Interneg using Polaroid 55 P/N

[wgcho]

I was once again reading "Elements of Black and White Photography: The Making of Twenty Images" by George E. Todd and I wanted to try making a 4x5 B&W negative from a medium format slide.

He says he made a 545 holder using a block of wood, but since I am not handy at all, I've been thinking all day if there's an easy way to do this. Then I thought of just making a contact 'print' onto the 55 film.

i) Has anyone tried Todd's method? Any ideas how to hold the film holder without having to 'make' a holder?
ii) Would a contact printing method work? Would it have enough of resolution to make a good 11x14 print?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or pointers.

-Ted

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Do you have a 545 holder? If you do, you just need something to support it under the enlarger with anything that's handy, like a box or a book.

Alternately, you could illuminate the slide, say on a light box or even your enlarging head and photograph it on Type 55 with the holder in your 4x5" camera. The best way to do this with the enlarger might be to put the MF slide in the neg carrier, leave the enlarging lens in place but remove the camera lensboard, turn the enlarging head horizontal if your enlarger can do that, set the camera up on a tripod so that the slide is projected on the groundglass and make sure everything is aligned properly, focus using the enlarger bellows, and shoot. You'll need to make some tests to determine the best exposure.

 

[Alex Hawley]

He says he made a 545 holder using a block of wood, but since I am not handy at all, I've been thinking all day if there's an easy way to do this. Then I thought of just making a contact 'print' onto the 55 film.

Ted,
I kind of doubt that he made a 545 holder out of wood. That would entail extremely fine wood working, far beyond the cost of buying a 545. More realistically, I suspect he cut a block of wood that he could place under the 545 to hold the film plane level under the enlarger.

No reason why this technique could not be used. Similar approaches have been used to project small or medium format negs onto 8x10 Polaroid for emulsion transfers and lifts.

I'm not sure what using type 55 for a contact print negative would gain you other than the convenience of the processing and I'm not sure that the polaroid development would give the results needed for an interpositive. Still, nothing tried, nothing gained.