Printing from Adox film - very short exposure times

[wesfraser]

Hi everyone,

I'm pretty new to this printing lark and have been puzzled somewhat when trying to print from ADOX CHS ART series films (generally use ISO 50 and 100, occasionally ISO 25, all at rated speed). The exposure times for printing seem incredibly short?

For example, printing from a TMax100 (35mm) negative on to Fotospeed VC paper (5x7) with a grade 3 filter may require an exposure of 3 minutes or so, whereas exactly the same procedure using Adox 100 film will require approx. 12-15 seconds!

Am I do something horribly wrong here? And is there anything I can do to extend the exposure time a little so I can have finer control over the exposure?

I use a Meopta enlarger with a 50mm lens, stopped down to f16.

Cheers,
Wes

[Dave miller]

I regard 10 to 20 seconds as a "normal" exposure time. It sounds as though your Tmax negatives are very dense, try printing them a f4 or f5.6 to shorten the printing time, and check your development time next time you develop a roll. The time for the Adox sounds about right for that time, aperture and degree of enlargement.

[Tom Kershaw]

As Dave points out 3 minutes is far too long; I often have to use exposures of less than 8 seconds.

Tom

[Richard Gould]

3 minutes would be far to long for rcvc, the adox film are about right, the tmax must be very dense, could be either over development or over exposure on the t max, check the meter is correctly set and check the devolepment time Richard

[Mike O'Pray]

I'd echo the sentiments of the others It is your TMax negs that might need closer examination. My enlarger head with 5x7 prints is only about 34cms up the column and at F16 I'd expect to get between 12- 18 secs.

Assuming you follow each manufacturer's recommeneded dev time it seem strange that neg printing times should cover as wide a spectrum as it does.

I have printed from a lot of the Ilford range of films and Fuji B&W and even once from Kodak 3200 and have never got anywhere near 3 mins for a 5x7 print. In fact all neg printing at one size should be within a very narrow range of times and even at f16 not much more than upper teens in seconds

Might be worth a re-examination of the TMax process to see if something is happening that shouldn't

Mike

[wesfraser]

Great, thanks guys. I figured there must have been something wrong somewhere, but didn't expect it to be the films I was comparing against!

Will investigate my TMax negatives and see what went wrong. Glad the Adox is ok though

Cheers,
Wes