Recent content by Paul

Thanks for the input. I too have been avoiding test strips in favor of starting with an educated guess based on past prints and working from there. I am getting better at it, but have a way to go yet. Glad to have my working methods validated by the experiences of three accomplished printers.

Just curious how many alt printers use test strips to determine ideal exposure with developing-out platinum/palladium printing, vs. how many inspect the faint latent image for clues, vs. how many wing the first print and take it from there. -Paul

Hi, If I intend to double coat using a full strength coating of sensitizer for the first coat and 1:1 dilution of sensitizer and distilled water for the second coat, how do I handle the addition of Na2 on the second coat? Lets say that I need three drops of 5% Na2 for the first coat. Do I add...

Well done. I took a similar shot of the same building a couple of weeks ago. I have yet to print it. Interesting place. -Paul

I have only brush coated once. I used a 10% solution of oxalic acid. When it dried, it left visible crystals on the paper. Not sure how to get around this, but maybe using less would have helped.

I have a box I made from BLB fixtures. I am not at home now so cannot look at it, but I am 99.9% sure that they are 15 watt and my exposure times for pt/pd are about 7 minutes or less, depending. 20 watt would be faster, but I do not know how much faster. I do not think 7 minutes is bad.

Poking around in the archives I found a post in which Sandy King posted times for FP4 in pyrocat to produce negative density of 1.6, which is not far from what I am looking for. I quote it here for anyone who might be interested: "[W]hen shooting for a DR of 1.6 I need the following times...

If you use BTZS to determine exposure you should use an incident meter, not a spot meter.

BTZS metering is easy. Take a reading in the shadows and a reading in the bright area, subtract the low EV from the high EV and add that to 5. Thus, if your bright area is an EV 15 and the shadow area an EV 13, you have a SBR of 7 (which is "normal" in zone system terms). Then look at the times...

Jeff, If you are comfortable using BTZS metering techniques, you could start with the silver times that Clay Harmon has posted here. That will put you very close to the right times for FP4 and all you would have to do is shoot and see how it goes and adjust a bit here and there. -Paul

What film will you be using and what printing process? What metering technique?

Miles, That does seem to be the case. Clay Harmon notes that TMY and FP4 require roughly equal development times throughout the SBR range to achieve a density suitable for palladium. That is at the 1.5:3:100 dilution. I will probably just start by trying FP4 at the same times I have been...

Miles, No, I generally use TMY (TMax-400). The issue was definitely that I had the wrong kind of bulbs. -Paul

Sandy, Thanks. That is the number I would have guessed at. What strikes me as strange is that from the numbers I have seen, it looks as though the development times for FP4 and TMY are about the same throughout the SBRs. If that is so, it is a lucky coincidence (less for me to remember). -Paul

I might do that, but I think I read somewhere that he abandoned the use of that dilution in favor of 2:2:100 because it was causing excessive base fog or general stain or some such thing.