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  #11  
Old 31st March 2021, 01:16 PM
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Just a thought, and probably not relevant for this specific issue, but possibly worth mentioning. I opened an oldish (15 years I think) box of Adox Vario Classic paper that I had never used before yesterday as I was testing some new developer and thought it had fogged but was suspicious of the very even tone of the fogging so I developed a sheet in almost total darkness. Result: "fog" gone.

Yep - 'twas the safelight. A level of (admittedly quite bright) red LED safelight that has never given me an issue before. I don't know if this is the Adox paper being especially sensitive to red (it was not especially fast under the enlarger) or the result of it being old but, once the safelighting was tested and set to a suitable level, the prints came out very well (technically speaking).
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  #12  
Old 1st April 2021, 12:12 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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...so I developed a sheet in almost total darkness. Result: "fog" gone.

Yep - 'twas the safelight.
Thanks for the suggestion Bob, but yes, I've done a safelight test and that didn't solve the problem...

Terry S
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  #13  
Old 3rd April 2021, 12:49 PM
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Default A different coloured safelight required?

Right, just as I was about to assign the mentioned box of 1970's paper to experimental and lumen prints only, the following happened...

Coming to the end of a printing session with the new Ilford MGV (GREAT paper btw Ilford) yesterday, I looked at the vintage box of paper and then to my Nova processor, which had just been filled with a new batch of D72 @ 1:2, and thought, let's give it one more try with all of the lights off. A bit of a fumble later, and after the fix time had passed, I turned on the white light and the paper was white and NOT a shade of light grey! So could just by using some fresh print developer really make this difference?

Just to be sure, I took out and did the same for one more sheet, as previously each sheet seemed to have totally different reactions to just about anything. I also turned the safelight on during developing, but held a sheet of thick card over the print during the process. Under the blocked safelight, now only a light to mid grey tone appeared. So I'm now thinking that it could be a mixture of two things that has caused the grey tone (= developer and led bulb safelight colour).

I have now been reading up about older papers, of which it used to be recommended to use a yellow / green safelight.

I have one of these multi colour bulbs, changed by a remote control, which I going to give a try. If that doesn't work, I'll purchase a few more led bulbs in various colours, to see if any of them help. I currently use a red led bulb, and that works fine with all of my other boxes of paper. If not, the new ones will go on the Christmas tree!

So, does anyone else use a different coloured light source for older / graded papers, that seem to require a different coloured light source?

Terry S

Last edited by Terry S; 3rd April 2021 at 12:54 PM.
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  #14  
Old 3rd April 2021, 02:19 PM
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Sadly, you will not get a true yellow from a colour-changing lamp - they mix red, green and blue LEDs to produce the other colours. To get visible yellow they will actually emit red and green. If you can get a pure green from it then that should work as it will only use the green LED (but with other shades of green, the other LEDs will be mixed in at various levels).
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Old 3rd April 2021, 09:22 PM
Stocky Stocky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob View Post
Just a thought, and probably not relevant for this specific issue, but possibly worth mentioning. I opened an oldish (15 years I think) box of Adox Vario Classic paper that I had never used before yesterday as I was testing some new developer and thought it had fogged but was suspicious of the very even tone of the fogging so I developed a sheet in almost total darkness. Result: "fog" gone.

Yep - 'twas the safelight. A level of (admittedly quite bright) red LED safelight that has never given me an issue before. I don't know if this is the Adox paper being especially sensitive to red (it was not especially fast under the enlarger) or the result of it being old but, once the safelighting was tested and set to a suitable level, the prints came out very well (technically speaking).
It is a bit off topic, but it's a reminder to test safelights when using a new paper. Red LEDs vary a lot in their spread of wavelengths towards the orange/yellow. I had the same experience.

If you view the light of a LED reflected from the under side of a CD (the rainbow effect) I was shocked that my first home made red LED safelight which looked very red actually had light as far down as a bit of aqua!

My mark 2 version used very red LEDs, 660nm main colour.
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  #16  
Old 4th April 2021, 12:22 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob View Post
Sadly, you will not get a true yellow from a colour-changing lamp - they mix red, green and blue LEDs to produce the other colours. To get visible yellow they will actually emit red and green. If you can get a pure green from it then that should work as it will only use the green LED (but with other shades of green, the other LEDs will be mixed in at various levels).
Ah! good point there Bob.

I'll hopefully try the said light out later today or tomorrow, with the first tries under the three main led's that make up the bulb and see how I get on.

As I said, if none of these work, I'll buy some of the mini globe led lights that come in single colours. As they're relatively cheap, I can afford to buy and try a few of them.

It's all part of the fun of darkroom work, although the current bit of sunshine is calling me into the garden rather than the darkened room, so it'll be down to the temperature outside I suppose.

Terry S
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  #17  
Old 4th April 2021, 04:43 PM
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I had a quick session in the darkroom today and tried out the colour changing LED bulb that I bought from B & Q. I only had time to try out the blue and green colours but the green looks promising, as it only gave a very light shade of grey on the paper after a couple of minutes and some benzotriazole may be able to keep that at bay.

The bulb is able to be adjusted to four brightness levels, so I tried it out on the lowest setting.

The bulb itself has a 60-watt rating, so I'm presuming that each of the three colours would have a 20 watt rating each, although I could be totally wrong on this. But presuming this to be correct, taking into account the brightness of the bulb, there could be a good percentage of the overall wattage still being used.

My current red LED safe light doesn't have any wattage numbers printed on it, but ones I have looked at on eBay, where I bought my first one, claim to be about 2 watts each. As they are relatively cheap, I'm happy to purchase a green coloured one to try out.

Rather than save a few pennies by buying from a Chinese seller, I'll order one from a UK seller tomorrow and then should hopefully be able to try it out by next weekend.

It would be great if this stopped any 'fogging' of the current box of vintage paper, as this and some of the older papers sold on eBay, have some interesting paper surfaces that are not available anymore.

Terry S
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