Did my first enlarged neg last night

Way to go Heather! This stuff can be addictive though, so pace yourself!

Regards, Art.

Akki14 said:

Hm I tried rather high concentration Rodinal and I still am getting too low of contrast. Any suggestions?

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Ditch the Rodinal and use HC-110 dil. B or use a pyro developer to soup the enlargered negative. I don't know why your shadows are fogging.

Steve,

I've made a number of enlarged negatives from slides (transparencies) directly onto Freestyle's Arista APHS ortho litho film. The enlarged negatives were developed in Dektol 1+9, and were quite suitable for cyanotype and van dyke prints. I would say that 1 out of 10 negatives would have too much contrast, but the vast majority were fine.

Akki14 said:

Hm I tried rather high concentration Rodinal and I still am getting too low of contrast. Any suggestions? The shadows keep fogging up before the highlights get dense enough. I'll try printing them as cyanotype anyway, hopefully they'll still work out okay. Might well try paper developer next.

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How Dark is your darkroom? ...the fogging could be from stray light leaking out of the enlarger? One of the negatives looks like there if fogging in the image area but not on the edges that were covered up by the film holders.

Otherwise I might reduce exposure and drastically increase development, maybe by 100% or more

It might seem strange, but I have found that exposure seems to have a relatively wide latitude and development (contrast control) also works kind of slowly.

Good Luck!

Corey

I loaded the film holders in the same darkroom and I exposed immediately after I got them loaded.. there was lots of faffing around with loading them but none of the edges are fogged even with me poking and prodding them for ages trying to get them into the holders. I taped up every bit of the enlarger and i only have it on when I'm actually exposing the film. I'm pretty confident that the darkroom is indeed very dark, pitchblack, cannot see my hand in front of my face.
I might try the lower dilution of Rodinal... Massive Dev Chart probably doesn't really expect anyone to do 1+25 for 3.5minutes.

Heather - I have used Kodak D19 dev undiluted with some success.

regards,
Neil.

Heather -

Search the forum for Jim Galli's posts about using Rodinal wit h APHS film. Short and simple version is 1+200 to make up a liter (5ml Rodinal is about the minimum amount you want anyway). He also adds a little bit of restrainer too.

Hi Heather,

I'm making enlarged negatives using only Bergger BPFB-18 film.
It's not cheap but it works great for this.
I do this:
I do the interpositive by projection and I make it at the same size of the original, and then I enlarge the interpositve to the final size.
I use ILFORD MG developer.
Look what I get:

Juan Carlos

I'll second Don Bryant's suggestion for using HC-110. I use it at 1:12 to 1:19 (dilution E or F) depending on the contrast desired. This is with APHS lith film and Scala B&W positive originals.
HC-110 is known as a low fog film. It's apparently good for very low dilutions and long dev times.
david

roy said:

... Ilford used to make an Ortho film but have not done so for quite a while now.

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Ilford still makes Ortho Plus in 4x5 and 8x10. Perhaps you were thinking of Agfa NP31(?) which went off the market several years ago.

Ilford Ortho works well in Ilford Universal, ID11 or HC110, etc., depending on the contrast you need. The interpositive should be a bit overexposed but underdeveloped to put all the information on the straightline portion of the characteristic curve. The subsequent negative contrast can then be adjusted to match the process (cyanotype, etc.,) exposure scale. Download the Ortho Plus data sheet on the Ilford website for more info on developers and their activity/contrast index potential. From what I've read online, Ortho Plus is basically FP-4 Plus without the extended panchromatic sensitivity into the red.

This film will be more expensive than an ortho litho film, but IME, it is easier to work with and more predictable.

Joe

I cannot remember the detail now Joe but I recall being told by Ilford when I enquired some while (years ?!) ago that the product I was looking for was not available.
I have to say that the "Bergger/paper developer" combination has worked fine for me in the past.