days (2 teenagers) I prefer to use Azo/Lodima to "coating my own." Once I get a little closer to retirement, I intend to learn the carbon process.
Best,
John, I will say that with my Thomas safe light wide open and seeing the Azo image come up in Amidol is pure heaven. Printing on Lodima will be the same, I'm sure of it. Yes, it does take a lot of time to do the carbon thing, a lot of time, and now that my son's are almost done with college I have more time to devote to my work. Lodima will be in my stockpile.
Jim
I couldn't agree more. The Thomas safe light sure makes life in the darkroom much more pleasant!
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