graded papers and VC heads

I'm feeling kind of stupid right now. Well maybe not stupid, but certainly full of self doubt. I know that I can use my Zone VI VC head to print on graded paper, but I'm wondering about the best setting for it.

Should I:

1. Set soft, intensity and hard dials to maximum?

2. Set soft and hard dials to something like "E" (my g2 setting) and up the intensity to maximum?

3. Do something else entirely?

4. Stop overthinking? If you choose, this answer please also offer some insight into the settings.

I would like to do a few contacts tonight on some g3 Ilfobrom.


Mike

There are so many ways to set the Zone VI. Changing papers and developers will change the grade settings, so the best solution is for individual testing with your paper/dev.

For my system and using Ilford MG4 fiber and Dektol, I would use Max soft and Min hard for grade 0, then increase the hard until both were at max (about grade 2). Then start reducing the soft to further increase the paper grade, up to Max hard and min soft for grade 4. Turning off one, with the other at max, will give grades 00 or 5. I always left the intensity at about 90%, the highest I could achieve and still have the green stabilization light stay on during the exposure.

After all my testing, using a densitometer and carefully controlled tests, I started using the split filter method, which I find much better. Good luck!

Eric,

Thanks. I'm up to speed on using the head for VC papers. My issue right now is using it with some graded paper. I thought that I remembered that graded Cold Heads used only the blue light as opposed to blue and green. But then I've confused myself with a couple of hours of reading and people talking about white light. Heck all of this makes me feel like I need some White Lightning (maybe it's snake time )


I actually use the split filter method fairly often too. I didn't feel like I need it as often with the Agfa Paper that I had been using, but I do get better results with the Ilford VC paper with split grading.


Thanks,

Mike

if your head has dichroic filters then do not use any filtration.
If it is a cold light head with green and blue lamps, then set it so that there is no green lamp. graded papers are supposed to be responsive to blue light only so green should make no difference but I bet it does a little.

percepts said:

if your head has dichroic filters then do not use any filtration.
If it is a cold light head with green and blue lamps, then set it so that there is no green lamp. graded papers are supposed to be responsive to blue light only so green should make no difference but I bet it does a little.

Click to expand...

Great. It's the twin light VC head. Sounds good. I thought that I remembered that I was supposed to use blue light but found conflicting information on the Internet (Can you imagine that????? )

Thanks for the sanity (or lack thereof) check. To the darkroom with me.


Mike

I don't know about the Zone VI/Aristo VC heads but this might be helpful: I use a Durst Multigraph (essentially a computerized VC head) and whenever I use graded paper, I set the head to grade 2. It seems to work for me.

Graded papers are sensitive to only a small portion of the visible spectrum, mainly toward the blue end. As long as there is some blue in the light, you'll get an exposure. The contrast will not be affected. However, your exposure times will vary with filtration. Best bet is to leave all filtration out of the path, or in your case, use both tubes.

I just finished the printing session. I really like the Ilfobrom #3 for most of my negatives. All of what I consider my normal negs (FP4, Type 55, and Forte 200) printed great on this paper in Multigrade.

I was most happy with some Portraits that I had done back in 2005 and developed in Pyrocat. The enlargements looked pretty good on VC paper (MGIV Fibre), but the contacts look great on the #3 graded paper. I haven't toned anything yet, and want to wait to see how they will drydown. But I am very happy with the initial results of tonight.

Thanks to everyone who responded.


Mike