Matte colour paper

[DREW WILEY]

Just realize that PVC, a vinyl compound, isn't totally inert in terms of outgassing, so should not remain with the paper roll during storage.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ha - I just noticed your reference to John Wayne westerns, Pentxuser. Yeah, those were great for frontier authenticity - Sioux and Iroquois costume stereotypes on "Apache" Indians in the California desert with jet contrails in those blue skies, and power lines in the background.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I get the problem of the balancing act and also the issue of trying to shift the sky away from cyan

Cyan skies on Ektar are a characteristic symptom of having overexposed it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The blue repro curve of Ektar tapers off. One more reason to shoot it at box speed and ignore the old worn-out advice to overexpose color neg film. A skylight filter with a bit of magenta or red to it also helps by trimming off some of the excess cyan. And above all, don't listen to those who preach ridiculous amounts of exposure latitude. You do get a little more wiggle room than typical chrome film both directions, but not enough to be careless about. Real light meters were invented for a reason.

 

[brbo]

Cyan skies on Ektar are a characteristic symptom of having overexposed it.

It wasn't overexposed.

I'm guilty of not using meters on a lot of occasions, but if I had both my magnificent inventions, incident and spotmeter, with me at the time, I probably wouldn't have made a different exposure (and if I did I'd probably expose it half a stop more and not less).

 

[koraks]

Cyan skies on Ektar are a characteristic symptom of having overexposed it.

I've read that a lot, and on occasion I have mistakenly overexposed a frame by several stops which indeed gave a very cyan sky. However, like I said earlier: skies sometimes really tend towards cyan. Perhaps more than you realize?

 

[AgX]

Just realize that PVC, a vinyl compound, isn't totally inert in terms of outgassing, so should not remain with the paper roll during storage.

You mix up materials.


The idea uttered above by another member was about a stiff tube. Such practically excludes tubes from plasticized PVC. The other form, Hard-PVC, has got no plasticizer and thus no plasticizer-outgassing. Hard-PVC also has not been reported of outtgassing any Vinyl chloride either.

But it should be no problem either to use instead thick wall PE tube, or an Aluminium tube.

 

[foc]

If you ever see one of these, online for sale, and the price is right, then go for it.



It is the spindle from a minilab paper cassette. Just make sure it is the correct max-width and is adjustable. If you can get the full cassette and spindle all the better. That would mean you have a light tight roll paper store and you could dispense the paper for cut sheets (in the dark of course)

 

[Lachlan Young]

I've read that a lot, and on occasion I have mistakenly overexposed a frame by several stops which indeed gave a very cyan sky. However, like I said earlier: skies sometimes really tend towards cyan. Perhaps more than you realize?

When correctly exposed, Ektar will reproduce a more saturated but remarkably colour accurate representation of what was in front of the lens including the real-life differences in sky colours (i.e. the blues & cyans you refer to) - but overexpose it even a little & the cyan skies kick in hard - I extensively bracketed a roll or two quite a while ago to explore this relative to various metering methods as I wanted to get a useful answer to what I was seeing from the material in wider use - treat it as having the +/- exposure latitude of transparency (for colour accuracy - not exposure scale). Otherwise, it's quite straightforward to use.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Agx - I worked right next door to a major industrial plastic piping supplier. They had everything from medical micro-pipette tubing to highly chemical resistant drainage pipe up to eight feet in diameter. If you needed a pure teflon ball valve that cost $5000 they had it in stock. On our side of the fence, we stocked all kinds of more common pipe to contractors and landscapers; so I'm very aware of the distinctions. Our selection of sealants and glues was one of the largest in the country, and I was the one who selected them and gave out the technical advice. We had a big military and defense contractor customer base too.

Here's the problem : lots of the "big box" home centers and discounters don't give a damn about codes or laws, or even legal labeling, so often carry bait and switch substitute products of lesser quality. One can't walk into those kinds of places and simply assume the kind of PVC being sold has proper specifications. I've even seen metal electrical conduit routinely being sold as water pipe.

An additional problem : residual mould release contaminants on piping, especially ABS, and nearly always, noxious storage residues on all kinds of products,
including a lot of formaldehyde glue outgassing derivatives. Pipe has to be thoroughly cleaned in advance for use in photosensitive environments. I even stream appropriate solvent through air hoses and fittings prior to darkroom use. Argue if you want, but I have personally sold many millions of dollars of industrial compressed air equipment and supplies, and even been involved at the design stage, so do know a thing or two about real-world logistics. Even residential water pipe installations should be thoroughly flushed out before using it as a drinking or cooking water source. Every competent plumber knows that. Unfortunately, there are plenty of incompetent handymen and do-it-yourselfers out there too.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Lachlan - Just yesterday I made an Ektar print onto Fuji Supergloss of a high altitude subject containing a truly deep blue sky. But if I hadn't used a slightly salmon colored Skylight filter on the lens in the first place, it would be very difficult to correct the cyan bias during the printing phase without altering everything else in the scene. A few days before, I printed a comparable shot, but using previous Portra 160VC film (4X5) - a very different response. I knew what to expect.

Yes, Ektar is capable of producing the cleanest most accurate hues of any color neg film I have ever worked with; but it certainly isn't perfect, and suffers in blue and purple response due to the shouldering off of the blue curve before the other two curves. So green starts to take over and trend the blues to cyan. Only correct color-temp filtration at the time of the shot itself can easily correct this, and only to a certain degree.

 

[Lachlan Young]

suffers in blue and purple response due to the shouldering off of the blue curve before the other two curves. So green starts to take over and trend the blues to cyan. Only correct color-temp filtration at the time of the shot itself can easily correct this, and only to a certain degree.

Drew, can we make it clear that the conditions you are describing result from the overexposure of Ektar - or at least trying to squish a longer density range on to it than it's designed to reproduce in a colour accurate (to its intended palette) fashion. The problems are entirely because people have confused the much longer density recording ability of colour neg on some of the curves (and all in the case of some) with the ability of the material to deliver adequately colour correct (relative to palette) reproduction across a wider exposure scale than the 7-stop straight line (which they don't necessarily do). The lowest pain solutions for an average user with Ektar are either to accept a 7-stop straight-line & dump the shadows that fall below that line, or fill those shadows/ ND grad filter the sky.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yes, I agree with your assessment, Lachlan. Overexposure will result in blue crossover the cyan direction. But that also happens to deep shadows, which are truly blue under deep blue skies, just like the Impressionists noted, and that's harder to correct. Ektar isn't artificialIy warmed like typical CN films. So I always recommend filtering per scene color temp. But that doesn't work entirely well in mixed lighting, some in open sun, and some in deep bluish shade. If no other logistical option seems realistic, I'll pull out of my kit a special shadow flashing attachment with an ND filter plus warming filter and diffuser equivalent to .60 cumulative density, or Z III flashing of an 18% gray disc. That has very little effect on the midtones and highlights, but does correct any excess blue or cyan reaction in the shadows themselves. Of course, a skylight filter or 81A can still be used for the main exposure if needed, to balance out the rest of the contrast range.

Gosh, I've put a lot of work into it. Portra 160VC was a good halfway house as I transitioned from Ciba to color neg printing. I was already familiar with typical color neg printing of portraits etc. But now having taken a full second step with Ektar, it feels a lot more like working with chromes again, except I have about a stop more latitude overall, and far more cooperative printing paper. Yesterday I made a 24x30" Fuji Supergloss print from a contact interneg based on an 8x10 chrome, which I formerly printed on Ciba. It's ideal that size, but the image holds up decently even in 30X40.

 

[sillo]

Paper came in the day after I ordered it and I finally got around to testing it today. My little PVC rig worked pretty well for something I tossed together in 5 minutes, but my small, local hardware store was out of 90 elbows so tees all around

The paper is significantly thicker than Crystal Archive Type II, the colors seem richer and the blacks and dark shadows seem much nicer. Not sure if it's a characteristic of the paper as a whole or just the luster finish, but it scratches much more easily than the Type II.

Bad cellphone pic of the first print

 

[DREW WILEY]

Besides a big 24X30 inch print from an 8x10 film original, today I also printed a 35mm Ektar shot onto the same Fui Supergloss medium, as a little 8x10 print. I don't think it could have come out better even as a dye transfer print. There was an incredible range of hues that reproduced superbly - all kinds of rich blues, cyans, turquoises, deep violet, many shades of yellow, gold, and rich brown, plus, portrait-wise, very accurate skintone repro devoid of the artificially warm look of typical color neg films. It was taken in the shade under a blue sky, so I had a slight warming filter over the lens. That's very important with Ektar; otherwise the various blue and violet hue wouldn't be cleanly differentiated; I learned that the hard way several years before. But the big rolls that particular medium comes on are quite heavy and cumbersome to handle. Gosh, what a day and night difference from inkjet prints!

 

[Joakes]

PVC pipe will work just fine for that I think. From experience I can say that it really helps to have a spindle that is not too small. I'm using one that really is too small (just because I had it lying around anyway) and it prevents the roll from rolling off smoothly. It works, but it's not ideal. A proper spindle on a proper axle would be nicer.

I'll try to remember to save the spindle of the current roll I'm on which will probably be finished over the next few weeks or so. I can then give a measurement. 3" sounds about right though.

I actually made this for paper drums. I’m thinking of using it to rest the roll on for cutting? I have a 40in roll of endura to cut. As long as the wheels are clean this shouldn’t affect the paper?? It can easy do 30inch roll. I tested its at it rolls superbly! It actually rolls significantly easier than a central rod through the inner tube, just glides

 

[koraks]

Might work, but I'd be hesitant given that the emulsion is outward facing by default. Seems easy to me to get some grease or muck in a neat wagon trail across your paper. Then again, if you're meticulous, it might work ok.

 

[foc]

I actually made this for paper drums. I’m thinking of using it to rest the roll on for cutting? I have a 40in roll of endura to cut. As long as the wheels are clean this shouldn’t affect the paper?? It can easy do 30inch roll. I tested its at it rolls superbly! It actually rolls significantly easier than a central rod through the inner tube, just glides

To add to what Koraks has mentioned, you may get pressure marks from the wheels on the paper, especially if it is a full roll. (the weight of the roll bearing down on the narrow wheels)

If you had long rollers, instead of wheels, that might help.

 

[koraks]

Anybody with a roll of fuji paper or with knowledge of fuji paper know the opening size in the core?

Better late than never, but having just finished a roll of Supreme, I have the core here. The inner diameter (opening) is 76mm, so 3" was right on the money.
I was also working with an older, smaller Fuji roll which had a similarly sized core, but plastic inserts with an inner diameter/aperture of 38mm (1.5"). Probably these are adapters for minilab machines, but I'm not sure about that.

Here's a quick pic of the cardboard core and the inserts. The self-healing mat has a metric grid (!)