I made my first 8x10 contact prints last week on Lodima grade 4. After all of Michael Smith's hoopla about chloride being so much better, I also made a version of one of the prints on my usual enlarging paper to see the big deal difference. My standby until now has been Ilford Galerie grade 3. The developer was a 10g Amidol brew that used benzotriazole instead of bromide. My first impressions:
-The two papers have nearly identical contrast. If there's a difference, it's less than 1/4 grade. Very convenient for negatives that need to be both contact printed and enlarged.
-Lodima is slightly warm, and gallery is notably cool. The color difference side by side is not subtle. I prefer cool tones, so am going to develop my negatives to less contrast so I can use more benzotriazole in the print developer to cool it off more. More restrainer means more contrast, of course, thus the recalibration of negatives.
-The Lodima print does have an intangible, greater dimensionality than Galerie, which looked subjectively more flat, even though the contrast and density were matched between the prints. Next to the Lodima print, Galerie looked more like a reproduction. Next to the Galerie, it looks like you can jump into the Lodima print.
-The Lodima print has a much blacker black. I was especially impressed here. By comparison, The Galerie shadow areas look a little bit dead, even though the shadow detail and separation was technically the same. Galerie blacks never looked dead to me before!
-Even though the textured light areas (a decrepit white abandoned house) were tonally the same between the prints, somehow, there was much more detail visible on the Lodima print, almost shockingly so. Fine, subtle highlight detail fuzzed together on the Galerie print. On Lodima, the finest light textures remained beautifully detailed and dimensional. Technically, I have no idea how the paper can affect this - it's the same high quality, contact-printed 8x10 process.
- Maximum pure white appears to be the same, with maybe a slight edge to the Galerie, since even the Lodima whites look warmer.
- In the hot summertime darkroom, with an Alkali rapid fix, all prints were initially stained a little pink from the Amidol, but the Galerie much more so. The stain came out in the wash, but the Galerie took much longer to do so, and even then there are two small stained areas that never went away. My next printing session will probably switch to Sodium Thiosulfate. This supposedly fixes this issue.
-The Lodima exposure was 50 seconds with a 43w bulb and a single sheet of 216 diffusion over the reflector, 90 second development. To match that print, Galerie was 6.5 seconds with an 11 watt bulb and two sheets of 216 diffusion, 2.5 minutes development.
That's it for now. I'd be curious to hear other reports from people comparing Lodima and their enlarging paper. As far as Lodima, I love the paper - my only setback so far is getting the color I want. Hopefully I won't have to gold tone.
I'll check back in with any new findings as more images are printed. There should eventually be some Lupex arriving soon too...
-Jarin
-The two papers have nearly identical contrast. If there's a difference, it's less than 1/4 grade. Very convenient for negatives that need to be both contact printed and enlarged.
-Lodima is slightly warm, and gallery is notably cool. The color difference side by side is not subtle. I prefer cool tones, so am going to develop my negatives to less contrast so I can use more benzotriazole in the print developer to cool it off more. More restrainer means more contrast, of course, thus the recalibration of negatives.
-The Lodima print does have an intangible, greater dimensionality than Galerie, which looked subjectively more flat, even though the contrast and density were matched between the prints. Next to the Lodima print, Galerie looked more like a reproduction. Next to the Galerie, it looks like you can jump into the Lodima print.
-The Lodima print has a much blacker black. I was especially impressed here. By comparison, The Galerie shadow areas look a little bit dead, even though the shadow detail and separation was technically the same. Galerie blacks never looked dead to me before!
-Even though the textured light areas (a decrepit white abandoned house) were tonally the same between the prints, somehow, there was much more detail visible on the Lodima print, almost shockingly so. Fine, subtle highlight detail fuzzed together on the Galerie print. On Lodima, the finest light textures remained beautifully detailed and dimensional. Technically, I have no idea how the paper can affect this - it's the same high quality, contact-printed 8x10 process.
- Maximum pure white appears to be the same, with maybe a slight edge to the Galerie, since even the Lodima whites look warmer.
- In the hot summertime darkroom, with an Alkali rapid fix, all prints were initially stained a little pink from the Amidol, but the Galerie much more so. The stain came out in the wash, but the Galerie took much longer to do so, and even then there are two small stained areas that never went away. My next printing session will probably switch to Sodium Thiosulfate. This supposedly fixes this issue.
-The Lodima exposure was 50 seconds with a 43w bulb and a single sheet of 216 diffusion over the reflector, 90 second development. To match that print, Galerie was 6.5 seconds with an 11 watt bulb and two sheets of 216 diffusion, 2.5 minutes development.
That's it for now. I'd be curious to hear other reports from people comparing Lodima and their enlarging paper. As far as Lodima, I love the paper - my only setback so far is getting the color I want. Hopefully I won't have to gold tone.
I'll check back in with any new findings as more images are printed. There should eventually be some Lupex arriving soon too...
-Jarin