Last night was my first go at it.
Wow.
So that is what black looks like. I had heard of it and tried every other trick in the book to get it. You see the problem is that the "wow" was only with my contact 4x5. I was able to enlarge 8 or so 4x5 negs to 8x10. But no wow there. i have a theory that the UV light is not focused and so the prints are not sharp. So enlarging, although worked ok from an exposure point of view was OK- is unacceptable from a sharpness point of view with AZO. All my negs are PMK Tri-x or Fp4. They are all moderatly dense - I tend to keep zone 3 well exposed bringing the whole image off the toe of the film and PMK keeps me from blocking up the highlights too much. (I will be switching to PyrocatHD as soon as my PMK stock runs out)
So here is how my life is ruined. Unless I put my eyes on a diet, 4x5 is just not big enough for me. That leaves 2 options. Sell everything I own and buy a huge camera - 11x14? or make digital negs work. I have had some success with digital negs on Kalitypes and Cyanotypes but am not yet convinced they will work on AZO. The curves I used for these processes are certainly wrong. The couple I tried were not even close on AZO. I fear I may never be happy till I am using the gorilla camera.
Wow.
So that is what black looks like. I had heard of it and tried every other trick in the book to get it. You see the problem is that the "wow" was only with my contact 4x5. I was able to enlarge 8 or so 4x5 negs to 8x10. But no wow there. i have a theory that the UV light is not focused and so the prints are not sharp. So enlarging, although worked ok from an exposure point of view was OK- is unacceptable from a sharpness point of view with AZO. All my negs are PMK Tri-x or Fp4. They are all moderatly dense - I tend to keep zone 3 well exposed bringing the whole image off the toe of the film and PMK keeps me from blocking up the highlights too much. (I will be switching to PyrocatHD as soon as my PMK stock runs out)
So here is how my life is ruined. Unless I put my eyes on a diet, 4x5 is just not big enough for me. That leaves 2 options. Sell everything I own and buy a huge camera - 11x14? or make digital negs work. I have had some success with digital negs on Kalitypes and Cyanotypes but am not yet convinced they will work on AZO. The curves I used for these processes are certainly wrong. The couple I tried were not even close on AZO. I fear I may never be happy till I am using the gorilla camera.
