Intermediate large format questions/photography misadventures

[MTGseattle]

I like dogs too, but I can't figure out how to properly care for one with 2 people working full-time. 8 hours in a kennel or having to hire a dog walker are both reasons to not own a dog in my opinion. Also, once the crazy kitten stage is passed, cats are generally just fine if left alone for a weekend.

 

[Chuck1]

The cats will watch the dog, and vice versa

 

[MTGseattle]

So, how many of you use Ortho film to make larger negatives? Yes, I have an 8x10 camera, but I am sitting on some 4x5 and medium format negatives that I really like and would like to make them bigger or at least try the process out.
This may seem like a silly question, but here is my understanding.
My existing 4x5 neg goes into the enlarger
I place a sheet of ortho in an easel or frame or whatever I use under the lens and treat the process much the same as if making an enlargement on paper. (crop, focus, etc)
I then process that sheet (still reading a bit on suggested chemicals).
Barring any mistakes, I now have an enlarged positive from my negative.
I then contact print the positive onto another sheet of ortho to get the new large negative correct?

In short, 2 sheets of ortho to get from an in camera negative to an enlarged negative?

Is this covered in any of the usual darkroom books, and I have simply never read that portion?

 

[Donald Qualls]

I've done Kodalith back in high school (around 1974) -- we developed in Dektol at print dilution, but the resulting film was pretty high contrast. You might need to develop your ortho litho film in a low contrast developer like POTA or something similar -- the kind used to make microfilm give pictorial images in subminiature cameras. A high dilution film developer (like Xtol1+3 or Rodinal 1:100) with careful time control might also work.

Another option is to reversal process the ortho litho film -- develop to higher contrast than what you'd want for the positive, then bleach away the silver (using a dissolving bleach like dichromate or permanganate, not something like C-41 bleach or Farmer's Reducer that just makes the silver fixable again), fog, and redevelop to obtain a positive image. You'll generally reduce contrast somewhat from the first developer image (with camera films the first developer seems to go to or very near completion), so this may make it easier to get an enlarged negative you can work with -- and saves waiting for the interpositive to dry so you can contact print it to get a negative. Ortho litho is so cheap compared to regular camera films, however, that time saving and increased ease of use are the big reasons to do reversal for enlarged negatives.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Double negative technique if fairly simple with a little practice. You want to projected (or contacted) inter-positive to be of slightly lower contrast than the original, and fully exposed so that all the intended gray scale values are evident on the light box.
Then you take that to generate the new master printing negative. And it's at that step you boost to contrast back up to the best level for printing on your own preferred print media.

I tend to work with whatever sheet films I already have on hand like FP4 or TMX100. Ortho Litho is more difficult to work with because it's very high contrast and easily goes blotchy or streaky in common developers; but it's useful when you do need a significant contrast boost, and it's obviously cheap.
I use quite dilute HC-110 in those cases. Dektol is voodoo - really risks a messy neg.

 

[MTGseattle]

My next question concerns Lith printing. I know it's not everyone's cup o tea, but I have a pretty ridiculous stash of old papers in hand, and I would like to start figuring out how useful they are.
The "master photographers lith printing course" was released in 1998 and there's a lot of materials in there that are no longer available, and I have some stuff that doesn't appear in the book at all.
I have a kit of the Aristo a&b liquid lith developer. before i go nuts and start aquiring a bunch of chemistry, I guess I should get a print going and test bits of paper in the Aristo and see what shakes out?

I could then test with Moersch and possibly the Photographers formulary 70 (supposed to mimic the old Kodalith dev)

 

[MTGseattle]

Somewhat stuck at home due to surgery recovery, so I'm trying to get through my backlog of exposed film. I did 2 rolls of tmax 100 the other day, and some expired in 1983 (I checked the other boxes) tri-x pan yesterday. Holy base fog batman!
And it occurs to me that some of us make things difficult for ourselves;
My last 4 rolls are
1 Ilford PanF+
1 Ilford hp4
I Ilford Delta 3200
1 Acros II

It would be a whole lot nicer if I could throw 2 or even all 4 into a tank and get it done. Playing with different films is a journey of sorts, but I sure can see some benefit to only using 1 or 2 emulsions.

 

[Donald Qualls]

It would be a whole lot nicer if I could throw 2 or even all 4 into a tank and get it done.

Used to be you'd just chuck them in a 2-bath developer and get good results on all four. That works less will with modern, thin emulsions, even less so with T-grain and films like Delta 3200 that are meant to be pushed a stop or two.

 

[eli griggs]

How about stand developing in a single tank?

 

[MTGseattle]

I appreciate the thoughts. I do happen to have time on my hands right now, so I'll stick with the slow way (1 roll at a time)
I have to daylight process anyway.
I do have enough tanks to do 3 at once, but I feel like that's asking for trouble.

My fp4+ from the other day stayed just a bit pink since I grabbed some used fixer and ended up diluting 1;4 again. I realized what I did and fixed for 10 minutes, but I should have done hypo or an additional fix. Oh well. I'll review things on a light table and see if anything is worthy of corrective measures.

I'm guessing I can tray fix cut strips if I'm careful.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It can be quite frustrating to remove the last bit of pinkish antihalation dye from FP4. An alkaline fixer helps, along with a fair amount of washing. But that remaining amount of about .04 magenta density requires UV exposure to bleach it out, or a sufficient amount of time to simply fade away.

The effect of the stain tends to be minimal anyway. When using FP4 for contrast masking in color printing, I simply factor in the 3 or 4 cc of magenta involved, when setting the colorhead balance.
With b&w VC printing, the stain produces a tiny amount of higher contrast, almost negligible.