How do you print panoramic negatives?

BetterSense · Sep 15, 2009

I was thinking about building a panoramic camera of the rotating type that would take roll film and be able to make 360 degree panoramas on 120 film. I have it all designed but then I realized that I would have no way to print the negatives.

I understand that some panoramic cameras don't us the rotating design and are just wide-angle lenses afterall.

In any case, how do you print panoramic negatives?

ann · Sep 16, 2009

you would print it as any other negative. You will probably have to make a negative carrier from matt board and be sure you have a lens that will cover the size. there are a few carriers for some enlargers, but they are hard to find.

depending on the size you also could use a glass 4x5 negative carrier.

Ian Grant · Sep 16, 2009

I shoot 6x17, and print with a 10x8 enlarger. I could print 6x24 max, anything larger would need a custom enlarger.

Ian

Inayat Noor · Sep 16, 2009

I had Steve Grimes machine a 6 X 12 opening in one of my Omega 6 X 6 negative carriers. It works fine.

markbarendt · Sep 16, 2009

I've been considering the same problem for a different style of shooting, ending up with a single negative 3, 4, or even 5 frames wide that I'd want to print as one piece. 2 1/4 x 14" pushes me well past a 4x5 for the "small ones", even an 8x10 enlarger would be too small for the large ones.

Xmas · Sep 16, 2009

contacts only needs two sheets of glass and bull dog clips, you can try one of the do it your self POP style papers...

Noel

Willie Jan · Sep 16, 2009

I use a durst 1200 and made a mask with a 6x12 opening by adjusting a 6x9 mask with a little iron saw.

markbarendt · Sep 16, 2009

I'd actually like to enlarge some, maybe 4x.

Xmas said:
contacts only needs two sheets of glass and bull dog clips, you can try one of the do it your self POP style papers...

Noel

L Gebhardt · Sep 16, 2009

Sadly I end up scanning my 6x17 images. I have an Omega 5x7 enlarger chassis, but no working light source for it. Maybe someday I'll get a good color head for it.

Xmas · Sep 16, 2009

markbarendt said:
I'd actually like to enlarge some, maybe 4x.

120 x 4 will look wonderful, but you can proof & file with glass contacts.

I do have a flat bed scanner for web publication, bad i know.

Noel

Vaughn · Sep 16, 2009

BetterSense said:
I was thinking about building a panoramic camera of the rotating type that would take roll film and be able to make 360 degree panoramas on 120 film...

I contact printed such a negative -- The camera actually took about 420 degrees. I do not remember the focal length of the lens, but it must have been fairly wide, maybe a 50mm?

If I remember correctly (no guarentee!), the 360 degree portion just fit corner to corner on a 16x20 sheet of paper. A package of 20x24 paper would last a long time, cut into 4"x24" pieces.

I used a large piece of 1/4" glass on plywood -- enlarger up all the way to contact print it.

Vaughn

Colin Corneau · Sep 20, 2009

Inayat Noor said:
I had Steve Grimes machine a 6 X 12 opening in one of my Omega 6 X 6 negative carriers. It works fine.

I did this same thing, with both a 6x6 neg carrier, and a 35mm carrier for my Widelux and XPan negs.

I used a plasma torch, via a friendly teacher at a local high school. Filed and sanded it down myself...works great.

BetterSense · Sep 20, 2009

Was this a 23C enlarger? I'm surprised the light source will cover a 12cm long negative.

Thomas Wilson · Sep 20, 2009

BetterSense said:
I understand that some panoramic cameras don't us the rotating design and are just wide-angle lenses afterall.

In any case, how do you print panoramic negatives?

My experience printing panoramic negatives was for a pro ten or fifteen years ago. He shot with a Noblex. The one characteristic of these negatives I found challenging was a significant shift in density from the center outwards. I recall using my fist to dodge the center area for the base exposure, so I guess the rotating lens design has its faults. I used his Beseler 4x5 with a custom cut carrier.

The Noblex was pretty neat but I would be more likely to put a Super Angulon 90 on a 4x5 and just crop it. I think it would be easier to print.

nsurit · Sep 20, 2009

I'm just getting set up with a darkroom and have a 5X7 enlarger. That should do it for 617, shouldn't it? Bill Barber

Vaughn · Sep 21, 2009

Once I used a 4x5 (150mm lens) and a Calumet 120 roll back (6x7) to take a panoramic of the East Side Sierras from within the Alabama Hills. I used color negative film and did it in 7 frames, centering Mt Whitney and all. I was planning on contact printing it with the film uncut. But I set my camera up a little differently for some reason and I built up the panoramic images ass-backwards. I had to cut the roll up in its individual frames and then tape the whole thing onto glass so it would read correctly. Worked like a charm -- except the frame numbers do not run exactly the proper way.

I printed onto some RA4 paper a friend gave me -- a damaged roll of 5" wide x 200' (or thereabouts) long paper from the place he worked. I had to unwind 30 feet or so to get to unfogged paper. I processed using a converted Cibachrome processor and could process any length I could expose. I just had to be in the room as the print first appeared from the back of the processor (a Dev/Bleach-Fix unit, no wash/dry), as it had a tendency to want to curl right back into the processor.

Vaughn

clay nz · Oct 1, 2009

I've been printing 120 panoramics for years using a stretched 4x5 enlarger. The enlarger will handle a 4 x 14 neg and has a colour head. Most of my negs are around 12 inches in length. I haven't used the enlarger for a few years as I'm now scanning the film, output is digital. I may get rid of the enlarger as it's taking up space.

At one stage I was building an 8x20 enlarger for bigger negs. I managed to get hold of 2 identical 8x10 colour heads but never got around to doing the conversion.

Clayton

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 1, 2009

Thomas Wilson said:
My experience printing panoramic negatives was for a pro ten or fifteen years ago. He shot with a Noblex. The one characteristic of these negatives I found challenging was a significant shift in density from the center outwards. I recall using my fist to dodge the center area for the base exposure, so I guess the rotating lens design has its faults. I used his Beseler 4x5 with a custom cut carrier.

The Noblex was pretty neat but I would be more likely to put a Super Angulon 90 on a 4x5 and just crop it. I think it would be easier to print.

I have a Noblex 150, and I don't find this to be the case. Are you sure he had a Noblex, or that it wasn't an enlarging issue (wrong condensers or too short an enlarging lens for the format)? There shouldn't be falloff from the extreme edges to the center, unless the lighting favors the center of the image, because the lens is a constant distance from the film and it isn't a particularly wide lens (50mm Tessar on the medium format Noblexes). This is in fact one of the more unusual qualities of a swing lens image. Another possibility is that the camera had a problem causing uneven exposure, but it wouldn't be falloff of illumination like you would expect from an ultrawide lens.

Here are a couple of Noblex images in my flickr account, and they didn't require dodging in the center--

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidagoldfarb/tags/noblex/

BetterSense · Oct 1, 2009

I've been printing 120 panoramics for years using a stretched 4x5 enlarger. The enlarger will handle a 4 x 14 neg and has a colour head. Most of my negs are around 12 inches in length.

What do you mean by "stretched 4x5 enlarger"? When you say 4x14, do you mean centimeters? How can you print 12-inch long negs when even 8x10 enlargers only go to 10 inches?

clay nz · Oct 2, 2009

BetterSense said:
What do you mean by "stretched 4x5 enlarger"? When you say 4x14, do you mean centimeters? How can you print 12-inch long negs when even 8x10 enlargers only go to 10 inches?

Inches!

Yes I stretched the enlarger, it has a whole new centre section with the standard lamp house bolted back on. This is a De Vere 504, a very common enlarger. I made new neg carriers, mixing box, housing body, bellows, it wasn't a 5 minute job, took a few months to finish. But I have the ability to print a 14 inch long neg. The Roundshot cameras I use produce a 16 inch long neg for a 360 rotation, usually I'm printing 10 - 12 inches of the neg.

Clayton

How do you print panoramic negatives?

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