Ilford Harman Direct Positive RC

I've been asked to run a class on pinhole cameras for my daughter's school and am looking at materials. Ilford Harman Direct Positive in 4x5 sheets would be ideal as I could set up a makeshift darkroom and allow the kids to develop their own prints under safelight, without the additional time required for inversion of a paper negative. RC paper would be best due to the minimal wash requirement and rapid, flat drying. However the Ilford website says the RC direct positive paper is not currently available due to coating problems. Does anyone happen to know the status on this, and whether it is likely to be resolved any time soon?

Thanks
Andrew

I know nothing about the paper, but I recently did a pinhole class with 5-11yo children and personally I would use normal photo paper not direct positive. The photo paper is much more forgiving and therefore you end up with much happier children. Maybe toward the end of the day when everything is dialed in and exposures are right try the DP paper. The direct positive paper (RC Glossy) I had on the day did not dry flat like normal RC paper either, better than FB but not flat. Also try and get some way to measure the pinhole quickly so you can advise on exposure times, I found the kids get disappointed quickly when nothing is coming out.

Thanks for the advice, Shane. Did you use paper negatives and then contact them t make a positive, or was the end result the negative?

We scanned and invert most due to lack of time. Early in the day we did contract print some.

Thanks Shane.

SMBooth said:

We scanned and invert most due to lack of time. Early in the day we did contract print some.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a lot of paperwork.

jayvo86 said:

Sounds like a lot of paperwork.

Click to expand...

No, now their parents have to worry about printing them, we just showed them on the projector. Much simpler for me