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Niall Bell
2nd March 2010, 03:15 PM
I've just used a pack of MCC110 FB paper doing mostly lith printing. I had a few failures where the print developed unevenly and was vaguely blotchy. I seemed to get around this by agitating the tray in two directions rather than just rocking back and forth.

Of the successful prints, the colours were much more muted than other lith-able papers (see attached) although I've not yet had a chance to tone these.

I was wondering how others have fared?

Hopefully I've not missed a thread on this already!

Niall.

Trevor Crone
2nd March 2010, 03:55 PM
Thanks for posting this Niall. I find the subtlety of your print quite pleasing. Nice change from the more obvious lith 'look' on papers such as Fomatone MG Classic.

A useful 'string to the bow' if I may say so :)

Dave miller
2nd March 2010, 04:13 PM
Looks like a good result to me, lith prints don’t have to be psychedelic to please.

PaulG
2nd March 2010, 06:18 PM
A good result indeed - thanks for posting. I've managed to get a couple of other Adox papers to lith (e.g fineprint vario), but without much colour, so it will be interesting to see how this compares.

Steve O
2nd March 2010, 06:23 PM
I put two sheets of this paper through my lith chemicals at the end of the last session and got a warm coffee brown. I did spoil them both by using my standard approach of judging snatch point with a headtorch covered by a safelight filter - both were badly fogged :mad:

Might try a couple more on Thursday night.

Steve

Niall Bell
3rd March 2010, 04:00 PM
Thanks for your comments.

Steve, I’m interested in your comment about MCC110 fogging: I had two sheets out of the 20 or so I printed that were fogged, which I found unusual. The fogged sheets were reminiscent of pepper-fogged paper.


Here’s a few more lith prints showing another on MCC110 with muted colours; one on Seagull VC also muted; and three of a mountain rescue team on graded Seagull –one muted and two with some colour. All are un-toned and as you can tell, un-spotted.

The subtle colours work reasonably well for some of the shots, however, I was trying to get strong gritty effect for the hill shots.

The MRT 1 & 2 pics were made from colour negatives. I could not get strong blacks on MRT 1 - no matter how hard I tried and I wasted a few sheets rying.

The child picture was developed in Rollei Vintage lith developer (33A, 33B in 600ml water) and the rest on Moersch’s SE5 (40A, 20B 6+ 800 water and 200ml OB).

I’m going on Tim Rudman’s advance lith workshop in April, perhaps I can get a steer towards getting stronger blacks. However, I’d welcome any suggestions for attaining blacks or general improvements!


These were scanned on our departmental photocopier/scanner which I’m told is of low resolution, so please excuse the obvious digital shortcomings, such as their being off-centre.


Thanks,
Niall

michael71
3rd March 2010, 08:16 PM
Hi Niall,
I have also found that MCC 110 gives fairly muted colours with "lith" this also seems to be the case with adox Vario Classic and Nuance. however the "Nuance" gives really dense blacks which is an effect i like a lot, Lith prints don't have to be overly colourful, (I prefer them not to be!)
Have you found that the rollei dev dies very quickly after only a couple of prints?

Niall Bell
3rd March 2010, 09:58 PM
Hi Michael,
Yes I found that with the Rollei developer. I just checked my note book and it says after print number 4- 'Dev Dead'.

On that occasion rather than make new developer for one more print I used the remaining OB I'd stored from previous session three days previously, but which had only a couple of prints through. It worked OK-ish.

Niall.

Steve O
3rd March 2010, 10:14 PM
Niall,

I like the tonality of those samples, particularly the one on Oriental. The only way I get a solid black with lith is to reduce expose a fair bit but you obviously have to watch out for lost highlights and burning in rarely seems as effective as conventional printing.

For really gritty prints I prefer Kentmere Fineprint Warmtone but it's no longer made and I've only got a couple of boxes left now :(

I had 10 sheets of the Variant 123 arrive today so I'll put a couple through the chemicals at the end of tomorrow nights session with Fomatone. From the samples I've seen so far it could well be a good half way house between Fomatone and the more subtle papers.

We could really do with threads dedicated to people posting samples of each paper type with supporting notes etc, not general comments. APUG have something similar and Wolfgang Moersch's site do too but the translations are poor.

Steve

Dave miller
4th March 2010, 07:15 AM
Niall,
SNIP

We could really do with threads dedicated to people posting samples of each paper type with supporting notes etc, not general comments.

Steve

We can open a section for that if there is general support, although the viewed results will be as variable as our monitors are diverse.

What's the demand?

Niall Bell
5th March 2010, 08:13 AM
Well I frequently peruse Moersch's site looking at the comparative sections, so I’d certainly be interested in similar here.

It’d be good to see examples, with notes, of the range of effects people are achieving using different papers, chemicals and techniques.

So, I’m in favour.
Niall.

Dave miller
5th March 2010, 08:47 AM
Steve / Niall, in the interests of spreading the work load ;) would you have a go at writing a description for this feature between you, up to about 100 words for the Gallery Usage slot. Either post it here, or PM it to me, and I will set up the Gallery for you.

PaulG
5th March 2010, 08:59 AM
A bit late perhaps, but this seems like a good idea.

Niall Bell
5th March 2010, 09:51 AM
Aaaaargh. I've landed myself an action.

I spend most of my working days trying to avoid those!!

I'll contact Steve directly.

Niall

Bob
5th March 2010, 11:41 AM
Might be worth making a list of which relevant info it would be useful to have: developer used; developer temperature; toner used; etc so Dave can create a list of relevant question items as reminders that can be filled in when a poster uploads an image - similar to that used in the Exchange Galleries, but more relevant to this type of gallery.

Steve O
5th March 2010, 01:29 PM
I'm happy to help with this and I'm sure it will become a valuable resource.

It is always difficult to assess results on computer screens but if there was a reference image on a standard paper (EG. MG RC) it would help show the differences. I'd also be keen to cut down on speculation and too much feedback, just keep it as a reference section and use PM's if someone needs to know more.

I'm probably getting into too much detail here so I'll take it offline and discuss with Niall.

Steve

Steve O
5th March 2010, 06:19 PM
Ok, here's a comparison from last nights session.


Chemicals: Fotospeed LD20 30ml A + 40ml B + 1500ml water + 500ml old brown.
Temp: 25 degrees C

The MCC 110 hasn't got a full black due to being run through an almost dead developer and after 20 mins I pulled it.

The Variant 123 was the last print through and is a close match for the MCC 110 - dev time was about the same as MCC 110. This is my first print with this paper and when wet it looks a bit patchy when held to the light - too soon to say what this might be and it looks fine when dry.

The MCC and Variant 123 are very similar in real life but I prefer the latter for it's finish and it's also a lot cheaper.

In hindsight I probably used too much old brown for these papers but I like gritty results and usually use Kentmere fineprint FG warmtone. The Fomatone 132 is grittier due to the very long exposure - 2mins @f/4, the MCC110 is very fast at around 4 stops less whilst the Variant 123 is 2 stops quicker. I'd probably cut a stop off the Fomatone 132 to get a better comparison.

Conclusions:

I'm not going to explore MCC any longer since the Variant 123 gives much the same sort of look that I'm after and it feels nicer to me. Fomatone MG is bonkers but nothing else can come close (just remember to wear your sunglasses :D)


Steve