Internegative for cyanotype from 35mm?

RLangham · Apr 9, 2020

So I have just ordered a Jaquard sensitizer kit for cyanotype-- bottle of FAC, bottle of pot ferri, you know the drill. I'm very excited to do some work contact printing large format negatives with it, especially with artistically applied sensitizer (visible brush strokes, ragged edges, et cetera) and/or in combination with photogram techniques (leaves and or tracings placed between the negative and the sensitized paper)

However, I do shoot most often and most comfortable in 35mm. This is not to say I don't own a Pacemaker SG 45. I had thought to use J Lane's speed plates as my go to due to my previous success with them and the ease of contact printing them, as well as the fact that I also own a pristine Kodak Recomar 33 with a 3 1/4 x 4 1/4" reducing plate holder that I want to use.

Still, since enlarger lenses don't pass UV light and I can't therefor enlarge directly to cyanotype, the thought of making a 4x5" internegative from 35mm to print on cyanotype is appealing too.

I was thinking during my daily pipe break on methods for doing this. Can a 35mm enlarger like my Beseler be used in combination with reversal-processed b/w 35mm and a film or plate holder to produce an internegative on 4x5" instead of a print? How would I figure exposure?

Or was there ever an attachment for Speed Graphic to enlarge, say, a 35mm positive mounted in some kind of a holder in front of the lens, like a 35mm slide duplicator except enlarging? (And I say a 35mm positive arbitrarily. The 4x5" could be the thing getting reversal processed.

Naturally, I want to stay analog. I know how easy it would be to produce a digital negative with my inkjet, but where's the fun in that?

jim10219 · Apr 9, 2020

It's less fun, but you get better results if you use digital negatives. It mainly has to do with the density curves as the cyanotype process has no where the dynamic range of film. Plus, it doesn't respond with the same slope. So by manipulating the exposure curves digitally, you can get much smoother tonality, and do it cheaper and easier.

That being said, consider ortho film. It's a bit more contrasty and has a lower ISO to make exposures easier. High contrast film will help your final results. You can use reverse processed 35mm film, or reverse process the ortho film interpositives. You can even expose the 35mm film onto a 4x5 negative, and then expose that onto an 8x10 negative to get your final negative, and not have to reverse process anything, and get a larger final print. And they also make (or made at one time) film especially for internegatives and interpositives. You might look around to see if that stuff is still available, and what it costs.

Also look up the Graflarger. It's a light box made to replace the film back on your Speed Graphic to allow you to use it as a 4x5 enlarger. It doesn't work as well as a real 4x5 enlarger, but many people have used them without complaint. So it might work well enough for what you're trying to do. They can be a tad pricey, but it might give you an idea of how to DIY your own if you can't find one.

RLangham · Apr 9, 2020

jim10219 said:
It's less fun, but you get better results if you use digital negatives. It mainly has to do with the density curves as the cyanotype process has no where the dynamic range of film. Plus, it doesn't respond with the same slope. So by manipulating the exposure curves digitally, you can get much smoother tonality, and do it cheaper and easier.

That being said, consider ortho film. It's a bit more contrasty and has a lower ISO to make exposures easier. High contrast film will help your final results. You can use reverse processed 35mm film, or reverse process the ortho film interpositives. You can even expose the 35mm film onto a 4x5 negative, and then expose that onto an 8x10 negative to get your final negative, and not have to reverse process anything, and get a larger final print. And they also make (or made at one time) film especially for internegatives and interpositives. You might look around to see if that stuff is still available, and what it costs.

Also look up the Graflarger. It's a light box made to replace the film back on your Speed Graphic to allow you to use it as a 4x5 enlarger. It doesn't work as well as a real 4x5 enlarger, but many people have used them without complaint. So it might work well enough for what you're trying to do. They can be a tad pricey, but it might give you an idea of how to DIY your own if you can't find one.

I mean, I can just bite the bullet and only use speed plates, which are ortho.

But I'm not worried about having some technically perfect dynamic range on cyanotype. I just want to make some interesting-looking prints. I'm fine with some loss of contrast. I can do the various film stages in dilute Dektol for more contrast if the contrast I'm getting is genuinely that bad.

Edit: I do fail to see the benefit of the graflarger, though. I'm talking about enlarging to 4x5 sheets, for which a 35mm enlarger suffices. In the future it might be nice to look at, but right now I'm focused on this project.

Patrick Robert James · Apr 9, 2020

The simplest way if you want to stay analog would be to enlarge your 35mm neg onto 4x5 then contact that onto another sheet of 4x5. You can get a box of ortho film for pretty cheap at places like UltrafineOnline or Freestyle. Using ortho film though is nice because you can develop it just like a print with a red safelight. Makes it much easier.

RLangham · Apr 9, 2020

Patrick Robert James said:
The simplest way if you want to stay analog would be to enlarge your 35mm neg onto 4x5 then contact that onto another sheet of 4x5. You can get a box of ortho film for pretty cheap at places like UltrafineOnline or Freestyle. Using ortho film though is nice because you can develop it just like a print with a red safelight. Makes it much easier.

I might do that. Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately the vital replacement part for my Beseler hasn't come from B&H and when I tracked it today it seems it's actually been on backorder all along. I may try ordering it on the Bay or something. It may be awhile before I enlarge anything. In the meantime, if Blick ever ships my cyanotype kit, I'll just use LF negatives directly, especially these remaining Speed Plates.

Donald Qualls · Apr 9, 2020

Two words: lith film.

This is very slow sheet film (roughly the speed of printing paper), orthochromatic (so you can work under red safelight), and though it's made to be processed in lith devleoper to give essentially toneless high contrast (all is black or white, no gray), if you process it in Dektol it gives fairly normal contrast.

Did I mention it comes in huge sizes? Take your 35 mm B&W slides, project them on the lith film just like you were making a print -- test strips, etc. (but no contrast control in the exposure, you have to control development time and even then control is limited). You get a negative in whatever size you chose for your enlargement. You can then print on your cyanotype, salt print, van Dyke brown, platinum, etc. alt-process and never mess with that evil digital workflow. You could also start from a plain B&W negative, and either reversal process the lith film, or just contact print the positive to get a negative. Did I mention this stuff is also cheap compared to sheet film intended for a camera -- but it's cut to full dimension, so 8x10 won't fit in an 8x10 film holder...

There used to be lots of other darkroom tricks that depended on lith film, too -- like unsharp masking, back when you actually made a mask by contact printing with register pins, and exposed through an acetate or two to give a slightly fuzzy edge to the masking negative, then contact printed that to reverse to a negative and sandwiched with the original negative. This is the original process that turned into a button in your image editing software...

RLangham · Apr 9, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Two words: lith film.

This is very slow sheet film (roughly the speed of printing paper), orthochromatic (so you can work under red safelight), and though it's made to be processed in lith devleoper to give essentially toneless high contrast (all is black or white, no gray), if you process it in Dektol it gives fairly normal contrast.

Did I mention it comes in huge sizes? Take your 35 mm B&W slides, project them on the lith film just like you were making a print -- test strips, etc. (but no contrast control in the exposure, you have to control development time and even then control is limited). You get a negative in whatever size you chose for your enlargement. You can then print on your cyanotype, salt print, van Dyke brown, platinum, etc. alt-process and never mess with that evil digital workflow. You could also start from a plain B&W negative, and either reversal process the lith film, or just contact print the positive to get a negative. Did I mention this stuff is also cheap compared to sheet film intended for a camera -- but it's cut to full dimension, so 8x10 won't fit in an 8x10 film holder...

There used to be lots of other darkroom tricks that depended on lith film, too -- like unsharp masking, back when you actually made a mask by contact printing with register pins, and exposed through an acetate or two to give a slightly fuzzy edge to the masking negative, then contact printed that to reverse to a negative and sandwiched with the original negative. This is the original process that turned into a button in your image editing software...

I'll look into it. That would make things much easier. Do you know what's the fastest lith film, and what's typical, in terms of fractional ASA?

koraks · Apr 10, 2020

As @jim10219 points out, getting the contrast right is the main challenge. I understand this is not crucial for you @RLangham, so that may make things a little more straightforward. The main challenge with classic cyanotype is that it requires a negative with (1) good shadow detail and (2) a fairly low contrast - think of a negative that would print nicely on grade 4 or even 5. For making a suitable negative, any means can be used successfully, whether it's film or plates exposed in a camera, through an interpositive + internegative, a reversal processed internegative or a 'digital negative'. In all cases, it's a fairly straightforward matter of dialing in the desired contrast through exposure + processing. Also, any kind of film or plates can be used, whether it's regular sheet film, ortho film, glass plates etc. The possibilities are virtually endless. I wouldn't say there is one particular 'best' way of doing it. All choices of materials and processing have their pros and cons. I'd say just give it a go with whatever materials and approach appeals most to you. Whatever you choose, it's always going to be a matter of finetuning the process to your needs.

RLangham · Apr 10, 2020

koraks said:
As @jim10219 points out, getting the contrast right is the main challenge. I understand this is not crucial for you @RLangham, so that may make things a little more straightforward. The main challenge with classic cyanotype is that it requires a negative with (1) good shadow detail and (2) a fairly low contrast - think of a negative that would print nicely on grade 4 or even 5. For making a suitable negative, any means can be used successfully, whether it's film or plates exposed in a camera, through an interpositive + internegative, a reversal processed internegative or a 'digital negative'. In all cases, it's a fairly straightforward matter of dialing in the desired contrast through exposure + processing. Also, any kind of film or plates can be used, whether it's regular sheet film, ortho film, glass plates etc. The possibilities are virtually endless. I wouldn't say there is one particular 'best' way of doing it. All choices of materials and processing have their pros and cons. I'd say just give it a go with whatever materials and approach appeals most to you. Whatever you choose, it's always going to be a matter of finetuning the process to your needs.

So I should underexpose a little and underdevelop just a tiny bit for low contrast, but not underdevelop so much that I lose shadow detail?

Peter Schrager · Apr 10, 2020

Berger print film is the answer

koraks · Apr 11, 2020

RLangham said:
So I should underexpose a little and underdevelop just a tiny bit for low contrast, but not underdevelop so much that I lose shadow detail?

I wouldn't underexpose. In fact, I would overexpose by a stop or so and then underdevelop. If you underexpose you lose shadow detail.

RLangham · Apr 11, 2020

koraks said:
I wouldn't underexpose. In fact, I would overexpose by a stop or so and then underdevelop. If you underexpose you lose shadow detail.

That's right, I had that backwards.

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

@RLangham Lith films (and more generally, copy films) vary quite a bit in speed, but it's more in the range of printing paper than of camera film. I haven't used a bunch of it, but I recall back in the 1970s when I learned this stuff, Kodalith exposures under an enlarger were shorter than multicontrast paper prints with grade 2-3 filter, but only by a stop or two. If multigrade paper was the same then as now (not a given), that'd give Kodalith (obsolete product) an ISO speed between about 6 and 25.

That matches fairly well with the Ortho Litho products I've seen from Adox and Rollei, which seem to be rated around ISO 25 in camera -- but like any ortho product, this varies with the color of the light, too. The low/no red sensitivity means that you have to expose more with a redder light, or put a minus-red filter on your meter to compensate. For enlarging, your test strip tells you all you need to know, and (in my common practice) covers 2-3 stops from definitely underexposed to obviously overexposed.

RLangham · Apr 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
@RLangham Lith films (and more generally, copy films) vary quite a bit in speed, but it's more in the range of printing paper than of camera film. I haven't used a bunch of it, but I recall back in the 1970s when I learned this stuff, Kodalith exposures under an enlarger were shorter than multicontrast paper prints with grade 2-3 filter, but only by a stop or two. If multigrade paper was the same then as now (not a given), that'd give Kodalith (obsolete product) an ISO speed between about 6 and 25.

That matches fairly well with the Ortho Litho products I've seen from Adox and Rollei, which seem to be rated around ISO 25 in camera -- but like any ortho product, this varies with the color of the light, too. The low/no red sensitivity means that you have to expose more with a redder light, or put a minus-red filter on your meter to compensate. For enlarging, your test strip tells you all you need to know, and (in my common practice) covers 2-3 stops from definitely underexposed to obviously overexposed.

I was just curious, since I'd definitely do a test strip. Which would you advise, by the way? Reversal processing the camera photos, or the internegative? Or would it even matter?

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

I'd recommend reversing the internegative. That way you still have the original as a negative, which makes standard darkroom prints easier to manage, and you don't risk your original image to a failure in the reversal (like, say, emulsion lifting, as sometimes happens with acid bleaches).

RLangham · Apr 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I'd recommend reversing the internegative. That way you still have the original as a negative, which makes standard darkroom prints easier to manage, and you don't risk your original image to a failure in the reversal (like, say, emulsion lifting, as sometimes happens with acid bleaches).

Very logical. I'll do that. Do you know if copper bleach has that risk?

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

RLangham said:
Very logical. I'll do that. Do you know if copper bleach has that risk?

I've never used a copper bleach -- when I last did B&W reversal, I wasn't aware of any alternatives to the dichromate or permanganate bleaches, and I used dichromate because that chemical was also useful for alt processes I was interested in at the time. Emulsion lifting, however, is probably a risk with any sulfuric acid based bleach, and I've heard/read that pinholes can be a problem with peroxide bleach -- all of which contribute to the use of iron EDTA bleaches for current color processes.

One option that you might try (with test rolls, not important images at first) is a ferricyanide solution with sodium chloride (to rehalogenate the developed silver), followed by an ammonium hydroxide (plain household ammonia) bath -- no, I don't know what strength you need. I've been reading on another thread that silver chloride is selectively soluble in ammonium hydroxide. The undeveloped halide, being the bromide or bromide/iodide mix, is not. Ferricyanide has been used for a century in reducers, toning bleaches, and even older color processes, and is known to be emulsion safe, and ammonia water is no more alkaline than some developers.

I'd probably test this with a clip: develop normally, rinse, then bleach in the light to see the result. You'd be looking for the negative image to flatten back to yellow-white, then in the ammonia bath for those regions to clear as if in fixer. Assuming this occurs, then give second development (working in the light should give adequate fogging) and see what you wind up with, and fine tune from there.

koraks · Apr 11, 2020

I haven't noted any emulsion lift problems with modern camera films and acid dichromate bleaches. Perhaps very soft emulsions could be prone to the problem. Think eg xray film, perhaps litho films as well, but I haven't used those.

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

koraks said:
I haven't noted any emulsion lift problems with modern camera films and acid dichromate bleaches. Perhaps very soft emulsions could be prone to the problem. Think eg xray film, perhaps litho films as well, but I haven't used those.

Glad to hear that. I just watched a video last night, a fellow in Singapore doing homebrew reversal on HP5+ using permanganate bleach, and he had emulsion lifting issues at ambient temp that appear to have resolved when he controlled the bleach and second dev temp from 23-24 C ambient down to 20 C to match developer temp. Made nice slides once that was solved...

koraks · Apr 11, 2020

Yeah, I understand the permanganate bleach can be a bit more iffy, but it has the advantage of lower toxicity. It's just that I have several liftime supplies of dichromate (and a little goes a very long way!)

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

If you're comfortable with the dichromate bleach and sulfuric acid (or sodium bisulfate), and have an avenue for safe/legal disposal, then there's no reason to switch. As I said, I've used it, and was reasonably comfortable doing so with gloves and mixing the solution outdoors in a breeze (lacking high volume ventilation and a filter mask to do so safely indoors) -- but in my current situation, I'm surely going to try peroxide bleach and if I like the results will stick to it. Dogs, cats, and corals in the house, and a septic tank, all militate against toxic chemicals.

RLangham · Apr 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
If you're comfortable with the dichromate bleach and sulfuric acid (or sodium bisulfate), and have an avenue for safe/legal disposal, then there's no reason to switch. As I said, I've used it, and was reasonably comfortable doing so with gloves and mixing the solution outdoors in a breeze (lacking high volume ventilation and a filter mask to do so safely indoors) -- but in my current situation, I'm surely going to try peroxide bleach and if I like the results will stick to it. Dogs, cats, and corals in the house, and a septic tank, all militate against toxic chemicals.

Just don't let that one guy hear you're using peroxide bleach.

Anyways I need to get some stronger peroxide and try doing peroxide bleach right.

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

I'd be tempted to do it with 3% drug store peroxide, in the light where I can see how its going, before spending money on 9% or 12% and hazmat shipping. At around $1/liter from the local grocery, it's one of those times when it's cheaper to buy a bunch of single than one multi-pack (like ramen at 25 cents a pack, or $1.69 a six-pack).

Since you're doing cyanotype, you've also got potassium ferricyanide, aka hexacyanoferrate when you don't want people to think you're playing with poison. That plus non-iodized table salt and a follow bath of household ammonia will work as a reversal bleach. I don't want to deal with the ammonia, though, if peroxide will do the job.

RLangham · Apr 11, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I'd be tempted to do it with 3% drug store peroxide, in the light where I can see how its going, before spending money on 9% or 12% and hazmat shipping. At around $1/liter from the local grocery, it's one of those times when it's cheaper to buy a bunch of single than one multi-pack (like ramen at 25 cents a pack, or $1.69 a six-pack).

Since you're doing cyanotype, you've also got potassium ferricyanide, aka hexacyanoferrate when you don't want people to think you're playing with poison. That plus non-iodized table salt and a follow bath of household ammonia will work as a reversal bleach. I don't want to deal with the ammonia, though, if peroxide will do the job.

I can probably get 9% in person at some point. I will say that I tried 3% with citric acid before (according to someone's recipe) and bleaching was incomplete after something like 20 minutes, so I've been reluctant to try again due to the massive amount of time involved. I quit caffenol for the same reason.

Donald Qualls · Apr 11, 2020

Yeah, Caffenol is slowish, though you should be able to speed it up a little by raising the pH (a little drain opener lye replacing all or part of the washing soda). It's also faster if you use the Vitamin C version -- superadditive, like metol and hydroquinone). I hardly noticed, when i was using it regularly, because I was using the LC+C version to get normal contrast from microfilm stock, and the alternative for that was Parodinal 1:100 or mixing something more complicated like H&W Control.

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