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Martin Aislabie
14th March 2009, 10:23 PM
I am half way through my first box of Ilford Cooltone (RC).

I have found it to be almost 1 grade harder than standard MGRC

Part of this could be down to I am developing for 2 mins (in line with Ilford’s recommendations) rather than the standard 1 min for regular MGRC

Has anyone else got experience of Cooltone?

Martin

Mike O'Pray
15th March 2009, 12:16 AM
I used some which we received on the Ilford 2006 tour along with CT developer. When both were combined it did look different and colder than the usual MG and Nova dev which may be like MG( I haven't tried MG dev yet) so I can't say whether CT paper in MG dev would have been as cold.

It isn't an allrounder like MG IV but would suit some scenes. I initially thought that industrial and machinery scenes would suit the paper but this might have been stereotype convention talking. I am not really sure now.

All I can say now is that in none of my scenes did I suddenly say that this was "the look I had been searching for all my life" and this was going to be the paper I'd set aside for certain scenes.

I haven't gone out of my way to get more of it.

Mike

Dave miller
15th March 2009, 07:08 AM
I am half way through my first box of Ilford Cooltone (RC).

I have found it to be almost 1 grade harder than standard MGRC

Part of this could be down to I am developing for 2 mins (in line with Ilford’s recommendations) rather than the standard 1 min for regular MGRC

Has anyone else got experience of Cooltone?

Martin

Which developer are you using Martin?

vincent
15th March 2009, 02:19 PM
I used one box of 12 x 16 and really liked it. I developed it in MG dev. and I was happy with the results. I liked printing my IR shots on it and I liked the coolness of it. But I'm back printing on MGFB paper now and I've yet to replace my "Cooltone".

Martin Aislabie
15th March 2009, 05:56 PM
Which developer are you using Martin?

Hi Dave - Ilford MG Dev at 1+5

I have been doing quite a bit of printing on MGRC in the last few weeks, trying to sort out if any of my backlog of Negs has any potential.

The 5 boxes of MGRC I have gone through in the past few weeks (all different emulsion batch numbers) were virtually interchangeable - speed/grade/tone

I thought I would try some Cooltone - more out of curiosity than anything.

So taking the settings I had finished with from the MGRC as a starting point, I proceeded to run some CT test strips around the nominal time and grade.

Speed was only very slightly different (about 1/12th of a stop) but the grade was almost 1 stop out ie MGRC @ 3.5 = CTRC @ 2.5

The first print I did I just assumed I had written the wrong grade down.

However, by the 4th print - all 1 grade software than the notes indicated - I noticed the trend !

I can cope with the grade change, almost all of my prints come out somewhere near the middle, I was just wondering if anyone had a similar experience.

I rather like the tone - very subtly cool - although the colour does change under different lighting conditions.

The coolness of the tone is very subtle so unless you are holding identical MGRC & CTRC prints side by side you would be hard pressed to tell them apart.

I might try some colder developer (Dokumol) to see what difference it makes to print tone.

However, the whole point of running through all my Negatives that might have potential was to firstly a quick check them out in RC to see how they looked as prints and secondly to have a reasonable printing plan to start with when I started using MGFB.

Using a paper that consistently comes out 1 grade harder than its standard RC & FB equivalents might not be ideal for the task.

I have another couple of boxes from a different emulsion batch which I thought I would try to see if the grade change is consistent – or have I just got hold of a box of paper at one end of the tolerance band.

Martin

Ag-Bromide
16th March 2009, 12:13 PM
I used one box of 12 x 16 and really liked it. I developed it in MG dev. and I was happy with the results. I liked printing my IR shots on it and I liked the coolness of it. But I'm back printing on MGFB paper now and I've yet to replace my "Cooltone".
It seems that we have similar preferences in papers Vincent. It would be nice if Ilford introduced a fibre-based version of Cooltone, although I do use MG IV as my regular paper. Alas, no more Kodak HIE.:(

vincent
16th March 2009, 09:10 PM
Alas, no more Kodak HIE]

Wandering slightly of the tread before Dave notices it, have you settled on a replacement yet ?

Ag-Bromide
17th March 2009, 07:05 PM
Alas, no more Kodak HIE]

Wandering slightly of the tread before Dave notices it, have you settled on a replacement yet ?Not yet, but these films may interest you. http://www.digitaltruth.com/store/cart/Infrared-Film-p-1-c-223.html Hopefully, they will print well on Cooltone papers (back OT). :)