Low contrast prints - possibly narrowed down to paper?

Hey all,

I'm not sure if this is a question or a rant/vent but I'd be interested in anyone who can identify lessons I can learn from this experience. I've only been printing at home for ~ 1 year.

This year I've made 3 trips to a location trying to get a print I was happy with. I kept getting very low contrast muddy looking prints and was blaming the scene (tonal value of elements similar?) or my exposure or negative processing times. Changing the contrast filter didn't make much/any difference. One weird thing was that I was having to make very short exposure times when printing - like my exposure meter told me 3.5 seconds at f18 but when making the print anything over 1 second was coming out dark grey to black. my best (8x10) print so far was exposed for 0.9 seconds at f18. I've made absolutely sure I didn't have the lens in aperture preview mode or anything silly like that.

The common factor is that I've been using Ultrafine Silver Eagle FB paper. I bought the paper within 12 months and it has been stored inside the black plastic, inside its box, inside another box in a cupboard so I assumed it was OK.

Just now in frustration I made a print on a sheet of Ultrafine Elite RC paper, the first sheet out of an unopened box that I bought at the same time as the fiber paper and stored in the same place. The print is exactly what I wanted - the tones are crisp and pleasant with a full range from black to white. The exposure time was exactly what my meter told me.

So it seems pretty likely that the fiber paper is bad. I'm wondering what could have been the culprit here? I'm pretty sure it hasn't been exposed to light - I only pull out one sheet at a time under safelight and it is stored in as dark a spot as I can manage. Admittedly it hasn't been in the fridge but if heat is a problem wouldn't the RC paper be affected the same? Or is FB paper more vulnerable to heat? Is the very short exposure time with the FB paper indicative of anything? Can you get batches of paper that are just bad when they arrive? Do I need to review my darkroom practices?

Just as a matter of interest what did your meter tell you was the correct exposure on the good print and are you sure you have a lens that has f18 on it or is this a typing mistake for f16?

I'd have expected a double digit exposure even at f16 at 8x10 but I have no idea what problem with paper causes it to need less than a second to look even remotely right

Here's a long shot: could it possibly be that when you switched paper the lens which you thought was set at f18 but was stuck at say f2/4 suddenly clicked to the correct f stop of 18 or I think more probably f16?

pentaxuser

Heh, right you are it is f16 of course. I did actually think it was f18 (and thought that was weird) when squinting by safelight - the 6 is a funny font, that is my defense.

*edit: The good print I think was 3.5 seconds today but that was a 5x7, I didn't have any 8x10 RC paper handy. I reckon it metered 5.7 sec before I changed down from the 8x10 size.

I metered at f16 and exposed the paper without changing aperture and did that several times, even opening the lens up and observing the brightness change then stopping back down to f16 because I was so surprised by the dark print.

It is possible that the cheap paper is re-badged Foma material as they sell widely to third parties. Across their range of papers different safelight filters are required. Double check the recommended safelights for each paper and you may find that a dark-red light is required for the fibre-based material and a normal amber light for the RC.

May I suggest that if you are confused by the meter, and don't understand completely what it is telling you, that you choose your exposures manually using a contact-print and test-strips.

Those exposures are pretty short, you may want to look into a lower wattage bulb for the enlarger, if available for your particular machine.
But regarding your specific problems, you should probably start with fog test then a safelight test for your FB paper.

First run one of your papers in total darkness through the process of developing, stopping, and fixing. Don't expose it in the enlarger. It should come out paper white (or at least the same base color as a sheet that has just been fixed and not developed). If it comes out even slightly grey, it's your paper that's at fault. If it comes out paper white, the paper is good. Now do the same thing with your safelights on. Should still come out paper white. If not, you need new safelights.

Next, start investigating your negatives by contact printing the whole roll of negatives, without any enlarger filtration.
That will be equal to Grade 2 filtration, and you should be able to get good contrast at Grade 2 in your contact print. Make test strips, and choose an exposure for your entire roll of film where the density in the film rebate becomes invisible and is as pure of a black as the surrounding empty area. Make your whole contact print at that exposure, and you should have a contact sheet full of small contact prints with good density and contrast without any manipulation.
If you have little to no shadow detail, you're not giving enough exposure to your film in camera, and you need to work on your metering and exposure technique.
If you have little to no highlight detail, you're not developing your film long enough, and you need to adjust your developing time and/or increase your agitation.
If you have little to now shadow detail AND little to no highlight detail, you need to work on your shadow detail first by getting better at metering and exposing your film, and then you need to work on adjusting your film developing time for good contrast.
Basically, your contact sheet should be full of negatives that exhibit decent shadow detail and decent contrast, 'right out of the box', so that you need to do as little darkroom gymnastics as possible when you start enlarging.

Once you know you have good paper, good safelighting, and good negatives, the rest is simply down to printing skills.

Thomas Bertilsson's advice is solid. You might be advised of specific safelight tests that are more involved. More complicated tests are intended to reveal even the slightest degree of safelight "damage" that could rob you of the best highlights.

Your condition is critical so the simplest test is best. If it isn't the paper, it sounds like the safelight (or not dark enough darkroom).

I think your problem may be from over exposing the print and then pulling it from the developer when you think it is becoming too dark. This will result in low contrast, muddy prints. You first need to solve the problem of the short exposures before you can go any further.

I think your problem may be from over exposing the print and then pulling it from the developer when you think it is becoming too dark. This will result in low contrastm muddy prints. You first need to solve the problem of the short exposures before you can go any further. Do you have a negative that you have successfully printed on another paper? If so then make a print from that one.

Thanks for all the detailed advice. I tried developing an unexposed strip of the FB paper by safelight and to my eye if it isn't white it is very close to it. But I think I'll try that again tonight with a bit longer under the safelight and do one in darkness to compare it to. I will try a contact print too (it is a 4x5 negative). I'm open to my negative exposure not being ideal

I don't have much scope to play with enlarger bulb wattage unfortunately as it is an Ilford multigrade 500 head with 2 different colour bulbs and to be honest I'm not sure where I'm even going to get replacements when they go

To check the paper-base colour with no exposure you can also put an unexposed test-strip straight in to the fix. That will remove the unexposed emulsion (in this case all of it, without development of any fog), leaving you with the colour of the paper base to compare to your safelight-exposed tests.

TimF said:

Thanks for all the detailed advice. I tried developing an unexposed strip of the FB paper by safelight and to my eye if it isn't white it is very close to it. But I think I'll try that again tonight with a bit longer under the safelight and do one in darkness to compare it to. I will try a contact print too (it is a 4x5 negative). I'm open to my negative exposure not being ideal

I don't have much scope to play with enlarger bulb wattage unfortunately as it is an Ilford multigrade 500 head with 2 different colour bulbs and to be honest I'm not sure where I'm even going to get replacements when they go

Click to expand...

Your Ilford head doesn't have coloured bulbs. It has halogen bulbs and dichroic filters. The bulbs are readily available (at least on the internet).

Does your head give you yellow and magenta light, or the more common blue and green light.

The 500 series heads were originally designed for a lower wattage bulb, and then adapted for higher wattage bulbs. If you have the higher wattage bulbs installed, your choice is obvious.

In case you don't have it, here is the link to the page on the Ilford/Harman website where the various manuals are listed (look for Multigrade Exposing Equipment toward the bottom): http://www.ilfordphoto.com/products/page.asp?n=161

MattKing said:

Your Ilford head doesn't have coloured bulbs. It has halogen bulbs and dichroic filters. The bulbs are readily available (at least on the internet).

Does your head give you yellow and magenta light, or the more common blue and green light.

The 500 series heads were originally designed for a lower wattage bulb, and then adapted for higher wattage bulbs. If you have the higher wattage bulbs installed, your choice is obvious.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! Mine does blue/green. I'll have a look at the bulb wattage.

The wonderful Ilford 500 system was designed at a time that papers were much slower than those of today. If your exposures are too short, you can use a larger mixing box (i.e. the one for 5 x 4 if you are using roll film).

When I am printing small prints for other people (especially when using very fast paper like the old Kentmere FPVC) I attach a neutral density filter gel to the bottom of the light box. If that is still not enough (very rare) I use a longer lens (i.e. a 150mm for 35mm rather than the 50mm) to increase the required exposure time.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

And please remember that while troubleshooting like this, always develop the print for the full predetermined time, like the manufacturer's recommended developing time. Usually about 2-3 minutes for fiber paper and 60-90 seconds for RC. Don't snatch the print early from the developer.
Then you can truly see what your exposures in the enlarger are like. If you stop the printing early, you will not get a good feel for how you're doing with your enlarger exposures.

It sounds as though you might suffer from a combination of a thin negative, fast paper, and an enlarger with huge light output, resulting in exposure times that are going to be extremely short.