Ars-Imago Direct Positive paper

[grainyvision]

Has anyone tried this new direct positive paper and have any tips or impressions? I got a box of 4x5, but it's quite expensive to just test it out for fun, I've done 2 sheets so far along with a sacrificial safelight test sheet. Overall first impressions though:

* High contrast (haven't tried preflashing) with easy easy to clip shadows and highlights
* Polyester base is very nice and I like the finish of it a lot better than Ilford's direct positive. Also polyester base dries flat like RC paper unlike the FB direct positive paper.
* My safelights are safe with almost every material I've used, but with this paper obvious fogging appears within 1 minute. Comparison is ortho litho film, which fogs over >30m, and Ilford direct positive which fogs over >5m
* Documented ISO of 6 is about right it seems, maybe 4.5 would be better though

 

[AgX]

It is not a new paper. Furthermore it is the IfordPhoto emulsion coated by Ilford Imaging on Polyester instead. So stocks must be limited, unless they have it made by another manufacturer meanwhile.

 

[grainyvision]

Is there any source for it being Ilford emulsion and coated by Ilford? Seems odd they'd allow that but might explain the expense. Also why would stocks be limited? Ilford's direct positive is still produced

 

[AgX]

But Ilford Imaging has gone some years ago. Before IlfordPhoto started with their paper there was a tollproduction endeavour in which both Ilfords were involved.
(I'm writing this out of memory, without having dived into my archive,)

 

[mammolo]

Hi,

I just finished a characterization of the Imago Positive Paper. An interesting piece of information is that one can replace preflashing with a more convenient Lee or TIffen low contrast filter.

I have reported the results in two videos on my channel on large and ultra large format photography. They are, like most videos in my channel, in the beautiful Italian language

In case you decided not to learn Italian , there is a long and boring PDF document in English that has the same exact content of the two videos. This document can be found here:

https://www.marcoannaratone.photography/Tests-(PDFs)/thumbs

The two videos are here:

Part one:




Part Two:




Enjoy

Cheers


Marco

 

[AgX]

What do you refer to by "Low Contrast Filter" ?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Has anyone tried this new direct positive paper and have any tips or impressions? I got a box of 4x5, but it's quite expensive to just test it out for fun, I've done 2 sheets so far along with a sacrificial safelight test sheet. Overall first impressions though:

* High contrast (haven't tried preflashing) with easy easy to clip shadows and highlights
* Polyester base is very nice and I like the finish of it a lot better than Ilford's direct positive. Also polyester base dries flat like RC paper unlike the FB direct positive paper.
* My safelights are safe with almost every material I've used, but with this paper obvious fogging appears within 1 minute. Comparison is ortho litho film, which fogs over >30m, and Ilford direct positive which fogs over >5m
* Documented ISO of 6 is about right it seems, maybe 4.5 would be better though

I realize this is an old thread but, inany event, my EI for this paper is ISO3 and I expose it through a yellow filter to avoid pre flashing, then process normally just like any other RC paper; this tames contrast sufficiently and gives a full range of tones.

 

[mammolo]

What do you refer to by "Low Contrast Filter" ?

What you get by typing into google "Tiffen Low Contrast Filter"

 

[AgX]

I do not like to be made a fool. (I can do that myself.)


You refer to a "Lee Low Contrast 1" filter and describe it as having "a light yellow, washed out tint" .

I do not remember such filter, but nonetheless spent 20minutes at Lee catalogs searching for such. In vain.

Thus I consider my question substantiated.

The best I can think of is a series of Lee mist filters (p.73), that Lee describe as "white", your description though indicates to me that it is a colour filter and made me wonder how it could work.

 

[mammolo]

 

[mammolo]

I post on this topic again because the content of the document re: profiling the Imago PP has changed significantly.

Soon after I posted the link to the first version of the paper I had an interesting meeting with Susanna Kraus in her atelier here in Berlin and I learnt that the Imago devours developers and that the blacks I was getting -- pleasant but rather "relaxed" -- could be replaced by truly stunning ones. She told me that the key was developing at high temperatures. (In spite of the manufacturer's instructions to work at 20C/68F.)

I have made a few more tests and added a third chapter to the document. In this new chapter I report the results when developing with the Jobo CPP-2 (and not in trays as in Chapter 2), at 27C-32C (81F-90F) and using a strong Tiffen Low Contrast Filter 3 (instead of the weaker Lee Low Contrast 1 as in Chapter 2) that I recently purchased.

The new paper has the same link as before: https://www.marcoannaratone.photography/Tests-(PDFs)/thumbs

Those of you who downloaded the paper before should download it again (and throw away the old one) because the latest one is quite different and more complete.

The condensed version of the paper is that Susanna was 101% correct

Cheers