Roy_H
7th February 2009, 06:02 PM
Following on from my post about paper pricing, where Adox Vario Classic comes out as the cheapest, I thought I'd carry out some further exploration of this paper to see if I 'get on' with it.
I bought some last year, but had not used it enough to really evaluate it, so yesterday I had a session to see if it was worth the cost saving.
First impressions:
the need to use a dim red safelight (Kodak No.2) is a bit of pain; not only are my eyes less efficient under that colour than they used to be, but I find it's hard to evaluate the print in the dev under that light.
the paper handles well and lays pretty flat on the easel, I was printing on 12 inch squares cut from 12x16.
I printed from negs developed in PMK, where the yellow stain made it difficult to get a handle on the variable contrast range this paper offers, but I ended up using a Grade 4 filter where I would have expected to print with a Grade 2 - 2.5. I'm very new to PMK negs, but I guess this is about right?
I had already decided to use Beers Dilution 6 (higher contrast) as a print developer, so I was getting a bit of a boost from that as well, but still Grade 4 was needed.
Appearance time in the developer was pretty much as usual, but I did find that the recommendation to develop for 3 minutes minimum was probably right. Changes are still noticeable in the 3-4 minute range, although slight.
I used an acetic acid stop and Hypam 1+9, switching on the yellow safelights after 30s or so in the fix - so I could finally see what the print looked like!
Toning: Selenium has almost no effect after 10 minutes at 1+9 dilution. Some slight image colour change (not unpleasant, vaguely purplish) and a slight density increase in the shadows compared to un-toned, dried prints.
Gold (Tetenal, straight out the bottle) produced a very similar effect to selenium, slight cooling of the image colour, small amount of black density increase. Hardly any difference between Se and Au though.
Washing and drying followed my usual pattern for fibre, and the prints had no more or less curling than any other paper. 2 minutes in the hot press and they were as flat as glass and stayed flat, nice gloss, good weight, lovely feel to them. The base is a good white, without optical brighteners I believe.
Verdict?
At the price there is little to fault this paper on for general use. I would be very interested to hear others' experience with it, particularly as my tests from negs developed in Pyro probably skewed my contrast range evaluation. Also, the subjects were, by their very nature, a bit 'soot and whitewash' (as you can see below) so didn't really give a fair chance to the mid-tone handling capabilities. I will be printing from the same negs on different papers next time around, just to compare, as well as choosing a subject less dramatic in its contrast range!
Scans of the prints are here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=910), here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=911) and here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=912), but obviously can't really give any idea of the paper original's look and feel.
If anyone has used this paper then please post your thoughts about it on this thread, I'd be interested to hear how you got on.
I bought some last year, but had not used it enough to really evaluate it, so yesterday I had a session to see if it was worth the cost saving.
First impressions:
the need to use a dim red safelight (Kodak No.2) is a bit of pain; not only are my eyes less efficient under that colour than they used to be, but I find it's hard to evaluate the print in the dev under that light.
the paper handles well and lays pretty flat on the easel, I was printing on 12 inch squares cut from 12x16.
I printed from negs developed in PMK, where the yellow stain made it difficult to get a handle on the variable contrast range this paper offers, but I ended up using a Grade 4 filter where I would have expected to print with a Grade 2 - 2.5. I'm very new to PMK negs, but I guess this is about right?
I had already decided to use Beers Dilution 6 (higher contrast) as a print developer, so I was getting a bit of a boost from that as well, but still Grade 4 was needed.
Appearance time in the developer was pretty much as usual, but I did find that the recommendation to develop for 3 minutes minimum was probably right. Changes are still noticeable in the 3-4 minute range, although slight.
I used an acetic acid stop and Hypam 1+9, switching on the yellow safelights after 30s or so in the fix - so I could finally see what the print looked like!
Toning: Selenium has almost no effect after 10 minutes at 1+9 dilution. Some slight image colour change (not unpleasant, vaguely purplish) and a slight density increase in the shadows compared to un-toned, dried prints.
Gold (Tetenal, straight out the bottle) produced a very similar effect to selenium, slight cooling of the image colour, small amount of black density increase. Hardly any difference between Se and Au though.
Washing and drying followed my usual pattern for fibre, and the prints had no more or less curling than any other paper. 2 minutes in the hot press and they were as flat as glass and stayed flat, nice gloss, good weight, lovely feel to them. The base is a good white, without optical brighteners I believe.
Verdict?
At the price there is little to fault this paper on for general use. I would be very interested to hear others' experience with it, particularly as my tests from negs developed in Pyro probably skewed my contrast range evaluation. Also, the subjects were, by their very nature, a bit 'soot and whitewash' (as you can see below) so didn't really give a fair chance to the mid-tone handling capabilities. I will be printing from the same negs on different papers next time around, just to compare, as well as choosing a subject less dramatic in its contrast range!
Scans of the prints are here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=910), here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=911) and here (http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/album.php?albumid=81&pictureid=912), but obviously can't really give any idea of the paper original's look and feel.
If anyone has used this paper then please post your thoughts about it on this thread, I'd be interested to hear how you got on.