Neg carrier

cliveh · Mar 17, 2012

Glass or glassless neg carrier? I would go for glassless every time.

pstake · Mar 17, 2012

Glassless for me, too. Assuming the enlarger condenser / head is designed to hold the film flat, and mine is. More glass means more surface to keep clean and to interfere with light transmission.

I shoot 35mm, now, so it's easy for me say all that ... when I was shooting a lot of 6x7, I used a glass neg carrier

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 17, 2012

Glass carriers are a specialized piece of equipment intended to solve specific problems. Sheet film negatives too large to not sag in the middle. Roll film negatives with a pronounced curl - especially the piping variety. Recently I have been printing from series of 35mm negatives that were stored uncut and tightly wound inside their metal film cannisters for 50+ years. That would be the definition of a specific problem requiring glass for the best results.

I have and use a full set of both glassless and AN glass carriers for my D5XL. If one can afford them, they should be a standard tool in every darkroom.

Ken

MattKing · Mar 17, 2012

I agree with Ken.

In addition, something like a 4x5 glass carrier works fine with smaller negatives, so you can use it with odd sizes like panoramas.

R.Gould · Mar 18, 2012

Glassless for me every time, The biggest ne I print is 66, and less glass means less dust, which means less time spotting.
Richard

mooseontheloose · Mar 18, 2012

Glass carrier for me (in most cases). For whatever reason, the amount of dust that I have to deal with seems the same with or without the glass. However, I do do a lot of lith printing, which means extended times under the enlarger (2-5 minutes usually) -- my negs, usually 6x6, used to pop until I got the glass carrier. And as Matt has indicated, a larger sized carrier can be masked off to print unusual sizes like panoramas or ditychs, or allow me to print the rebate, without the need to file away any carriers.

Newt_on_Swings · Mar 18, 2012

I use both, glassless when I can get away with it, glass when I really need it.

I kinda hate cleaning the surfaces though, streak marks on glass really gets on my nerves.

sandermarijn · Mar 18, 2012

In 120, glassless generally doesn't allow printing of the rebates, unless you file away the sides of the masks (Durst M800, Auda 70 masks). I like those rebates.

fotch · Mar 18, 2012

Prefer glassless unless no choice.

semi-ambivalent · Mar 18, 2012

R.Gould said:
Glassless for me every time, The biggest ne I print is 66, and less glass means less dust, which means less time spotting.
Richard

I switched to glass because I could not get a flat 35mm negative without it. I use a hardening fixer since the smallest prints I make are 8x10 and, at 8X, I want as much protection from negative scratches as I can get. So I put up with the negative 'piping' (nice turn of phrase!) and the glass carrier has the last word. Until I get some film for my wife's baby gray Rollie I print only 35mm. I can not speak to larger negatives and their merits in this.

Having said that I have noticed no increase in incidence of spots on my prints since moving to a glass carrier. I was worried about the extra surfaces provided by the glass and the dust problem but it was a non-issue. A couple quick puffs of canned air and it's good to go. If there's spots I spot them. (I find it relaxing.) If the grain on the print is blurry I think it looks sloppy regardless of the quality of the image, and it goes in the trash. For me it was an easy choice once I saw the results.

s-a

removed account4 · Mar 18, 2012

i have both, and am not partial one to the other.
the glass carriers are useful, but glassless is easy ..
sometimes i remove the glassless carrier in the durst
and just stick a piece of glass in there ( with an image on it ) and print that .
it makes it easy to do fun stuff when you can remove a big carrier.

Maris · Mar 18, 2012

cliveh said:
Glass or glassless neg carrier? I would go for glassless every time.

I make all my negative carriers with only one glass: the top glass.

A negative placed in an enlarger in the conventional way, emulsion side down and held along its edges, will "pop" when the heat from the lamphouse hits it. But it will pop upwards. In effect the negative flattens itself against the top glass. By omitting the bottom glass two dust collecting surfaces are eliminated. In my darkroom the top glass is never turned over once the underside, the side touching the negative, is dead clean. Dust does not fall upwards. The top surface of the glass is checked in the enlarger beam and any specks are brushed off immediately before putting the carrier in the enlarger.

clayne · Mar 18, 2012

Glass.

semi-ambivalent · Mar 18, 2012

Michael R 1974 said:
Glass every time for me in all formats. And I use glass on the bottom even with 35mm. I don't use anti-newton ring glass in my carriers. I don't have problems with dust.

Michael,

Just regular, thin-ish glass? Or something like 1/8 window glass? I considered rigging up something with window glass but I have seen Newtons Rings before, although not in this context. So I went with the carrier. (Dammit, I'm worth it )

s-a

ic-racer · Mar 18, 2012

It depends. The bigger the enlargement, the flatter the film needs to be. Low magnification enlargements are fine with a glassless. High magnification enlargements need a glass carrier. You don't have much of a choice.

PKM-25 · Mar 19, 2012

What is the procedure you guys are using to clean glass carriers? I have AN glass coming for my 6x6...

sandermarijn · Mar 19, 2012

PKM-25 said:
What is the procedure you guys are using to clean glass carriers?

http://fpointinc.com/cleaning.htm

EASmithV · Mar 19, 2012

You should buy an Aircraft Carrier instead.

clayne · Mar 21, 2012

I use just cotton pads (avail at freestyle) and air. Not mirror clean but enough. I find that microfiber cloths bring back too much fine dust, even with cleaning solution.

Trond · Mar 21, 2012

I use glass carriers. It takes a little more effort to keep the dust away, but it's worth it.

Trond

DREW WILEY · Mar 21, 2012

I thought glassless carriers went extinct somewhere back in the dark ages. That's where they belong. Might as well throw away your enlarging magnifier too, along with the fine focus knob on
the enlarger itself.

Bob Carnie · Mar 21, 2012

+ 1

DREW WILEY said:
I thought glassless carriers went extinct somewhere back in the dark ages. That's where they belong. Might as well throw away your enlarging magnifier too, along with the fine focus knob on
the enlarger itself.

anikin · Mar 21, 2012

+2
Doing lith prints was an eye-opening experience for me. With a glassless holder one print would be sharp as a pin and another would be a blurfest. And that was 120 film on 8x10 paper! For some quick and dirty prints maybe glassless is ok, but if you want to avoid frustration and wasted paper, a glass carrier is a must. The only problem with glass is that the prints get so sharp that you can start seeing the film grain and small dust on your prints which before were blurred away by the popping negative.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 21, 2012

For prints up to 11x14 in the Leitz Focomat V35 I cannot see a difference in sharpness between glassless and glass unless I start looking at the print through a strong magnifying glass. Now, who looks at prints this way? Honestly, the prints are so sharp that I really don't care either, but that is unique to this enlarger for me. The slight loss of sharpness is nothing compared to needing to spot the hell out of each print (something I absolutely loathe to do).

For prints sized 8x10 and up in my Omega I see a clear difference in sharpness, and here the extra effort is definitely worth it. I use a 4x5 glass carrier and mask it off depending on negative size.

I don't think all enlarger neg carriers are made equal.

clayne · Mar 21, 2012

I usually just clean the carrier once per session and any spots picked up along the way are minimal or not worth caring about (similar to your magnifying glass analogy btw). I do use a kinetronics to clean negatives before I put them in the carrier though, maybe that's one of the reasons I have less of an issue with them.

Neg carrier

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