First ever contact print

[LucRoMar]

Hello,

I would love to have some feedback on this 2 parts contact sheet.
This is a lot of new things for me :

First time shooting medium format (6x45)
First time dev @home (Ilford delta 3200 in D-76 for 13 min. with agitation every 30 s)
first time contact printing.

These are raw scan, only resized.

I would reall enjoy any advices on the contacts and on the result of the dev too.

From the little experience I have, I would say I underexpose most of the shots by 1-1,5 stops.

Thanks,

 

[mrred]

I would say you are well on your way to enabling a wonderful addiction. Welcome aboard!

 

[EASmithV]

way better than my first contact sheet

 

[LucRoMar]

Thank you for the positive feedback, I was really feeling bad with this as I would love to move my carreer from desk job to Children/familly portrait photograpy using film.Maybe as part time activity.

 

[MartinP]

The first results are always fun I wonder what EI you used on the film? The contacts do look rather underexposed, as you say.

D76 is pretty much the same as ID11 (the Ilford version of the same developer type) and for that developer the 13m time is for an EI of 6400. To get attractive results at that rating you might be better using one of the Ilford recommended developers - either DDX (a liquid concentrate) or Microphen (mixed to a stock solution from a powder) which are both 'speed-increasing', in comparison to D76/ID11. Even then, try rating at EI3200 and using the development time for 6400.

The films actual ISO speed is around 1200 but it is designed to have a very flat curve, allowing over-development to increase contrast and give a 'normal' looking result at higher EI's (in other words, it is made to be pushed). A lot will depend on exactly how you meter the scene as variations can easily give you a stop more, or less, of light going on to the film. For portrait work this might not be a conventional choice of film, to say the least.

 

[LucRoMar]

Thank you Martin,
Yes it is fun but quite expensive too, I still have to sort out ventilation in the darkroom, find an enlarger for MF (either bw/color), sort out my exposure method...

On the creative side, I mostly don't even seems to know what I'm doing and/or if I am doing it correctly.

Thanks for the advice regarding Delta, I used it because we don't get that much light at the moment ;-) and testing different film is part of the fun too, I4ll try T-Max 400 soon and will see for alternative dev.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Congrats! Looks better than my first contact sheet. What I suggest is maybe developing your film a bit longer and printing your contact sheets with more contrast. There's a beauty of contact printing that enlarged printing can't match. I've heard that Ed Weston did a lot of contact printing. All he used was just a light bulb as his light source.

 

[LFman]

I just did my first printing session ever last week... it was contact printing as well. I printed an 8x10 contact print of a single 8x10 neg using a lamp. I wasted about 10 sheets thinking my paper pack had been exposed to light and it all came out black... until I discovered that my tiny lamp had way much more wattage than I expected!

I can't wait until I have all my testing done, some bigger trays, and some nice, big paper Addiction (and poverty), here I come!