A little guidance with paper and dev

My printing is picking up steam and I'm having fun with it. I also feel I need some info from the collective about a couple of things. Namely paper and developer.

Let me back up a little bit. I mostly contact print 5x7 and I'm using Efke 25 and 100 developed in Rollo Pyro.

My main focus is contact printing with a set up consisting of a timer hooked up to a bare 7 watt bulb and reflector. Simple.

I got a great price on 150 sheets of Ilford MGRC warmtone and have burned through almost all of it. I have developed it in Dektol. It was fun and I want to move on to fiber paper now.

I'm a little confused about developers mostly. I read a lot about Amidol and Ansco130 in threads about contact printing with different papers but don't know anything about what makes them good.

I really do try to heed the advice of keeping it simple and sticking with one thing and learning it well before moving on (if at all). I also want to spend my money wisely.

Just from my reading I'd like to try Kentmere Bromide for contact printing. It sounds like a slow paper with a "look" I might enjoy. Do I have to use Amidol or Ansco-130 or am I going to be fine with Dektol? If the other developers, why?

Sorry this was so long. It kind of feels like the next meaningful stage of my photo education and I want it to have a good start.

Thanks,

Alan.

I've used several developers in conjunction with silver gelatin papers over the past 20 years. My main choice has always been GAF 135 (mixed from scratch) with warm tone papers. For years it was Agfa Portriga Rapid, wonderful rich brown / black tone with terrific shadow contrast.

Several years ago I began contact printing myself with Azo. At first it was difficult to get used to the single weight paper over the double weight enlarging paper. Time has shown me that the Azo has a particular look about the surface which I find quite superior to any other paper, even Pt. / Pd.

With Michael Smith's Amidol formula you get a fairly nuetral tone print color which can be swayed to the warm side if so desired. The remarkable thing about the Amidol formula is it's water bath capabilities, you can control the contrast of the paper with this developer like no other I have ever used. Depending on how long you leave the paper in developer or how long the paper sits in just plain water can have a dramatic effect on the final contrast. The reason is simple, Amidol is the strongest reducing agent known, therefore in extremely small quanities it can still produce full rich prints, even when development lasts no more than 10 secs.

You are right when you say settle on one method and learn all the nuances before venturing off in another direction.

Cheers!

Thanks Steve!

I'm finding a lot of answers in similar threads in this section as well. The more I read the more I'm thinking of Ansco 130 or Amidol with leanings towards the Ansco since I'm fond of warm tones. For paper I think I'll start out with a box of Kentona and see what happens.

Since I shoot mostly portraits with ancient barrel lenses I'd like to the "old" look going so a warm paper dev may work fine.

Nothing left to do now but drop the hammer and find out for myself.

Alan.

I've seen that Dektol's formula is pretty close to Ansco 130 except without the glycin and one other ingredient. Maybe do a search on largeformatphotograhy.com (where Ive read it) for a quick way to try out something close to 130.


I can't really see much difference between Dektol or any glycin developers, or any developers for that matter, but ive read alot on here about how great ansco 130 is and it makes me want to try it. but dektol is just so cheap and easily available locally...

rjas said:

I've seen that Dektol's formula is pretty close to Ansco 130 except without the glycin and one other ingredient. Maybe do a search on largeformatphotograhy.com (where Ive read it) for a quick way to try out something close to 130.


I can't really see much difference between Dektol or any glycin developers, or any developers for that matter, but ive read alot on here about how great ansco 130 is and it makes me want to try it. but dektol is just so cheap and easily available locally...

Click to expand...

The Glycin is a significant difference. It is what makes Ansco 130, Ansco 130. Sorry you can't see the difference between developers. They are significant and worth noting. However, I don't know what paper(s) you are using, so you your results may be more minimal depending on the characcteristics of your paper choice.
To the original question concerning using a bromide paper and comparing Dektol and an amidol developer:
60 years ago, many papers were bromide. Amidol was noted as a clean working deverloper on these papers with an ability to produce good blacks. Today, many papers a chlorobromide. They seem to be less responsive to Amidol than the older graded bromide papers. However, I used it with Forte Bromoforte years ago, and I thought it produced the richest blacks and cleanest whites with that paper. It was definitley a better look than Dektol.
But there were some drawbacks:
1: the amidol was expensive
2: The amidol was considerably toxic
3. The amidol had a pretty short tray life when compared to standard MQ developers.

Dektol is a universal developer. It will produce universally acceptable results. However, the Amidol will generally produce a richer print on a bromide paper.

One of the great things about Ansco 130 is its longevity - not only in bottles, but in the tray. A batch I made last summer finally got thouwn out this June - not because it was too old, but because it was so dark I could no longer see if there was a print in the tray or not. I have also forgotten to pour the developer back in the bottle after use, and come back to the darkroom after 14 days away and continued printing with the same developer after adding water to make up for evaporation (I put an old cadrbord paper-box lid over the tray at the end of a session to keep dust and insects out, but it doesn't recuce evaporation much).

It is also a good developer, longevity notwithstanding, which really brings out the differences in different papers. Except Ilford MGRC, which is designed to give consistent results across a wide range of developers and other conditions. Really nice of them, but not very well suited for testing out different developers!

I think you will be ok with dectol.
It is our developer of choice here and it works brilliantly on many , many different papers.
At the apug conference we were lucky enough to see lots of combinations of papers developers ect. and the dectol prints in Ilford Warmtone stood in good with all of them.
You will be advised on many formulas, and quite frankly I think this is chasing the Magic Bullet route. You mention Ilford paper and dectol , go with it.

Amidol produces cold black tones, not what you would want with Ilford warmtone paper.

Ansco 130 is wonderful, and can last almost forever. Mix it in a clean bucket and decant working solution into 1 liter bottles. Leave no air, and tightly cap. I just used a 3-year-old bottle and it was still wonderful diluted 1:1. Working solution lasts a long time, and I've poured lightly-used working solution into 2 liter bottles and reused it later.

For more info, I've posted PDF's of articles about a comparison of papers and developers I did several years ago that ran in View Camera magazine. You can download them for free from www.circleofthesunproductions.com. A little dated, because Agfa and Kodak papers are no longer available, but still perhaps of some value.

Some useful comments above. Thanks for taking the time to help out a schlepp like me

Just to clarify. I'm planning on using Kentona developed in Ansco130. Even though I liked the look of it, once my Ilford warmtone RC paper runs out it's out. I want to move to fiber from now on.

But first I must test all that Efke 100 film I just bought. Then test paper. Then start an honest "Project".

Again, Thanks for the help.

Alan.

Ansco 130 is an excellent developer. I prefer Defender 54-D for cool tones. The differences between it and Dektol are subtle but definite. Kodak D-73 was designed for cold tones on Azo, and it may be worth looking into. Agfa 125 is similar, but different. In general, there are a lot of good paper developers out there. Find one you are happy with, then explore from tme to time.

I'd definitely second that advice-I've used Beers' for quite a while now and it works great (plus it allows you to control contrast easily on graded papers). I'm going to use Samuel fein's Amidol formula as well after seeing it on Unblinking Eye. But don't get too stuck on chasing magic bullets 'cos there aren't any IMHO.