More Analyser Pro Calibration Weirdness...Densitometer Edition

Let it rest for a while and get back to it in a few weeks time. Meanwhile you'll mostly likely need to replace the bulb. Refresh your energy and when you're ready give it another go. Do not force yourself to get to the perfect outcome. It will only force you into silly mistakes, big or small. Give it some time.

IME those halogen bulbs die quickly without any warning. I wonder if maybe you are having electrical issues somewhere causing the flickering.

I replaced my XRite 810 with a Heiland TRD-2. And what do you know, suddenly my RH grey targets are reading at .04 just as they should!

Glad I returned the 810. Still, very strange that it calibrates correctly but refused to read the supplied grey target correctly.

My Ihara 710 calibrates perfectly and follows two MacBeth porcelain 10 ready plaques correctly (within 0.01 unites throughout) and when I read the RH target, I get: 0.04 for the paper base and 0.12 for the white strip that I believe says 0.08, so subtracting 0.04 from 0.12 gets me 0.08 which I believe is correct.

I have a question about the contrast calibration. Can I put the step wedge in the glass carrier for my enlarger and take a reading off one of the denser areas of the strip to get a proper exposure? The current version of the instructions just has you make contact prints at your preferred working aperture at a guessitamated exposure.

Hello, while I’m not sure what it is you are trying to achieve vis-a-vis the Analyser Pro calibration process. It seems to me you are over thinking the issue. The RH calibration manual is quite straight forward having 2 steps needed to calibrate the Analyser. The first, calibrate exposure and the second establish the contrast settings. You cannot calibrate the unit without doing both steps for each paper grade & type you plan to use!
Now, when it comes to the contrast calibration using a densitometer does help to achieve a higher degree of accuracy. However, before measuring the contact printed Stouffer step wedge produced for each grade 00 to 05, using a calibrated densitometer is essential. Usually the meter is calibrated to the plaques supplied by the unit but you need to understand that the supplied calibration plaques have different reflective characteristics/densities to that of the paper you are using hence, the different values you are getting when comparing your densitometer reading with the RH Design standard.
In order to ensure an “apples for apples” measurement approach I have produced a series of processed paper white and paper black 5”x4” sample pieces of print paper for each brand/type I use and, each Is developed in my usual developer for that paper. Note, the paper white sample is developed & fixed unexposed and the paper black sample is fully exposed under the enlarger before development and fixing. The result is the base white and black of each paper. My calibrated densitometer facilitates me setting a paper specific measured base white point before reading the step wedge. This means every read thereafter is relative to that base and not the original supplied calibration plaque - no more differences!
If you have contacted printed the step wedge supplied, using the exposure adjustment settings for which you did the test strips (every grade) the contrast calibration calculation of each grade contact print will take no more than 15-20 minutes to complete. There is no need to establish a “correct exposure” for the step wedge contact prints as long as the contact strips for each grade contains steps from paper white to paper black. Update the Analyser Pro and enjoy your darkroom experience!
If anything is not clear or I can help further please don’t hesitate to PM me...

NortheastPhotographic said:

I have a question about the contrast calibration. Can I put the step wedge in the glass carrier for my enlarger and take a reading off one of the denser areas of the strip to get a proper exposure? The current version of the instructions just has you make contact prints at your preferred working aperture at a guessitamated exposure.

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Yes, as long as you get pure white on one end and pitch black on the other.

Ok, guess who's back at it. New (to me) Densitometer in the form of a Heiland TRD-2, thank you classified section of Photrio. And new Heiland LED source.

I'm going through the motions of calibration now, and my first strips are drying as we speak.

First let me say, holy moly this thing is bright. Idk if it's a cold light thing or what, but the first thing I did was take some stops off the default calibration settings (so -24 1-3, -12 4 and 5), just because I knew MG Classic is a faster paper. That was only my starting point! I then had to dial the LED down to -20 which I believe is another 2 stops, and then go -1 on the Analyser Pro! By the time I got to grade 5 I'm at -3 stops. I'll be making some rather huge adjustments.

At first there was a point of confusion because I wasn't sure if I should meter with the 'focus' light aka white, or 0.00. However I reasoned that a slotted enlarger would be with unfiltered light so my Heiland LED should too. Then I was concerned because the manual calls for times in the 10-20 second range, but this is just not possible for me, even at F22.

It will be interesting what my times are like when I input my adjustments and have a negative in there. I wonder if I'll have to introduce further ND... Hopefully not.

Anyway I'll report back when I have some figures...

What paper are you using? I am using a Heiland light source as well. If the paper matches, we can compare numbers. Should be jolly good fun!

MrclSchprs said:

What paper are you using? I am using a Heiland light source as well. If the paper matches, we can compare numbers. Should be jolly good fun!

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I am currently trying to calibrate Multigrade Classic Glossy in Ansco 130 1:2 at 75F. I flubbed up my offsets tonight by being stupid, so try and try again tomorrow. I think I have my contrast figures pretty well nailed though.

If you have calibration figures I'd love to know them. After MG Classic I'll do the new RC V.

I admire your persistence.

When I first got the Analyzer Pro I spent several hours following their calibration procedure. I think I probably made an error somewhere along the way because the calibration it resulted in did not produce good prints. So I've just tweaked things incrementally by hand over time and seem to have things dialed in pretty well now (I'm also using MG Classic Glossy but in Ilford MG developer 1:14 at 68F). I can usually get a pretty good test print with either the first or second sheet of paper and then refine from there.

I should probably try the calibration procedure again at some point and see how close it comes to where I am now, but I'm having too much fun making prints at the moment

My first values for Fomatone 131 developed in Neutol WA 1+9 2 minutes with a head Heiland LED

payral said:

My first values for Fomatone 131 developed in Neutol WA 1+9 2 minutes with a head Heiland LED
View attachment 239207

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YOU ARE WONDERFUL!

I'll use those offsets as my starting point when I go back into The Gauntlet. I'm using a different paper and developer but even those contrast figures look close to what I worked out.

payral said:

My first values for Fomatone 131 developed in Neutol WA 1+9 2 minutes with a head Heiland LED
View attachment 239207

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Oh one more question, where is your LED set re brightness? 0 to -20?

I used an oversized 5x7" head on a Zone VI Type II enlarger. 35 mm negative carrier and a Componon-S 80 mm at f/22. Head was 21 " high from baseboard.
First I changed all original offset settings of ZoneMaster to -24. Heiland head light was -20 and like that I got a 15 sec. exposure time with the focus light. After that everything was easy.

payral said:

I used an oversized 5x7" head on a Zone VI Type II enlarger. 35 mm negative carrier and a Componon-S 80 mm at f/22. Head was 21 " high from baseboard.
First I changed all original offset settings of ZoneMaster to -24. Heiland head light was -20 and like that I got a 15 sec. exposure time with the focus light. After that everything was easy.

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Great, I'm using the same lens, and my LED is also at -20.

Here are my numbers for Bergger VC NB paper. It's a veryfast paper so first I changed all original offset settings of ZoneMaster to -42. Heiland head light was -35 and like that I got a 13,2 sec. exposure time with the focus light.

I've got a few calibration questions.

Is there a way to clear out the values in a PAP?

Yesterday I was doing exposure tests, to get the exposure in the 10-20 sec range I had to use the light attenuator on my LPL 4500, using the attenuator to do the tests and then making a print without the attenuator shouldn't mess with the settings, should it?

My paper base white is quite a bit different to the paper base white supplied in the swatch. I am using a densitometer so I am zeroing it on my paper base, the target of 0.04 on my paper is quite a bit lighter than the 0.04 on the swatch, is this normal?

Does anyone have any figures for Bergger warm tone fibre?

markbau said:

I've got a few calibration questions.

Is there a way to clear out the values in a PAP?

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From the RH Designs FAQ:

I think I've messed up the calibration in my meter. How do I restore the factory settings?
Simply press 'Clear' while in calibration mode. Exposure compensation and contrast modes and each of the eight paper channels are cleared separately. For example, if you want to clear PAP4, first select PAP4 using short presses of the Cal button. Now press and hold Cal until "CAL" appears on the display. Press Clear, then Focus, then Clear again, then Focus again. PAP4 is now reset to factory calibration (=Ilford MG4 / filters).

payral said:

I used an oversized 5x7" head on a Zone VI Type II enlarger. 35 mm negative carrier and a Componon-S 80 mm at f/22. Head was 21 " high from baseboard.
First I changed all original offset settings of ZoneMaster to -24. Heiland head light was -20 and like that I got a 15 sec. exposure time with the focus light. After that everything was easy.

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I've been taking my light readings with the head set to 00, as opposed to with the focus light. I'm finding MG Classic so fast that even at F22, enlarger all the way up, and the LED at -20 I'm still getting exposure times in the 5 second range. When taking readings on Focus, I couldn't even make test strips because my times were too fast. Taking the readings at 00 helped, and since my original VCCE only had 0 as a setting, no white light, I am hoping this is fine....

I THINK I've got my offsets pretty well nailed. There are a couple of contrast calibrations I want to fine tune.

Overall, I am getting very tired of calibrating endlessly. This thing is supposed to make life easier but so far it's been a huge headache. If I can't get it working for me within the next couple printing sessions I'm trading it for a Stopclock. In the meantime I picked up a Colorline 5100 analyser so it will be interesting to play with that for RA4.

NortheastPhotographic said:

I've been taking my light readings with the head set to 00, as opposed to with the focus light. I'm finding MG Classic so fast that even at F22, enlarger all the way up, and the LED at -20 I'm still getting exposure times in the 5 second range. When taking readings on Focus, I couldn't even make test strips because my times were too fast. Taking the readings at 00 helped, and since my original VCCE only had 0 as a setting, no white light, I am hoping this is fine....

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I encountered the same problem and solved it by using a 3 stop ND filter on the enlarging lens.

MrclSchprs said:

I encountered the same problem and solved it by using a 3 stop ND filter on the enlarging lens.

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I luckily have the right size 2 stop ND for my Rollei TLR, good call.

ILFORD MG Warmtone is appreciably slower than 'classic' if you want to make the process easier in that aspect.

I don't suppose anyone knows but should I adjust my offsets with the ND filter in place, or will the meter simply be able to compensate? Apologies if that's a dumb question.

NortheastPhotographic said:

I don't suppose anyone knows but should I adjust my offsets with the ND filter in place, or will the meter simply be able to compensate? Apologies if that's a dumb question.

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I wouldn't think that you would need to modify the stored offsets due to the use of an ND filter. If the meter is simply reading light levels at the easel, then I don't see how using an ND filter is any different than changing the aperture on the enlarging lens or raising the head of the enlarger. The meter should just modify the exposure time accordingly. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm misunderstanding something here.