Adorama paper?

[naugastyle]

Bit confused about this paper. I go to Adorama on a fairly regular basis and I swear I'd never noticed it before tonight, although I think the darkroom guy was marketing it more aggressively...he said he'd purposely displayed a box of the FB 8x10 next to a box of the same in Ilford to show the price difference. It's marked "EU" but he said it was Ilford. It does come in some sizes more common to Ilford like 8.5x11 and 4x6. I decided to pick up a box of 4x6 RC to test, as it's so cheap (100 for $12.95).

Anyway, after I got home I searched APUG and it seems the paper has been around a long time, and opinion ranged from it being MGIV, to being Kentmere, to being possibly coated by Ilford but not actually MGIV. And apparently it was discontinued in 2006? Couldn't find a clear post stating that it had resurrected. So is this a very recent revival, or has it just not been interesting enough to talk about?

 

[naugastyle]

OK, well, I tested it out. It's not MGIV or Kentmere. Overall, it's SUPER fast...had to use f/16 and filters, and I still had a couple shots exposed only for 4-5 seconds. It's much faster than the Ilford, maybe a stop and a half, and a bit faster than Kentmere, maybe 1/2 stop, plus slightly less contrast than the Kentmere. Did a few comparison prints using the same time I determined for the Adorama paper and the Kentmere was both a touch too light in midtones/highlights yet had equally dark shadows. It's really nice having a cheap pre-cut 4x6 but I think I'll still buy that roll of 4" Foma Variant III.

 

[DanielStone]

so would you recommend it? what format were you printing from, 35mm? Do you think that this paper was designed for DIGITAL EXPOSURE, say in converted minilab machines?

maybe its similar in characteristics(speed, contrast, etc) like the digital color papers: SUPER CHEAP(price-wise), good quality(maybe not top-notch), consistent in quality, and obviously SUPER FAST in exposure times?

who knows. Maybe I should order a box for myself. Do you know if its available online?

-Dan

 

[naugastyle]

It's available online. Not sure about the minilab thing but man...super fast is right. Although I'm not sure it's that consistent. At one point I printed a shot, did the comparison shot in Kentmere, decided I needed a duplicate so did another one on the Adorama paper. Never touched the enlarger & timer after initially setting it up. I think #1 and #3 looked a bit different but it's slight.

I was printing from 35mm. And they were lowish light party shots, but with flash so I don't think underexposure is the reason the images were coming up so fast (especially with MGIV and Kentmere being slower for the same shots). My results weren't that contrasty (Kentmere was probably 1/2 grade more) but the sample shots in the store were pretty contrasty. Except for a few shots I didn't really aim for more contrast though...was just using a 2 to slow down the exposure a bit. Sometimes did go down to 1.5 but the comparison to Kentmere still showed Kentmere as having more contrast with the filter.

I suppose I would recommend it if you want pre-cut 4x6 or cheap 8.5x11 for contact sheets. I'm planning on the contact sheets after I finish my box of Ilford. It's not quite good enough for me to abandon the idea of cutting 4x6 sheets from a roll...if I liked it more I could do so because cutting sounds a bit annoying, might be worth 6 cents more per page for pre-cut. I'm not sure if it's worthwhile for the other more "regular" sizes or for fiber--some of the fiber is on part with Kentmere's prices, it depends on the size. But the Adorama 5x7 RC is ridiculously cheap. If your work prints are mainly for organizational purposes I can't see how a very cheap paper could hurt. If you actually enjoy RC as I do, would display it, tone it etc, (although I also love fiber) it might not make that much sense.

I'll probably use the rest on party shots but when I want to print family photos at 4x6 size, I'll use something else. I recently printed dozens of 4x6s on Arista Private Reserve and those all averaged f/11 8 seconds before adding filters. Much easier to deal with.

 

[fschifano]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! Before it was discontinued, I used the Adorama house brand papers as my standard "go to" paper, and found it to be better than good enough for my purposes. When it was discontinued, I missed it. I definitely will get a 100 sheet to see if the quality of this new product is up to the standard of the old one.