Arista Ortho Litho 2.0 Versus APHS

Joe VanCleave · Mar 28, 2014

I remember "back in the day," (meaning about 5-10 years ago) it was common for pinholers and alt photog folks to use Freestyle's APHS ortho litho film for use with alternative processes. As I recall, APHS had a few issues that a person had to learn to work around, namely high contrast that needed to be tamed by dilute development, and pinhole defects that arose from using acid stop bath. Otherwise, it was a very inexpensive film for experimentation purposes, and could produce pretty good results if used properly, and was also easy to work with under red darkroom lights.

Cut to the present, APHS has been off the market for a few years, but Freestyle now sells a replacment, their Arista Ortho Litho 2.0 film. Does anyone here have any experience or advice when working with this new film? I'd like to know, because I just purchased a pack, and at 22 cents per 4x5 sheet, the cost is on par with cheap RC paper negatives. The data sheet for the new film indicates it's even higher in contrast than APHS, which doesn't bode well for my initial results, but I'll keep you all posted.

~Joe

snapguy · Mar 28, 2014

Let us see

Pinhole defects in a negative shot with a pinhole camera. I'm having trouble wrapping my tired brain around that one. But I would also be curious if anyone has used this stuff. I might want to give it a go.

Joe VanCleave · Mar 28, 2014

snapguy said:
Pinhole defects in a negative shot with a pinhole camera. I'm having trouble wrapping my tired brain around that one. But I would also be curious if anyone has used this stuff. I might want to give it a go.

Sorry I stated this a bit obtusely, but emulsion pinholes in APHS has little to do with the type of lens used (it happens with glass lenses, too), but apparently the rapid pH change when going from the base developer to acid stop bath causes hydrogen gas evolution in the emulsion, which can cause small holes. The obvious solution was to use a water bath as a stop.

I'm more interested in learning about contrast control with this new film, and also how it takes dilute development.

~Joe

adelorenzo · Mar 28, 2014

I have a thread going right now on (there was a url link here which no longer exists) there are a number of suggestions from people there. So far I've had no luck with dilute Dektol (way too contrasty, no mid tones whatsoever) but dilute HC-110 is looking very promising.

My best results so far are with 1:49 HC-110, agitated for about five minutes.

I hadn't heard about the pinhole issue, I'll check my film to see if I'm seeing any issues and if so I'll try using a water stop.

snapguy · Mar 28, 2014

Ah

I thought that emulsion pinholes was what you were referring to but wasn't sure. I'm always confused by the Circles of Confusion idea, too.

Joe VanCleave · Mar 28, 2014

Thanks for the link to the other thread, adelorenzo. I've also ordered a low-contrast liquid concentrate paper developer from Freestyle, we'll see how it works. And then I have plenty of film developer around (HC110 and RA09) to experiment with.

~Joe

desertrat · Mar 29, 2014

Considering the price of X-ray film compared to ortho litho film, it might be useful for alt processes and experimenting. It doesn't have the super fine grain of ortho litho film, but is orders of magnitude faster and can give a long tonal scale. In other words, x-ray film can give shadow detail without blown highlights, which is almost impossible to obtain with ortho litho. I have some of both the old APHS and the new Arista II. If you use highly dilute film developer, they both give similar results. One is a bit faster than the other, but I don't remember which.

Back to X-ray film, I haven't tried the Kodak Ektascan RA, but a lot of people think it's great. It has emulsion on only one side, an anti-halation backing on the other side, and an orthochromatic response. It's not available in 4X5, but 8X10 can be cut down and it costs the same as ortho litho film for 100 sheets. I would buy a box if I didn't have 3 boxes of double sided X-ray film already. ZZ Medical has it in stock. They are who I've bought my other X-ray film from.

Jim Noel · Mar 29, 2014

adelorenzo said:
I have a thread going right now on (there was a url link here which no longer exists) there are a number of suggestions from people there. So far I've had no luck with dilute Dektol (way too contrasty, no mid tones whatsoever) but dilute HC-110 is looking very promising.

My best results so far are with 1:49 HC-110, agitated for about five minutes.

I hadn't heard about the pinhole issue, I'll check my film to see if I'm seeing any issues and if so I'll try using a water stop.

Once again people are using an old wives tale in an attempt to control contrast in a high contrast film. Paper developers by designare far more active, thus contrast producing, than are film developers. If you don't believe this try to develop paper in a film developer.
The best approach to reducing contrast in this film is dilute film developers. Almost any will work, but a good one is HC 110 diluted about 1+100 from syrup.

Joe VanCleave · Mar 29, 2014

@Desertrat: Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to order a pack of the Kodak x-ray film when I'm done (or tired) of the Arista litho film.

@Jim: Thank for the advice, I do have some film developer on hand.

~Joe

Fixcinater · Mar 30, 2014

I shot my first 4 sheets and developed all four in a Combiplan with 10ml of HC110 syrup for 1000ml of tank capacity. 15 seconds of agitation at the beginning and then an hour of sitting. Still way too much contrast for my taste but it may be printable.

Hard to load/unload as the sheets are so thin and flexible.

desertrat · Mar 30, 2014

Fixcinater said:
I shot my first 4 sheets and developed all four in a Combiplan with 10ml of HC110 syrup for 1000ml of tank capacity. 15 seconds of agitation at the beginning and then an hour of sitting. Still way too much contrast for my taste but it may be printable.

Hard to load/unload as the sheets are so thin and flexible.

It's easy to get near normal contrast with ortho litho film. First you have to ignore the exposure recommendations that have been widely posted. These recommendations badly underexpose the film and then push process to get printable density. The result is ultra high contrast and no shadow detail. Expose the film at EI 0.5, or 2 seconds at f16 in sunny 16 conditions. Develop with highly diluted film developer until the negative looks too dense under the safelight. If you pull the negative when it looks about right under the safelight, it will be very low contrast and very low density. A few trials will get you in the ballpark. You will have shadow detail and near normal contrast, but the high values will be crowded together. On many subjects the results won't look too bad, but tonality will be different than normal negative materials.

In my gallery are some test shots using APHS ortho litho film.

adelorenzo · Mar 30, 2014

Jim Noel said:
Once again people are using an old wives tale in an attempt to control contrast in a high contrast film. Paper developers by designare far more active, thus contrast producing, than are film developers. If you don't believe this try to develop paper in a film developer.
The best approach to reducing contrast in this film is dilute film developers. Almost any will work, but a good one is HC 110 diluted about 1+100 from syrup.

Old wives tale?

This information comes straight from the Freestyle website:

For a continuous tone it is recommended to use with LegacyPro Select Soft Powder paper developer or any other standard powder paper developer. To reduce contrast in the film, you may want to double dilute the paper developer to get continuous tone results.

Forgive me if I started with what the manufacturer recommends. Apparently I wasn't born knowing this shit like you were.

bvy · Mar 30, 2014

Sorry to hijack Joe's thread, but I'm trying to get just the opposite at the moment -- high contrast results without buying yet another dedicated developer. I have various film and paper developers on hand. Anyone have any experiences or recommendations?

Fixcinater · Mar 30, 2014

desertrat said:
It's easy to get near normal contrast with ortho litho film. First you have to ignore the exposure recommendations that have been widely posted. These recommendations badly underexpose the film and then push process to get printable density. The result is ultra high contrast and no shadow detail. Expose the film at EI 0.5, or 2 seconds at f16 in sunny 16 conditions. Develop with highly diluted film developer until the negative looks too dense under the safelight. If you pull the negative when it looks about right under the safelight, it will be very low contrast and very low density. A few trials will get you in the ballpark. You will have shadow detail and near normal contrast, but the high values will be crowded together. On many subjects the results won't look too bad, but tonality will be different than normal negative materials.

In my gallery are some test shots using APHS ortho litho film.

Yeah, I varied from roughly 1 ASA to 6 ASA just to see what would happen. Bought it as a cheap way to experiment and practice using the 4x5 development routine, so more experimenting is definitely in order. Thanks for your thoughts.

Joe VanCleave · Mar 31, 2014

Yesterday I made some test exposures with the Arista Ortho Litho 2.0 (which I'll call "AOL2.0" for brevity), using a 135-f/5.6 Fujinon lens on a Speed Graphic. I used Tetenal Centrabrom-S low-contrast paper developer diluted 1:15. With a slight amount of preflashing, I found ISO 6 was good for shaded daylight and ISO 12 for cloudy skies. I have yet to test this film under harsh, direct sunlight, but expect it to be very contrasty without using some dilute film developer, which will be my next round of tests.

Here are several images from yesterday's tests.

Jim Noel · Mar 31, 2014

This is still based on an article in a 1930's magazine, I have forgotten which one, article entitled something like,"Developing Lith film on Paper Developer". Like many other articles, the word spread over the years until it became a "fact". The fact is that paper developers are much more active than film developers and thus produce far more contrast. A metol only developer is soft working and designed for film. Add a little sodium sulfite and you have D-23 a beautiful developer.

Using a film speed of 3 and a highly diluted or other soft working film developer and beautiful negatives result. I have use this for years and taught it for 20 + years to hundreds of satisfied students. My favorite 8x10 film/developer combination is almost any brand of ortho litho film plus my altered LC-2 developer.

Jim Noel · Mar 31, 2014

Nce try, but the images are still far too contrasty for my taste, particularly the flowers.

bvy · Mar 31, 2014

The portrait looks really good to my eyes. What do you plan to do with these negatives, Joe? Contact print?

davido · Mar 31, 2014

Taming the lith film beast with flashing?

I spent a few years working with APHS struggling to get good enlarged negtives from B&W positives.
I tried HC-110 diluted anywhere from 1:12 - 1:19 from stock and also tried LC-1 developer. The developing times were up to 18 minutes per sheet and I was using a window squeegee to create a slight drag while 'wiping' over the negative without touching actually touching it. These were exhausting sessions!
I did get some good results but the images were still-lifes on a white background, so getting good highlight detail was not easy.

However, the sharpness of lith film is simply stunning and almost worth the hard work it takes to tames to try and tame this beast.
I had never thought of flashing the film. Reading this, I'm considering giving it another try? Would the flashing make much of a difference?
As Desertrat says, the highlight values with lith really crowd to together quickly. I would love to get back to using this film for enlarged negs but only if I could figure out how to get better high-light separation.
Any advise from 'flashers' out there

Joe VanCleave · Apr 1, 2014

bvy said:
The portrait looks really good to my eyes. What do you plan to do with these negatives, Joe? Contact print?

These images are enlargements to 8x10 onto Ilford MG RC WT paper. At this scale, the detail holds up very nicely.

And I agree with the other poster that the contrast is not yet ideal, but they aren't too bad considering I was using paper developer. I'm thinking about using this same low-contrast Tetenal developer with Harman DPP (yes, I still have some left).

~Joe

Joe VanCleave · Apr 1, 2014

davido said:
I spent a few years working with APHS struggling to get good enlarged negtives from B&W positives.
I tried HC-110 diluted anywhere from 1:12 - 1:19 from stock and also tried LC-1 developer. The developing times were up to 18 minutes per sheet and I was using a window squeegee to create a slight drag while 'wiping' over the negative without touching actually touching it. These were exhausting sessions!
I did get some good results but the images were still-lifes on a white background, so getting good highlight detail was not easy.

However, the sharpness of lith film is simply stunning and almost worth the hard work it takes to tames to try and tame this beast.
I had never thought of flashing the film. Reading this, I'm considering giving it another try? Would the flashing make much of a difference?
As Desertrat says, the highlight values with lith really crowd to together quickly. I would love to get back to using this film for enlarged negs but only if I could figure out how to get better high-light separation.
Any advise from 'flashers' out there

I appreciate your feedback and experience. I do like the sharpness I'm seeing with these negatives.

I shot another batch of AOL2.0 today, this time in bright sun. I rated them at ISO 6, preflashed a bit, and used HC110 diluted 1:200 for 30 minutes. The negatives are thin, I'll wait on passing judgement until I try printing them.

Regarding preflashing, I haven't done any proper tests with this film, but I intend on soon. I swag'd my preflash times today at 4 seconds, about what I give Harman DPP, but I have no real data to show that's the optimal time. I'm intending to find a preflash time that elevates the base density a bit, which should bring out any subtle shadow detail, while restraining the highlights with a dilute film developer with stand development, in order to control contrast. And I'll probably use ISO 3 instead of 6.

My preflash light source is a type S11 light bulb (120vac, standard based, 7.5 watts, round frosted white globe about the size of a table tennis ball - a white nightlight bulb should work okay, too) inside an enclosure with a 5mm aperture, suspended about 30 inches above my darkroom table. This gives a faint enough light that typical preflash times are 3-8 seconds, long enough to accurately time with a Gralab timer.

~Joe

Xmas · Apr 1, 2014

Try POTA or the Formulary derivative.

It was designed for stellar spectra resolution so you will need to try hard to get contrasty or burnt high lights.

Google POTA and think about buying micro scale mine was 30USD equivalent in mug punter shop.

I use it for street lights at night when the subject is in deep shadows and I want the lights held down but my film is low contrast anyway...

Arista Ortho Litho 2.0 Versus APHS

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