Flat image without contrast

[jimjm]

Andrea - if your paper and chemicals are good, you shouldn't be having so much trouble getting a decent print. f2.8 at 30 sec is a long print time, unless you're making a big print or your negative is really overexposed and dense.

Take a digital snap of your negative held up against a daytime window, or against a bright light. To me, your shots look like they are underexposed, which gives muddy results like you see here. We can speculate about everything else, but seeing your negatives will go a long way for helping you with this.

 

[pentaxuser]

At 30 secs exposure at f2.8 I cannot help but feel that something is seriously wrong with the amount of light getting to the paper. What that might be, I have no idea. The negative image on the easel should be very strong at f2.8. I think you are saying that you exposed without any filtration so the paper should be giving you about grade 2 and the image of the girl on the boat suggests that a higher grade is needed as the contrast looks too low to me but for all I know if the correct amount of light was getting through to the paper the kind of "fog" I am seeing would disappear

I take it that the aperture on the enlarger lens hasn't stuck at say f11 or f16. Make sure that the lens' aperture is wide open at f2.8 and closes when you move through apertures.

pentaxuser

 

[tamborna]

Andrea - if your paper and chemicals are good, you shouldn't be having so much trouble getting a decent print. f2.8 at 30 sec is a long print time, unless you're making a big print or your negative is really overexposed and dense.
Take a digital snap of your negative held up against a daytime window, or against a bright light. To me, your shots look like they are underexposed, which gives muddy results like you see here. We can speculate about everything else, but seeing your negatives will go a long way for helping you with this.

You're right, here you can find two photos of both the frame i used to print: from my point of view, even I am a beginner, those are not so bad as to justify the result of the print. Beyond the first print, in which the enlarger lens was not in its optimal condition, in the second case I cannot figure out what's the problem.

About the chemicals and the paper I bought them less than one week ago from a shop that has a great material handling so, as I can just suppose, they sold me quite new chemicals/paper and not just the stock funds.

At 30 secs exposure at f2.8 I cannot help but feel that something is seriously wrong with the amount of light getting to the paper. What that might be, I have no idea. The negative image on the easel should be very strong at f2.8. I think you are saying that you exposed without any filtration so the paper should be giving you about grade 2 and the image of the girl on the boat suggests that a higher grade is needed as the contrast looks too low to me but for all I know if the correct amount of light was getting through to the paper the kind of "fog" I am seeing would disappear
I take it that the aperture on the enlarger lens hasn't stuck at say f11 or f16. Make sure that the lens' aperture is wide open at f2.8 and closes when you move through apertures.

Pentaxuser you're right too but I checked the whole lens and the aperture mechanism works quite well. Another doubt of mine was the lightbulb: I supposed the one inside the enlarger was dated and, after a quick research on the internet I found the equivalent type of bulb and replaced it but the light strength on the easel is quite the same as before.
I may also change that bulb with another one that i bought but this is a LED bulb, it has an higher Lumen rate but...who knows?

I am quite sure about the developing process: as previously said, with RC paper, 1.30min of dev, 10sec of stop bath and 30sec of fix: I followed the Ilford suggestion for that. Do you have another?

Thanks again and have a good day

 

[Nodda Duma]

Try turning your paper right side up.

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

My question is: how do you define your "starting values" for your first test strip? I mean...I have tried with f8 and up to 30sec of exposition with 5sec intervals and Magenta&Yellow filter on 0% but i barely saw the print on the paper hence I have changed the settings as written above.

That is actually not complicated:

First the f-stop: stop the lens down at least two stops. If you are unsure, f/11 is a good starting point.
Second the contrast filter: look at your negatives, actually a normal contrast should do, but people mostly like prints a little harder. So probably the 3 filter is a good starting point.
Useful times for the test strips are: 4/8/16/32/64 seconds. The easiest way of doing this is as a beginner is to use an entire print and after 4 sec covering the first part, after 8 sec the second, and so on.

When you do this for the first time, it is better to do this with a negative which has full black and full white in all of the test strips. This makes evaluation easier.

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

Your negs look good, as far as it is possible to see here. Your second print still looks strangely muddy, though. No real blacks, no real whites, only grey. To diagnose this at distance is difficult, a lot of sources could cause such a problem.

As you had a dirt problem with your lens, check the entire light-path from the lamp to the paper. Dirt, dust or fungus in a condensor / ligh box can cause contrast problems.
Lens: You said there was strange stuff stuck to the lens. Which lens do you use? Is it 100% clean now?
Paper: you say it´s fresh, are you sure the emulsion side is up when printing?
Developer: Which developer are you using? Which dilution are you using? At what temperature?

 

[tezzasmall]

Hi.

First off, you negatives look fine, with a full range of tones and therefore there should be no reason why you shouldn't produce a good print from them.

Since you've done a couple of test strips and are still not happy, and a solution is not forthcoming, may I suggest the following two tests.

Set the enlarger up as you have with the negative in place, but then remove the negative, putting the negative carrier back in. Then do a test strip as usual with about 5 second exposures, with the lens stopped down about two or three stops ie if you have a f2.8 lens, stop it down to f5.6 or f8. After exposure and the developing sequence your paper should show a series of tones from white (= no exposure) right through some grey tones to black (= if it's had extra lots of exposure). This would at least show the enlarger (light), paper and chemicals are working okay.

It also wouldn't do any harm to do a safe-light test. Do this the same way as above but WITHOUT using the enlarger but WITH the safe-light turned on only and do the test strip in gaps of about 30 seconds. You SHOULD get a piece of developed paper at the end that was as white when it was first exposed. If not your safe-light is too strong and / or too close to the working area. Any area showing VERY SLIGHT tone, would tell you that exposure up to that amount of light is okay, but preferably the safe-light should be put further away.

Keep us all updated as we are wanting to help.

Terry S

 

[glbeas]

It does look like the developer may be the problem if you are not getting good black. As well as the details asked for about brand and dilution what color is the developer when you mixed it?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Try turning your paper right side up.

Picky, picky, picky.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I use f/8 as a starting point.

 

[silveror0]

Andrea, you're probably aware of this, but just in case you're not ... make sure the emulsion side of the paper is facing the lens. The emulsion side of fiber paper looks shiny when held at an angle under the safelight. I've never used RC paper, so not sure what that would look like. Safelights should be equivalent to a 15-watt bulb behind its filter, and the paper should never be closer than 4 ft (1.2m) from the safelight for longer than just a few minutes.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The emulsion side of the paper feels slick for both fiber or RC papers.

 

[pentaxuser]

I had always assumed that the non-emulsion side up would give no image at all but it seems this is a false assumption. Everything the OP is doing, now the lens is clean, suggests that even with the powerful blast of 30 secs of light at f2.8 the print "struggles". Maybe someone here can try paper the wrong way up at f2.8 and 30 secs to see if the effect replicates the OP's print.

pentaxuser

 

[glbeas]

Looking at the neg and the print they are the same orientation (not flipped horizontally), so unless the OP put the neg in the enlarger emulsion side up it looks like the print paper was oriented properly.
I think we need to ask for a contact proof on that paper and see what that looks like.

 

[tamborna]

Hi there!

This evening I couldn’t make any print but i can tell you something about my actual process.
I use the PQ Developer from Ilford with 1+9 diluition at 20*: this is what’s prescribed on the bottle, if I am right. It looks like...transparent and incolor. But I am not so sure: I think so but I’ll check.

I am also pretty sure about the fact that I used to print on the right side of the paper and not the other one.
I would do for sure the test suggested by tezzasmall even if I’m not awared by the safelight since it’s really low.

 

[Tim Stapp]

I haven't been through all of the posts in this thread (shame on me), but I have to ask: what paper are you printing on? If I recall correctly, some East European papers don't like an OC safelight and require a red filtered safelight. I ask, because this has bitten me in the past.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Upside down paper prints can be fuzzy because the light gets scattered by the paper.

 

[silveror0]

I haven't been through all of the posts in this thread (shame on me), but I have to ask: what paper are you printing on? If I recall correctly, some East European papers don't like an OC safelight and require a red filtered safelight. I ask, because this has bitten me in the past.

Post #1 says Ilford MG. OC safelight is OK for this paper.

 

[glbeas]

Hi there!

This evening I couldn’t make any print but i can tell you something about my actual process.
I use the PQ Developer from Ilford with 1+9 diluition at 20*: this is what’s prescribed on the bottle, if I am right. It looks like...transparent and incolor. But I am not so sure: I think so but I’ll check.

I am also pretty sure about the fact that I used to print on the right side of the paper and not the other one.
I would do for sure the test suggested by tezzasmall even if I’m not awared by the safelight since it’s really low.

You might try a lower dilution and see what happens. Also leave the print in until you cant tell if its getting any darker, just to be sure the development is sufficient. From that point if you get better results you can work back and maybe get a better handle on whats happening.
From your description of the color it doesnt sound like the developer is oxidised, have you checked for cross contamination in your work process?

 

[tamborna]

This evening I will try again: my main problem right now, bedides the one connected with the foggy result, is to keep flat the paper and center it before the exposure since I don’t have an Esselunga right now (I’ll but one soon ).Do you have any suggestion for this? I would use a piece of glass to keep flat the paper.

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

You might try a lower dilution and see what happens. Also leave the print in until you cant tell if its getting any darker, just to be sure the development is sufficient. From that point if you get better results you can work back and maybe get a better handle on whats happening.
From your description of the color it doesnt sound like the developer is oxidised, have you checked for cross contamination in your work process?

I would not start experimenting with different dilutions and development by sight. Ilford has determined a process which will produce technically correct results, which somehow the OP cannot achieve. 1+9 developing for 2 minutes is what is called for by Ilford and will produce correct results.

 

[Sirius Glass]

You could use blue painters' tape to hold the edges down.

 

[glbeas]

I would not start experimenting with different dilutions and development by sight. Ilford has determined a process which will produce technically correct results, which somehow the OP cannot achieve. 1+9 developing for 2 minutes is what is called for by Ilford and will produce correct results.

That may be but if there is something wrong with the developer this will show it up. We are working a situation where nothing seems to work right so something needs done to show up the weak point.

 

[tamborna]

After this evening printing session I was really upset: after cleaning the whole enlarger, after keeping all the liquids at 20° I just obtained a print that looks a little bit better than the previous one but my goal seemed really far.
I have printed at f5.6 with 70% of magenta filter exposing the paper for so long, something like 50sec, just to have a a print, something visible quite well. As said that was a little bit frustrating but after that I thought that using an f4 aperture with an exposure time of 30 I can achieve some good results.

I'm quite sure about the fact that my film is a little bit under developed and that's the main reason behind this results. Tomorrow morning I will post the last print to show you and let you judge.

Considering my film situation: do you think that could be the reason? I mean: is it possible that an under developed film leads to longer exposure time to reach a good and visible result, lower contrast and so on?

Thanks to you all guys for the support!

 

[MattKing]

To help eliminnate one variable, take a piece of photographic paper out under safelight illumination, cover over one half, and use the enlarger with a negative in it to expose the other half in segments - 16 seconds, 32 seconds, 64 seconds and 128 seconds.
Develop the result and show it to us.