Making 4x5 b&w Copy Negatives

Merg Ross · Mar 18, 2009

Years ago, I made 4x5 copy negatives from black and white prints. Unfortunately, the films I used than are discontinued. I used photoflood bulbs for illumination, and plan on doing the same this time.

Has anyone here tried this lately? I have plenty of FP-4 on hand, but was wondering if a T-grain film might be a better choice. I mix my own developers, however any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

www.mergross.com

analogsnob · Mar 18, 2009

I would try flashing with fp4. You need a camera that will do double exposures, neutral density filters equaling between 2.6 and 3.2, and a piece of white board, we used to use white polystyrene.

After your first exposure make a second exposure of the white card with the nd filters over the lens. Start with equal exposures and 2.6nd and adjust until the shadows have the appropriate contrast. More nd will increase contrast(reduse shadow density) less nd will increase shadow density and reduce contrast. The upper limit being reached when there is no longer black in the print or when the print starts to look hazy. Adjusting the second exposure is another way to make the same adjustment.

This method also works with color negs or chromes. In color filtering the second exposure can remove shadow casts in the copy.

drpsilver · Mar 19, 2009

18 Mar 2009

Merg Ross said:
Has anyone here tried this lately? I have plenty of FP-4 on hand, but was wondering if a T-grain film might be a better choice.

Merg:

I was making some copy negs of old family photos earlier this year. I try to use only available light when possible, but have used photo-floods also. I have had very good results using 4x5 Ilford Delta 100. The one precaution of note is that the resulting copy negative will show more contrast that the print being copied. What I have done is to expose several sheets, than process one at my normal development time, print it and adjust development time depending upon what the print looks like.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Darwin

Ian Grant · Mar 19, 2009

Merg, I used to make many thousands of copy negative every year as part of my commercial work, I always used Ilford Ortho film, it's a superb film and still available, although improved and upgraded since I last used it in the late 80's.

It has an edge over FP4 or other films for copy work, we always processed it in dilute PQ Universal as it gave far cleaner negs than ID-11, or the Adox Borax MQ that was in our deep tanks.

Ian

George Collier · Mar 19, 2009

I did a lot of 4x5 copying in the Army, I forget the film (probably Ansco), but the general rule was over expose (1 stop) and under develop (15 - 20%) to prevent overdone highlights. Make up the lost contrast in printing. Use incident or gray card metering.

jimgalli · Mar 19, 2009

Merg, I have an enormous roll of 9.5 X 500 feet Kodak aerial duplicating film. One of these days I'll die and that stuff will go in the trash so I'd really love to send you some to play with. 2402 if I recall correctly. It's ortho so you can cut it up in the dark with a red lamp on. jimgalli at lnett dot com I could roll off 40 feet and get it mailed tomorrow if you let me know you want some. It was actually designed to make a positive copy of the aerial recon negative. About asa 2 - 3 or so.

Konical · Mar 19, 2009

Good Morning, Merg,

With a little luck, you may still be able to find some copy film on E-Bay. Most such films are rather slow and age well. My own favorite is Kodak Commercial 4127, which I rate at about E. I. 8 under tungsten, if I recall correctly. I have shot some of it which was at least 12-15 years past date (and unrefrigerated) with excellent results. Kodak stopped making it only a few years ago, so some with a fairly recent expiration date could be available. I know it's nice to have a few hundred sheets of it in the freezer.

Konical

removed account4 · Mar 19, 2009

hi merg

i made have copied prints using the ilford film you mention,
i have also used tmx100 ... the film kodak pushes as a direct replacement
to their professional copy film. i am sure the ilford tgrain film will also work too.

good luck!

john

Merg Ross · Mar 19, 2009

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies!

Merg

Making 4x5 b&w Copy Negatives

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