4x5 Camera + paper?

[Valerie]

Wet contact printing is new to me.... seems like it would be rather messy. Try dry, placing paper neg and paper emulsion-to-emulsion sides together under a sheet of glass and expose. Some folks oil thier paper neg to make it more transparent.

[venchka]

No doubt you are using what's available. Back in the day single weight paper was available. Not sure if it still is. That worked well the few times I experimented with contact printing enlargements. I haven't tried in camera negatives or positives yet.

[Daniel W.]

Well I was reading through the HP Combi-Plan tank manual (part of a generous bits and pieces donation) and...doing 4x5 film doesn't seem to difficult. The paper neg experiment will definitely show if the cameras we have are up to the task, but... I'm considering just getting a pack of 50 sheets of Arista whatever from Freestyle (on my own budget this time) and having a go at it. Hmm...

[KJ Smith]

Its not bad. After you develop you can hook a hose to the bottom to wash.

Then dip the whole film holder thing in photo flow, shake. I let mine dry in the holder.

[Daniel W.]

Well here's the process, then I'll tell you how it went.

8x10 paper, quartered. I found out that 4x5 exactly seems to be a bit big. Maybe more like 3.90"x5" (using a variety of holders). Fog under the enlarger lamp for 2-3 seconds cured most of the contrast issues. ISO5-6 is the range, no pushing or pulling.

Straight into the Arista paper developer (1+9), it goes pretty quickly so it's not a sit and wait situation. I'm saving our exhausted dvel, which might be easier.

Went ahead and dried it (we have a temperamental Arkay RC dryer) and did a dry contact print with Arista VC RC 5x7. Emulsion to emulsion, under glass, 45 seconds at 3-4 clicks past open on the enlarger lens was about right.

Results: Not to shabby. It's not as good as film neg to paper, but what do you expect. The print I got was relatively low contrast, I might throw a polycontrast filter (3 or 4) to see what comes out. Also, I need to clean my glass contact places, bunch of water stains mucked the process up and didn't notice til' I was under regular light.

Didn't get a chance to scan, but will ASAP. Out of 8 exposures, 1 came out. I misjudged and overexposed a good lot of the images.

[venchka]

Standing by. Cool.

[Daniel W.]

Just a teaser though... Freestyle completed our order today...