Playtime

I have always thought that infants are like little buddhas, look in their eyes and all you see is confidence, peace and God.
Your child is not an infant but his eyes are so full of peace that they just say: "I am".
Great moment.

One of the only times my Son Jack actually stopped moving for more than 3 seconds.
I was playing with the Rolleicord II I purchased on ebay for $84. Rebuilt the shutter on my kitchen table at 2am... Won't do 'that' again. The 1/500 spring is Tiny !




I should have:

blown the dust off the negative.
Refocused the top lens after I changed the primary mirror. The Poloroid mirror was not an exact replacement, but the best I could do.
Get a better grain focuser. Mine is a Fedeco and made from bakelite and is from the 40's or 50s..i'm guessing.
The pic is slightly out of focus..so I need to check the negative first.

This picture just bugs me. It's sooo flat. I tried to hold back a little light from my Son's face, during the enlarging, but the image is just muddled.

What can I do to it to make his face stand out.. What type of filter or paper ?
I used F/11 and about 12 seconds with the Beseler MX45.

I have tried experimenting with some of the filters I got with the enlarger.
You would absolutely crack up if you saw them. I will have to shoot a picture of them.
It looks like I stole them from a Museum. Gelatin filters from like the 1950's.
I've been holding them by hand below the lens.
The Paper boxes I got with the enlarger had an expiration date from 1958.


Thanks for any thoughts you may have. Good or bad. You are only helping me to get better.

Greg

Greg,
this is a good image and if the negative is not very sharp I wouldn't worry about it.
You did a good thing by Holding some light off Jack's face .
First of all, get rid of RC and go buy some good Fiber based and start experimenting with VC paper, I use Ilford Warmtone.
With this image to achieve more body I would reduce your exposure of about 30% with the same grade you have used, then I would complete it with a more contrasty grade.
You have some nice tonalities in this image all you need is an increase in contrast.

I agree with Domenico. The negative is a good one, and if you try carefully to work the contrast then you'd be able to make a stunning print from this! Sometimes softness is appealing, and this is definitely one of those images.
- Thomas

Thank you Domenico and Thomas. I appreciate your input.
I tried again tonight and redid the negative. I also cleaned up the dust on the negative.

This time 13 seconds at F8. I don't have a timer so I'm counting in my head. (Not to precise)
About 8 seconds of dodging on the face quickly moving my fingers around, and no filter.
Trying to increase the glow of his face in the dim light when the front drapes were filtering what little light was available.

I'm almost out of paper so I will order what you suggested. I've been cutting down my 8x10's to test exposures on this negative.

Another interesting thing I noticed was that when I got done developing the 8x10 in the stop bath and put it in the fixer, I flipped on the fluorescent light and noticed that the print was allot darker than the rest of the prints. Same times. So I briefly washed the RC paper, and hung it up. I set about to clean up and the print started changing to a lighter shade. All the time spent cleaning up and kicking myself in the head, and low and behold it was only darker because it wasn't dry yet ! I had never noticed this on the smaller 2x3 prints, only on the 8x10. Probably more surface area and more contrast, so easier for my eyes to miss it.

I can't wait to try this on different paper. Will the Ilford Warmtone or all other papers have this trait ? Drying a shade lighter ?

I think I'm hooked.

Greg, fiber based papers actually dry slightly darker. Ilford Warmtone probably about 10% or so. How I've gotten around this is by using a fairly dim light to judge the print by while it's wet. Gets me in the ball park.
There are so many lovely fiber papers out there. Ilford is definitely amazing paper. I use mostly the semimatte version.

The whole point with using variable contrast papers is to use the filters. What Domenico is alluding to above is that you have a great base exposure in that print, and if you then use a higher contrast filter on top of your base exposure, you can get a lot more zing from the darker values.

If you're not ready to spend lots of money on fiber paper yet, purchase some 5x7 or 8x10 paper to try with. Ilford is available as 25-sheet packs, and that's a fairly small investment.

Keep working. Practice really is the key to becoming a good printer. Read and ask questions. Keep it simple - don't fall into the trap thinking that a different paper is going to save the day. If you can't make good prints on Ilford Warmtone it's not because of the paper I learned that the hard way. A fantastic paper developer is Ilford Multigrade. Works really well with all silver papers and gives a slight warm tone.

Have fun and good luck! I'm not the best printer around, but I know a few tricks, so if you have questions, I'll gladly answer a PM. But you're probably best off writing to the forum here where you will reach more people and also more experienced people than I.

- Thomas

thanks for the thoughts. Normally adding a filter increases the exposure time by what factor?
I do have some gelatin filters, but they are not that good. I tried the 1F and to get a decent exposure I had to increase the time at F8 by like 30 seconds or so...
Would it be 'that' much ?

I will have to dig out the books tomorrow and do some studying...

g

You really need to get a set of Ilford Multigrade Filters, and for your Beseler you will need the 6 inch square ones, and get rid of the old stuff you have, I do not think they are reliable.
Search on ebay, I am in the market for a set as well, who knows we could bid against each other.
I am not sure if it's possible to gauge a filter factor when changing grade, but when you will go from grade 3 to grade 4 then the exposure will double.
Take this into account: a print that for example has been printed on grade 2 will require more exposure time on grade 3 to achieve the same density in the highlights, this of course will cause the shadows and the midtones to get darker sooner because of the enhanced contrast.

When I said that I use Ilford warmtone I wasn't suggesting that you should do the same, there are many good papers around and I would actually recommend to start with something inexpensive just to have a little experience with VC paper and then you will be ready to change or not when you will have sharpened your skills.

Greg, this is potentially a great portrait which, at the moment, only suffers through easily rectifiable contrast issues. Get yourself some new multigrade filters - as has already been suggested, and try again. At this stage I wouldn't bother with expensive fibre paper unless you want to open-up a whole new can of worms. Good luck and keep us posted.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Much appreciated. I really did not think the filters I have would work, but thought it was worth a try. The MX45 I have does not have a filter drawer, so I purchased an ebay below the lens holder. The filter tray in only like 1.5 x1.5 inches. Not real big, but I'm guessing I will cut the filters to fit ?
The 8x10 I re-made last night dried and darkened up..darn !
I will try again. Just slightly too dark, although no dust on the negative and the focus was better. I need to upgrade the grain focuser, and will get some filters.