Re: Re: Enlarged negative methodology
tomf2468@usa.pipeline.com
Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:18:46 -0400
On Mon, Apr 29, 1996 1:49:44 PM, Richard Sullivan wrote:
>Jonathon Russell wrote:
>>It occurs to me that there may be as many ways to make enlarged
>>negatives as there are photographers trying to make them. Is it
>>possible for the group to list the many ways AND access the pros and
>>cons of each?
I've been enlarging 6x7cm and 4x5 inch color transparencies onto 11x14 inch
Illford HP5+ for (primarily) gum work and (occationally) platinum work.
Most of my platinum work is still life, so (echoing Richard Sullivan's
comment) I shoot it in an 8x10 or 11x14 camera. Most of my gum work is
field work (city scapes). Carrying an 11x14 around downtown Los Angeles is
not reasonable!
My method is to expose it with my coldlight enlarger. This gives
"reasonable" color levels for monochrome work. If you wanted to do true
color work, I'd suggest a condensor system with a filter to bring it to
daylight, or a color head and some experimentation with the filtering. An
added advantage to using HP5+ is that it seems less staticy than litho
films, and thus seems to attract less dust!
Here is my "secret" (assuming everyone else doesn't know it). Development.
I had been told when doing this type of work to use diluted paper
developer. The resulting developement times were too short, and the
resulting negs "mottled" and uneven. What I do now is to first give a 1
minute water bath, then 5:15 minutes in slightly dilute HC-110 (25ml of
pure concentrate to a liter of 70 degree F water), then transfer the neg to
normal strength paper developer for a period of time matching the final
contrast I need.
The HC-110 gives enough time to insure a non-mottled neg, and fully
developes the low and mid values. The paper developer stretches the
highlights out nicely. times in the paper developer (Zone 6 at 1:3 in my
case, but friends tell me that Kodak Dektol 1:1 works the same) are zero
for silver gelatin, 1:00 to 2:15 for gum (depends on color pigment), 1:15
for 50/50 Platinum/Palladium, 1:30 for Palladium. The biggest problem? I
can only get HP5+ up to 11x14, and I would love some 16x20. Of course,
then I would want a 16x20 camera, new lenses, .........
tomf2468@usa.pipeline.com (Tom Ferguson)