Kentmere Fineprint vc fb Replacement

MattKing said:

Does anyone know what this link on the Ilford site means? http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/productlist.asp?n=84&t=Photographic+Papers

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Interesting... that link no longer displays what it did a few days ago, but Google still has a cached version of the product page from 24 August - someone slip up on the website in advance of an announcement maybe?

I turned another friend onto Fineprint about a year ago. It quickly became his favorite paper, and now whammy, it's ain't no more. Ridiculous.
They did nothing to really promote it or tell people how to get the most from it, and word got out too late. I sure hope Ilford/Harman will
reevaluate the market void for a premium cold toned VCFB paper and put their R&D thinking cap on.

DREW WILEY said:

I turned another friend onto Fineprint about a year ago. It quickly became his favorite paper, and now whammy, it's ain't no more. Ridiculous.
They did nothing to really promote it or tell people how to get the most from it, and word got out too late. I sure hope Ilford/Harman will
reevaluate the market void for a premium cold toned VCFB paper and put their R&D thinking cap on.

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You'd think with all this chatter and high praise of the paper that Ilford/Harman would just say roll the presses and start promoting. Or maybe this is a sneaky way of promotion? Get people squealing about it being gone makes other people who knew nothing about it sit up and take notice. Three or four months from now they'll bring out a new and improved version of the same exact paper. Of course they'll probably charge a little more, but what the hey.

I don't think so. Otherwise they'd have done one of those "Coca Cola Classic" promotions..."Fineprint Classic". I'd guess some of the problem was in the timing. Freestyle was aggressively promoting their new rendition of Agfa MCC, and their resident gurus were broadcasting its praises to the rest of us. And it took people like me awhile to learn how to effectively manage true cold tone even on Fineprint - the right developers and toning regimen. As usual, none of that kind of work was done in advance, since the big paper makers never seem to test with developers other than their own prepackaged stuff. There was still a fair amt of Polygrade V around and being used up, even though it was officially out of mfg. I deal with manufacturers a lot, and sometimes they just don't recognize when they have a home run hitter on their hands, and it gets discontinued before it gets to bat. Number crunching, setting priorites, but not always good forecasting.

Or they really are coming out with Cooltone FB and thought it was a redundant offering. We can hope.

I sure hope so.

Another possibility is that we are just about 15 people complaining, not a very strong market for any product.

John

Maybe you can use the BERGGER Variable NB.I heard they are very very close.

Not the same thing by a long shot.... Fineprint is a silver iodide paper (for lack of a more precise description, which probably only the mfg really knows). It is exceptionally fast and capable of both subtle tone gradations and rich blacks. But in most ordinary developers it trends toward an odd deep chestnut-brown/black - not bad, but not truly neutral cold black. Then before Harman took over, apparently there were some coating issues from time to time which gave it a bad rap. But basically, nobody here seems to have known about it. Everybody was buying Forte Polygrade V, which also took awhile to learn to cold-tone, and if anything, might go overboard in that respect (bluish). Plus you had (and still have) more affordable RC options for beginners. I hit my stride with Fineprint when I started souping it in amidol and double-toning it in both gold and selenium, and wow is that something. When I come back from mtn trips and have a lot of negs of classic granite
and snow landscapes, and thunderheads reflected in the lakes, somehow anything warmish just doesn't do it justice.... needs that matching classic cold tone.

Keith Tapscott. said:

Ilford Multigrade Cooltone FB would be a welcome addition to Ilford's current products IMHO. I like the Cooltone RC paper.

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A very welcome addition. Providing a more complete range of Ilford FB papers would seem a better use of Harman's resources in comparison to manufacturing two standard variable contrast RC papers, MGIV and Kentmere VC select; when either will produce perfectly good results...

Tom

I just tried Fineprint for the first time, I wanted to try it before it is gone. I like it. It holds it shape while wet better than other papers I have used, and it dries flatter. It gives a nice neutral tone and seems to have a nice surface that accentuates sharpness. Glad I tried it. Will try toning in selenium now (but it looks good without toning, unlike many papers)

PS I'm using Polymax T developer

Karl A said:

I just tried Fineprint for the first time, I wanted to try it before it is gone. I like it. It holds it shape while wet better than other papers I have used, and it dries flatter. It gives a nice neutral tone and seems to have a nice surface that accentuates sharpness. Glad I tried it. Will try toning in selenium now (but it looks good without toning, unlike many papers)

PS I'm using Polymax T developer

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Karl,

I think you just defined the meaning of masochist. If you can buy more, financially or being able to find it, fill a freezer. Simon says it should store well in a cool place four years. Freezing may add two more. At 73 I am very responsive to anyone suggesting plans for six years down the road.

John Powers

jp80874 said:

Karl,

I think you just defined the meaning of masochist. If you can buy more, financially or being able to find it, fill a freezer. Simon says it should store well in a cool place four years. Freezing may add two more. At 73 I am very responsive to anyone suggesting plans for six years down the road.

John Powers

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Well, I would rather try to get the prints I want today, even if tomorrow the material will be gone. On the other hand, it is painful knowing another option is going away. Even though probably more than 90% of people around here are using Multigrade IV for fibre, I prefer to have options. Might have to buy a few boxes.

You quote from Tichy is brilliant by the way, truly a man who lived by his words!

MGIV FB is reliable and predictable in a Ford/Chevy sense. It's not a BMW paper. Fineprint has more punch in the blacks and better gradation
in the highs. And it responds well to a variety of toners, esp in combination. With MGIV, you get a bit of intensification of the DMax with either
selenium or gold, but nowhere near the same flexibility. And with Forte MGIV now also gone, that leaves quite a vacuum in premium VCFB papers
which can be tweaked cold tone. My freezer is already filled with other discontinued or hard to get films and papers, or just good buys of favorite products. I think this is just a case of people finding out too late how good this paper is, and of consequently pulling the plug too soon, unless there was some technical reason which made it cumbersome to continue. Hopefully they will themselves fill this vacuum with
something at least equally as good.