Come take my class in Montana in a month. I will be teaching this at Photographers Formulary the last week of June. There is no more Kodak film to do this, unless you are lucky enough to get it on ebay. You have several choices left. Ilford is a very good all around film, and has the heft to it, so you do not have further problems with an ultra thin (polyester base) film. The Rolls Royce of Ortho film is the Bergger film which is also the most expensive. The maco and adox film is rebranded and sold by J&C which is very good as well. I personally do not like the Freestyle APHS. I have had several batches that have had real problems. The first had scratches on the film, the second had these weird marks that when I used Ilford where not there, while trying to enlarge the same negative. It is also the thinnest polyester base, and more dificult to hang onto when processing. Once you get a work flow going with it, and you get a good batch, it is a nice film. It is also by far the cheapest film to purchase.
As for the single shot neg to neg film I don't like them. I have found that I can do some manipulating of the orginal negative to get it to what I want. With the interpositive, I have the ability to check it out and se how it looks on a light table if I need to do further manipulation. With the one shot film, you takes what you gets!
The articles are good, but with all articles on this subject, they do not teach the little nuances of what to look for. That is the biggest key to a successful enlarged negative. Not one talks about how to fix a problem negative. Not one talks about what cnstitues a good negative for enlarging in the first place. If you don't have the right kind of negative, the results no matter what you do will be crap. It doesn't have to be perfect to start with, but it has several variables that you need, like highlights not blown out on the negative, and the the absence of good seperation of tones. If you don't like grain, remember how large you want to go and what you start with. As you increase in size, so does the grain. Also how do you acheive the bas fog the best. Why fog? You need a flat interpositive, not a good contrast one. The final negative needs more contrast, but how much more? How do you go from a flat interpositive to a final contrasty neg? These are all things the articles fail to mention adequately.
