Ilfospeed digital rc with enlarger?

Is it possible to use ilfospeed digital rc with a traditional tungsten bulb enlarger? What grade is it? What about speed? Thanks..

Read this http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/20064181450482628.pdf. Be advised that the paper is panchromatic and must be handled in total darkness. It might just be the thing for printing B&W images from color C-41 negatives. Play with CP (color printing) filters or your dichro head to control contrast.

thanks for the link. There is mention of exposing the paper with a tungsten source. My understanding is that it is not a multi-contrast paper so no point in changing the color pack to control contrast. I'd still like to hear from someone who has actually used this product with an enlarger.

Actually there is some sense to playing around with color printing filtration when using color negatives because the paper is panchromatic. It will respond to filters similar to the way panchromatic B&W films respond to red, blue, yellow, and green filters. Ctein wrote about this in regards to Panalure paper, another, but now unfortunately discontinued, panchromatic B&W paper from Kodak that was made for just that purpose.

This paper has been hinted at as a substitute for those gone panchromatic papers here repeatedly. Though I guess no one here used it so far.

Simon Galley did not react to any of these postings...

Dear All,

I will speak to our technical people, I am aware some work was done on conventional exposure, as you clearly know it was designed specifically for laser exposure :

Regards

Simon / ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

Exposing light sources
ILFOSPEED RC DIGITAL is designed for use with the red,
green and blue lasers used in digital enlargers. However
it can also be used with conventional tungsten or tungsten
halogen light sources.

...this is from the poop sheet that Frank directed me too. Unless I'm misunderstanding something it appears as though someone at Ilford has tried this paper with a traditional light source. Still...what grade and what speed?

frotog said:

Exposing light sources
ILFOSPEED RC DIGITAL is designed for use with the red,
green and blue lasers used in digital enlargers. However
it can also be used with conventional tungsten or tungsten
halogen light sources.

...this is from the poop sheet that Frank directed me too. Unless I'm misunderstanding something it appears as though someone at Ilford has tried this paper with a traditional light source. Still...what grade and what speed?

Click to expand...

Grade 4, with a digital system I guess you adjust the contrast in Photo Shop or Correl. I am not sure about speed, would the light source change the speed?

Besides the paper being panchromatic I suppose Ilford might have tweaked the paper speed to be optimized for the intensity of light-jet exposure. A prohibitively slow paper speed might not deliver reasonable exposure times with a tungsten source in which case I doubt I'd experiment with this paper. But if it's essentially a panchromatic version of the old ilfospeed in grade 4 I'll give it a try.

I'm fairly sure the speed will change with different light sources. As with any light sensitized material, how much will depend upon the spectral sensitivity of the material and the color temperature of the light. Looking at the spectral sensitivity chart published in Ilford's document, sensitivity is pretty flat through most of the visible spectrum, falls off sharply at the red end of the spectrum, then has a spike in the near infrared. I think it would be fair to say that a light source rich in light at the blue/green end of the spectrum will deliver a substantially higher paper speed than a light source where orange and red make up the better part of the output.

Simon warned earlier that this paper was not recommended for conventional enlargers or for printing color negatives. His comment in this thread does hold some hope, however. That said, it looks a lot like Panalure in its sensitivity and contrast. (Grade 4 is about what you need for color negatives.) I can see contrast control as being a possible headache, although color negatives are pretty consistent. I wonder how it responds to the Beers developers and similar contrast tweaking brews.

Frank,

I assume that frotog's point is that aside from spectral considerations this paper might be be slower from its basic emulsion formula as a digital printer might have a more powerful lightsource than a common enlarger.

AgX said:

Frank,

I assume that frotog's point is that aside from spectral considerations this paper might be be slower from its basic emulsion formula as a digital printer might have a more powerful lightsource than a common enlarger.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

We are assuming that a laser printing device would deliver a much higher output than a tungsten light source and that may not be the case. Knowing nothing about these devices, I couldn't say. Maybe someone will chime in here with some comparative numbers. Something like lux delivered to the paper by a typical tungsten enlarger vs. a laser printing machine for a given magnification factor. That might be just the sort of data needed to make an informed decision about the product.

fschifano said:

We are assuming that a laser printing device would deliver a much higher output than a tungsten light source and that may not be the case. Knowing nothing about these devices, I couldn't say. Maybe someone will chime in here with some comparative numbers. Something like lux delivered to the paper by a typical tungsten enlarger vs. a laser printing machine for a given magnification factor. That might be just the sort of data needed to make an informed decision about the product.

Click to expand...

I have a vague memory about reading another post about this issue which referred as well to considerations of reciprocity, and the fact that laser exposures were designed to be very short.

So there could be other considerations as well.

Matt

I was interested in trying this stuff but last I checked, I could only get some by buying a large roll. At least that's what wynit told me. If there are sheets available then I would become re-interested.

The oriental hyper seagull does ship in sheet form, as I recall, but I haven't tried it yet.

I use this paper RC digital and the fibre version as well.
Both papers are maximised for laser exposure and I believe some LED devices.
I have not used either papers under the enlarger .

The fibre version is basically gallerie G 4 with an extra red sensitivitey
The RC version *I believe is Ilford MG4 rc with an extra red sensitivitely.

I believe that the next wave of young photographers will be using these papers at school with enlargers much like the digital deveer units.

Both papers are of excellent quality ..
I concentate on the fibre paper exclusevely for show printing, which I can then tri tone exactly the same way any traditional fibre paper is finished.
I use the rc version as a tester of digital files to look for artifacts and changes required before going to show printing.

We first started this process in 2002 using Agfa Classic, ** I believe we were the first Lab , using lambda laser device to produce fibre base prints.**

This material or product has become an very important service for our Lab.
At the present there are a select few labs worldwide using this process and paper .. I think that within 5-10 years there will be thousand of labs using this black and white bartya emulsion, digitally and analogue.

MattKing said:

I have a vague memory about reading another post about this issue which referred as well to considerations of reciprocity, and the fact that laser exposures were designed to be very short.

So there could be other considerations as well.

Matt

Click to expand...

If the paper's sensitivity isn't radically different than a traditional b/w paper than perhaps it's merely the paper's extended red sensitivity that sets it apart? This would be the best case scenario for those of us interested in using this paper under an enlarger. Unless I'm unaware of a digital process that uses a tungsten source for exposure the inclusion of "tungsten or tungsten halogen" as appropriate means of exposure as stated in the product info from Ilford seems to suggest that one could indeed use this paper w/ an enlarger. I was hoping that Simon would come back with a definitive answer as the info so far is tantalizingly ambiguous.

I have a roll on order. I'll be back once I have some results.