Dense slides and Ilfochrome

MMfoto · May 17, 2007

Hi everyone,

I know that Ilfochrome printers prefer a thinner lowish contrast original for printing, but I'm curious to know about printing difficult originals.

With a dense saturated transparency, what are the limits of employing masking and a good effort of burning to achieving a satisfactory print? Subjectively of course.

David H. Bebbington · May 18, 2007

It's a long time since I did Cibachrome/Ilfochrome printing, but from what I recall, reciprocity failure set in quite strongly with exposures of more than around 30 seconds, which means printing dense transparencies would take a pretty powerful enlarger lamp.

Regards,

David

Doyle Thomas · May 18, 2007

I have made masked Ilfochrome prints at 20x24 f/5.6 900 seconds. You need to stop down and make test prints at the planned exposure time (from experience) then raise the enlarger and reset the apature. 900 seconds (15 min) is the max I have found, longer exposure times ie. 30 min+ have little additional effect.

Doyle

davetravis · May 18, 2007

MMfoto,
How dense? As dense as me?
Ditto above.
I usually open up the aperture 1 stop, from f11 to f8, and that is normally enough. I burn/dodge a lot and don't make contrast masks so can't comment on those.
Other than longer exposures, I've never seen any other problems with dense slides.
DT

Bob Carnie · May 18, 2007

When making cibachrome backlights for the Dome Stadium in Toronto in the mid to late 80's we were printing multiple exposures at 2hours per exposure. Some of the prints were 1/2 day to expose combining three exposures. One for the image , one for the white type and one for pantone colours of the company logos.
glass neg carriers, lens closed down two stops and a very stable enlarger/wall and totally dark room.
These prints were very beautiful to behold.

davetravis · May 18, 2007

Some of the prints were 1/2 day to expose combining three exposures.
Awesome Bob!
Now those are long exposures!
BTW, how did you stay busy in the dark during these?

Bob Carnie · May 18, 2007

I was being paid by the hour so I just laid a blanket on the floor and slept.
We had to be very careful with movement , opening and closing of doors were a no no.
It really was quite boring , until the prints came off the machine and the wow they were eye popping.

davetravis said:
Some of the prints were 1/2 day to expose combining three exposures.
Awesome Bob!
Now those are long exposures!
BTW, how did you stay busy in the dark during these?

MMfoto · May 18, 2007

Do you have any color shift problems with exposures that long?

jeroldharter · May 18, 2007

There was a good article in PhotoTechniques (or what it used to ba called) that might be available for purchase about Ilfochrome printing and long exposures. It included curves for adjusting exposure time and color compenstation for long exposures. I don't use Ilfochrome anymore but a good lens (Schneider Apo-Componon) helped because I could use it nearly wide open to keep exposure times down without quality loss.

Bob Carnie · May 18, 2007

We had to test each colour befor going to final. Colour correction would be anaylyzed off the test.

MMfoto said:
Do you have any color shift problems with exposures that long?

MMfoto · May 18, 2007

Bob Carnie said:
We had to test each colour befor going to final. Colour correction would be anaylyzed off the test.

So basically you made a test print and corrected from that?

Bob Carnie · May 18, 2007

Yes sir
We would have a basic balance after the first ciba chrome was made and start with that balance for all other the white balance never changed as well as the logo colour was consistant
We did over 100 murals for this installation, three basic sizes, 48inchx96, 40x60 inches and 22x28inches if I can remember correctly.All the prints were face mounted to plexi to boot. This project put SCLabs on the map and I have yet to work on a larger project and doubt I ever will in the future.
The composite transparancies were made by hand and I helped in this area as well. With registration pins in the carrier the three separate films would follow each other and would be printed separately.
The obvious question is why would the white type and colour type not be incorporated into the main transparancy?
We found that by separate exposures the type would be sharper for white and pantone.

MMfoto said:
So basically you made a test print and corrected from that?

radiantdarkroom · May 21, 2007

I have this amazing 4x5 transparency, but it is extremely dense. I tried doing a cibachrome 10 years ago from it. I tried 15 minutes exposure @ 8x10 and still nothing. I should have tried the half day.

Wayne · May 21, 2007

I once tried to print a dense 35mm for a friend with my 4x5 setup. I gave up after only 10 minutes or so exposure, and now realize what I quitter I was.

Wayne

Dense slides and Ilfochrome

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency