> After spending a lot of time and money and using a LOT of ortho-litho
> film I arrived at the following conclusion:
>
> I do not believe it is possible to produce the long scale negatives one
> needs to bring out the full capability of platinium or cyanotype
> printing (especially platinium) by using ortho-litho film. I finally
> gave in and went out a bought an 8 x 10 view camera and began using FP4
> with Terry's developer formula and am now a very happy camper. Its not
Bob, in my experience there's no contest about a contact print from many
films being crisper, more delicate, finer grained and finer detailed than
a negative enlarged from 35 mm (unless the original is on tech pan). And
your story shows exactly why I steer clear of platinum -- it forces you
into positions like that, I mean you end up lugging around 100 pounds of
camera.
Whether the attributes mentioned above are valuable or mere sugar coating
is a question I leave for another day, tho one I confess to some
ambivalence about. And the whole issue of whether there *is* such a thing
as a "proper," or "correct" technique, or simply a series of accepted and
time-bound conventional values is another question. (Like styles in
women's "beauty" -- read Quentin Crisp.)
The original question, tho, was (if memory serves) about film for
projection onto. I think here with some experience and effort a lith film
can give "continuous tone" film a good run for the money, tho some things,
like large even areas in film being developed to low contrast for gum,
give trouble.
However, do not forget that Photo Warehouse sells a "Commercial Film,"
which is an ortho (redlight safe) film made for continuous tone, gives
nice smooth finegrained negative (and more easily than the lith), and you
don't have to do it in the total dark. Rumor has it that the film is
actually made by Kodak, tho some batches have been a bit foggy (maybe
outdated).
In 1995 catalog, 25 sheets of 8x10, $31.50. 100 sheets $179.95. 11x14 is
$63.75 for 25 sheets, $234.50 for 100.
To order 800/922-5484
Judy