Negative developer considerations with the intent of big enlargements

ChrisBCS said:

Thank you. I know this question reveals my lack of enlarger printing experience, but how do you account for paper thickness after such high level grain focusing on your easel? Test paper of the same caliper?

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The problem isn't at the easel, it is at the negative.
At the easel, you have significant depth of focus*. At the negative, you have almost no depth of field*.
That limited depth of field* makes alignment of the negative and the lens critical.
You want good alignment at the easel as well, because if alignment is off, the image will be distorted.
*Caution: some will switch my use of "depth of field" and "depth of focus" in this (enlarger) situation. Actually, I can screw up and mistakenly switch them.

MattKing said:

The problem isn't at the easel, it is at the negative.
At the easel, you have significant depth of focus*. At the negative, you have almost no depth of field*.
That limited depth of field* makes alignment of the negative and the lens critical.
You want good alignment at the easel as well, because if alignment is off, the image will be distorted.
*Caution: some will switch my use of "depth of field" and "depth of focus" in this (enlarger) situation. Actually, I can screw up and mistakenly switch them.

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I and many others concur with this - even with very large prints, you have a few mm at the baseboard. If you're worried, use a scrap of similar paper thickness, but I doubt it's necessary.

John Wiegerink said:

He did! He wants to go at least 24"x36" from a 2 1/4" square negative

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I have made 36"x36" prints from a 2 1/4" square negative [aka 6x6] with Kodak Tri-X and replenished XTOL.

Key things to bear in mind (borne from experience):

Glass carrier in enlarger.

The most powerful enlarger head you can get your hands on.

Make sure everything is as perfectly aligned as possible.

Enlarger lens stopped to optimal aperture (usually about f8-11 on an 80mm) & a top quality 6-element lens - no need for a rodagon-G for the size you're looking at making.

Think about how you are going to handle & process what are very big, very wet, easily creased sheets of paper. (expensive too!)

For the size of enlargement you are making off of 120 film, most films (even 400 speed) will be able to potentially resolve sufficient detail. Your lens may not resolve well enough (diffraction) and the film may not lie flat enough in the camera to utilise this resolution. Furthermore, your effective depth of field will shrink as you enlarge further - things that look great at a 4x enlargement can fall apart easily at a 16x enlargement.

Avoid Pan-F unless you understand its limitations - Delta 100 is better or equal resolving, as is Acros, TMX.

There's a lot more to this than choice of developer. ID-11/D-76, dilute Perceptol, XTOL etc will all be fine - there's more to think about than that sort of detail. Would avoid pyro for this sort of enlargement. Consider too how closely your audience will be viewing the picture - this becomes a vital consideration as you go up in print size. What may not look that great at 1ft, looks stunning at 6-8ft.

Grain enhances the illusion of definition. That's why I like to use ilfosol-3 and rodinal with slow films. Adds that bite.

Wow. I can't express my sincere gratitude strongly enough. There is an incredible amount of helpful information for the education of a neophyte like me distilled into this thread.

Lachlan Young, what type of power are we talking about? Your run of the mill Beselers wouldn't cut it? As far as lenses, I'm aware of the reputation/purpose of the Rodagon-G for very big enlargements. At what point would this particular lens offer any significant advantage?

Any place I can read about the limitations of Pan-F? I've been using Pan F and Delta 100 so far since getting back into film, and I have to say I'm far more impressed (personal preference) with the Delta, in ID-11 or FX-39. I just picked up some Acros to play with.

Again, my deepest thanks for your patience and sharing of wisdom.

To add another element to your list, your enlarger head will likely be racked up very high. Any vibration in the floor or the enlarger itself will be magnified. Best to use an enlarger where the column is braced to the wall.

ChrisBCS said:

Wow. I can't express my sincere gratitude strongly enough. There is an incredible amount of helpful information for the education of a neophyte like me distilled into this thread.

Lachlan Young, what type of power are we talking about? Your run of the mill Beselers wouldn't cut it? As far as lenses, I'm aware of the reputation/purpose of the Rodagon-G for very big enlargements. At what point would this particular lens offer any significant advantage?

Any place I can read about the limitations of Pan-F? I've been using Pan F and Delta 100 so far since getting back into film, and I have to say I'm far more impressed (personal preference) with the Delta, in ID-11 or FX-39. I just picked up some Acros to play with.

Again, my deepest thanks for your patience and sharing of wisdom.

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Are we talking 23 or 45 Beselers? If it's the 45 condenser head, put a 250w in it. The Dichro uses a 250w as standard (I think). It's all about getting your exposure times reasonable - you don't want to get landed with a 16 minute burn...

More power is always useful in these sort of circumstances - the 4x5 Multigrade 500 head with its 2x300w is even better. An 8x10 head with 1000w+ or a mural enlarger would be designed for this sort of job.

Rodagon-G's were aimed at an optimised 20-25x enlargement - I recall they made a 50mm, then jumped to 105mm - I also checked some notes I had kicking around & the regular Rodagon 80mm maxes out at about 10x, the Apo at 15x & the 105 G is 10-40x-ish. That said, I know that a regular (fairly ancient) 105mm rodagon is quite capable of enlarging 120 negs to 40+ inches on the short dimension just fine & the prints look great. A fair bit of grain, but crisp enough at sane viewing distances. The Rodagon-G may offer a slightly flatter field at those enlargements - but there are more things than just that to consider when blowing stuff up that big.

Pan-F is a tricky film - short toe, short-ish straight line, inherently pretty contrasty, poorer latent image stability than most films. It does have extremely fine grain, & high resolution. Great film if you have flatter contrast/ can control the contrast range. It's mostly something you need to try in order to learn about its behaviour - ie try a range of exposures (for the sort of shadow details you like) and processing times (for the kind of highlights you prefer) in different contrast situations & see what the outcomes are.

Delta is much more 'normal' in both toe behaviour & has a nice long straight line to go with the fine grain/ high sharpness/ high resolution. Best compromise out of the TMX/Acros/Delta triumvirate I think, but I like them all.

Final thing, why do you want/ need to make prints at this size? I'd be interested to know what your motivations are.

If I had to do something similar, the smallest format I'd even contemplate would be 4x5, probably 5x7, ideally 8x10. If grit & grain & emotion matter more, a 30x enlargement off 35mm can be beautiful in its own way.

ChrisBCS said:

Wow. I can't express my sincere gratitude strongly enough. There is an incredible amount of helpful information for the education of a neophyte like me distilled into this thread.

Lachlan Young, what type of power are we talking about? Your run of the mill Beselers wouldn't cut it? As far as lenses, I'm aware of the reputation/purpose of the Rodagon-G for very big enlargements. At what point would this particular lens offer any significant advantage?

Any place I can read about the limitations of Pan-F? I've been using Pan F and Delta 100 so far since getting back into film, and I have to say I'm far more impressed (personal preference) with the Delta, in ID-11 or FX-39. I just picked up some Acros to play with.

Again, my deepest thanks for your patience and sharing of wisdom.

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The only thing I have to say about PanF+ is it builds contrast rather fast or is a little harder to use for a high contrast scene. Also, don't let PanF+ go very long before you develop your exposed films. It's latent image stability is not very good and I learned this the hard way. As mentioned above...............a rock solid enlarger is a must, because your times will be long. If you live by a railroad track wait until the train has gone by for at least 1/2hr. Kind of a joke, but I think you get my drift. A good test for this is to get one of those kids play lasers, tape it to your enlarger head and aim it toward the ceiling with lights out. Then reverse it toward the lens board. With each of those do some normal moving around and then increase your activity while all the time watching the red dot. Remember, if that red dot moves then every line, stone, building, eyeball and grain in that negative moves also. Kind of like shooting your cameras hand-held with a shutter speed of 1 sec.. You might get lucky and have a sharp photo, but most likely you won't.
This is a good example of that. A few years back I was printing the same 6x7 negative to 16X20 several times and when I had eight prints done I called it quits. The next day I inspected all eight and had two that were definitely not as sharp and crisp as the rest. Everything was done exactly the same on all eight, but for some reason those two just didn't cut it. It took me a week and a half to finally find out the cause. It seems that when our County Road Commission repaired the road in front of our house they had some kind of hollow portion under the road. Well, every time a large truck went by it would send a vibration under ground. Cars were not a problem, but those heavy trucks with loads were. My exposures were fairly short for that negative, which meant that even a little vibration to my enlarger showed in the negative. I now do almost all of my darkroom enlarging on Sunday or after 10:30pm during the week days. Why, no damn trucks!

NB23 said:

Grain enhances the illusion of definition. That's why I like to use ilfosol-3 and rodinal with slow films. Adds that bite.

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+2 You want the "sharp" look or the "soft" look"?

Lachlan Young said:

Are we talking 23 or 45 Beselers? If it's the 45 condenser head, put a 250w in it. The Dichro uses a 250w as standard (I think). It's all about getting your exposure times reasonable - you don't want to get landed with a 16 minute burn...

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Roger that. 23 C II dichro is what seems to be available for sale most locally (craigslist). I haven't selected/purchased yet. Have to take it one month/paycheck at a time and I haven't used anything besides what was in the school darkroom more than a decade ago...

More power is always useful in these sort of circumstances - the 4x5 Multigrade 500 head with its 2x300w is even better. An 8x10 head with 1000w+ or a mural enlarger would be designed for this sort of job.

Rodagon-G's were aimed at an optimised 20-25x enlargement - I recall they made a 50mm, then jumped to 105mm - I also checked some notes I had kicking around & the regular Rodagon 80mm maxes out at about 10x, the Apo at 15x & the 105 G is 10-40x-ish. That said, I know that a regular (fairly ancient) 105mm rodagon is quite capable of enlarging 120 negs to 40+ inches on the short dimension just fine & the prints look great. A fair bit of grain, but crisp enough at sane viewing distances. The Rodagon-G may offer a slightly flatter field at those enlargements - but there are more things than just that to consider when blowing stuff up that big.

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Excellent info. I could search for days and not turn up critical tidbits like these. Thank you.

Pan-F is a tricky film - short toe, short-ish straight line, inherently pretty contrasty, poorer latent image stability than most films. It does have extremely fine grain, & high resolution. Great film if you have flatter contrast/ can control the contrast range. It's mostly something you need to try in order to learn about its behaviour - ie try a range of exposures (for the sort of shadow details you like) and processing times (for the kind of highlights you prefer) in different contrast situations & see what the outcomes are.

Delta is much more 'normal' in both toe behaviour & has a nice long straight line to go with the fine grain/ high sharpness/ high resolution. Best compromise out of the TMX/Acros/Delta triumvirate I think, but I like them all.

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Thank you. I had read that about Pan F. I have also read some pretty scary things about latent image keeping, but I do my best to process immediately always regardless of the film. I have also read that Delta is a thicker negative that keeps shadow details better in darker zones, but blows out highlights more rapidly, whereas Acros does exactly the opposite and is a thinner negative.

Final thing, why do you want/ need to make prints at this size? I'd be interested to know what your motivations are.

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Visceral impact. I don't remember a lot when it comes to my lifetime of reactions to various art and exhibitions, but I remember damn well what I felt the very first time I saw extremely large prints, prints as big as me and bigger, made by Laura McPhee. Her River of No Return exhibition at the MFA in Boston. I grew up poor white trash. First person in my family to have just received my Bachelors, first time in Boston, first time at a storied museum like the MFA. The combination of all the elements coming together, the travel, the city, then the pure ecstasy of my reaction to those prints. Every since that day, June of 2006, I have preserved the understanding that one day I would try to make prints that big as well, try to be able to make others feel what I felt, or to look at them and be capable of making myself feel that reaction. Because to me, the size of those prints was a huge part of the experience of them existing as art. and it was a part that got a huge reaction from me. I'm finally in a place where motivation and inspiration outweigh the impracticalities and distractions (I'm not a professional photographer by the definition of any person).

If I had to do something similar, the smallest format I'd even contemplate would be 4x5, probably 5x7, ideally 8x10. If grit & grain & emotion matter more, a 30x enlargement off 35mm can be beautiful in its own way.

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I understand that as well. I considered going LF for a good long time while this goal continued to smolder in the back of my mind, through grad school and travel for fieldwork. I ended up going with a Hasselblad 500c/120 roll film just this year for a variety of reasons. Everything from system cost to portability, to the cost of being a prolific shooter and using roll film. What sealed the deal was seeing enlargements of the size in which I was interested that had been shot using $50k, 100 MP digital machines. Machines that an affordable, portable, 50 year old 'blad and slower film could go toe-to-toe with easily in terms of lp/image height and dynamic range (based on my understanding).

So that was probably way too long to keep anyones attention, but again, this thread has been, and continues to be, amazing in terms of wisdom and motivation. My humblest appreciation.

Unless you are independently wealthy, start with smaller prints.
Unless and until you can easily again print powerful, technically excellent 11x14" prints, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed by the challenges of something like a 24"x 36" print.
And while a Beseler 23C series enlarger is theoretically capable of enlargements of that size, you will need to make special modifications to ensure that issues like alignment and stability are dealt with. Most likely, you won't be able to use a standard baseboard, and will have to resort to either wall projection or moving to wall mounting or other similar methods.

ChrisBCS said:

I have also read that Delta is a thicker negative that keeps shadow details better in darker zones, but blows out highlights more rapidly, whereas Acros does exactly the opposite and is a thinner negative.

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No such thing as an unprintable highlight... mostly. I've been handed grossly overexposed Delta 100 negs & got good to excellent prints out of them. Cannot say my experience with either film mirrors the received wisdom of the technically-inept-&-making-excuses-for-it commentariat - both have a fairly moderate toe & a long straight-ish line once off it. Bear in mind that Ilford's recommended dev. time is for a higher contrast index than Fuji's - best thing to do is look at their data sheets, see the curves they plot & note the contrast indices/ G-Bar that they recommend developing to.

ChrisBCS said:

Visceral impact. I don't remember a lot when it comes to my lifetime of reactions to various art and exhibitions, but I remember damn well what I felt the very first time I saw extremely large prints, prints as big as me and bigger, made by Laura McPhee. Her River of No Return exhibition at the MFA in Boston. I grew up poor white trash. First person in my family to have just received my Bachelors, first time in Boston, first time at a storied museum like the MFA. The combination of all the elements coming together, the travel, the city, then the pure ecstasy of my reaction to those prints. Every since that day, June of 2006, I have preserved the understanding that one day I would try to make prints that big as well, try to be able to make others feel what I felt, or to look at them and be capable of making myself feel that reaction. Because to me, the size of those prints was a huge part of the experience of them existing as art. and it was a part that got a huge reaction from me. I'm finally in a place where motivation and inspiration outweigh the impracticalities and distractions (I'm not a professional photographer by the definition of any person).

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The big question you have to ask yourself is whether working with a professional printer (like a great many photographers who work with large scale prints do) will net you better results vis-a-vis spending time/money/effort working with physically/technically/emotionally demanding printing methods on the scale that you desire. I suspect that McPhee's prints may well be laser exposed C-prints from digital (scanned) files output via a Lambda or similar machine, which drastically reduces the effort involved in making them. A quick dig round the net suggests she shoots 8x10 - in that case, they're effectively 4x-9x enlargements - thus not very technically challenging to maintain superb quality at that scale, especially if computers were involved. Adequate funding also makes a huge difference.

I know where to go to get similarly sized analogue c-prints made in the UK - no idea who's still doing them in the USA.

If it is a key part of your process that you sweated blood, tears etc in making these prints, go for it. If not, save money & find a printer who can express what you want to say - it may be cheaper in terms of a cost/time tradeoff. Some may even be willing to teach you the necessary skills along the way.

Lachlan Young said:

No such thing as an unprintable highlight... mostly. I've been handed grossly overexposed Delta 100 negs & got good to excellent prints out of them. Cannot say my experience with either film mirrors the received wisdom of the technically-inept-&-making-excuses-for-it commentariat - both have a fairly moderate toe & a long straight-ish line once off it. Bear in mind that Ilford's recommended dev. time is for a higher contrast index than Fuji's - best thing to do is look at their data sheets, see the curves they plot & note the contrast indices/ G-Bar that they recommend developing to.

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Thank you. This makes a lot more sense to me, given that I was always taught the convention that if you aren't 100% sure, it's always better to risk slight overexposure in nearly any circumstance for the sake of getting silver on the negative. I think Adams is where I first read that?

The big question you have to ask yourself is whether working with a professional printer (like a great many photographers who work with large scale prints do) will net you better results vis-a-vis spending time/money/effort working with physically/technically/emotionally demanding printing methods on the scale that you desire.

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Thanks, and this point is not taken lightly.

I know where to go to get similarly sized analogue c-prints made in the UK - no idea who's still doing them in the USA.

If it is a key part of your process that you sweated blood, tears etc in making these prints, go for it. If not, save money & find a printer who can express what you want to say - it may be cheaper in terms of a cost/time tradeoff. Some may even be willing to teach you the necessary skills along the way.

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As naive as it probably sounds, bring the blood sweat and tears. That's an incredibly important part of getting back into this for me: making prints. I'm used to commitment to projects (spent 12 years in school to obtain the goal I had in that realm). I have the space to use as a darkroom (with enough of a footprint for a large tray), now it's both piecing together equipment and knowledge that will occupy me. I would love to get some sort of mentorship, but I also have no idea where to turn in the USA, or in the Houston area.

Go for it. All the right reasons are there, at least to my eyes. I am not nor I ever was independently wealthy, yet thanks to sheer perseverance, night jobs, "borrowed" Internet, free pdfs, eBay and f@&% knows what other reasons, I did exactly that - extra-demanding prints. The hardest, largest and most viscerally satisfying was a wall-projected 30x42" RA-4 print on Ultra Endura from a late 90s Agfa ISO 400 35mm neg. Mind you, it was done for an artist, and my fee was about $120. Developed in a drainage tube from a construction site junkyard rigged into a large Jobo-like print drum. Used a 60mm Hoya Super-EL @ f8. Dev'd in RT-LU (=RA-RT). Don't do it without thorough alignment and the largest Peak/Micromega focuser. Was it worth it? You bet. The print was unbelievably impressive.

Sorry for the rant.

My lab is set up for Mural enlargements up to 30 x40 and larger if the project can finance it.

Here are a few things (repeat others have said above) that I think is important.

Darken the walls around the working printing area.
Use Glass Carrier that is aligned with the easal wall or floor easal
With smaller format 120mm make sure the negative is completely centered below the bulb, lens,axis and not drifting to either side
Try to use as much power as you can get to get your exposure time under 20 seconds.
I use the best lens I can , and I close down two stops from wide open
Use a small sheet of the same paper to focus on, look for crisp grain
I use a metal easel and large magnet strips to hold the paper in place
I cut the paper with Olfa knife from the box itself- looking for a large econo roll one of these days
Include all your dodges and burns in your test prints for consistency
I print all my murals exactly the same way I would smaller prints with a modified split filter method.

Process Side

I use very large trays - much bigger than the print- For Lambda Silver I use very large tubs and scroll the paper to the first fix.
I use very large amounts of chemistry to cover the prints.
My trays have handles on them so I can rock the print through the trays.
For large Murals I use a 3 minute developer time and sequence through with Ilfords Archival method
I will finish a print within one hour from first test to first final., I always make an extra print due to post printing handling problems

Toning is done exactly the same way smaller prints are done.

I figure I can do 8-12 finals from two or three negatives in a day if everything is working well.

Ansel Adams in The Print makes the comment that he "would rather see a poor print of a good subject rather than a good print of a poor subject." Does the OP wish to impress the viewer with his technical accomplishment or to make an artistic statement. The web is full of examples that are merely technical exercises and have nothing to really say.

Gerald C Koch said:

Ansel Adams in The Print makes the comment that he "would rather see a poor print of a good subject rather than a good print of a poor subject." Does the OP wish to impress the viewer with his technical accomplishment or to make an artistic statement. The web is full of examples that are merely technical exercises and have nothing to really say.

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Absolutely artistic statement. But the craftsmanship is an inextricable part of that statement for me. I have no interest in making any prints beyond proofs of images that don't speak to me at any size. Who knows how many proofs I will go through before I make something I want to enlarge? When I make one of those images, I want to put the blood sweat and tears into learning the technical side of making it big.

You don't need to justify what you want to do to anyone Chris.

Patrick Robert James said:

You don't need to justify what you want to do to anyone Chris.

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+1
But it might help you to reach your goals if you clarify your purpose and plan of approach before you are metaphorically up to your elbows in photographic paper and chemicals.
And these discussions can help with that clarity.

Back to technical issues - if your enlarger head is up high, it's pretty easy to rig up some sort of bracket. With my first real enlarger (67c), I made a plywood box that mounted to the ceiling joists and bolted to the top of the column. My 4x5 has purpose-made holes in the top support for this.

You don't need a custom part from the manufacturer, things like 3/4" plywood brackets that are braced well (think box-like construction, nothing master-craftsman needed, just some glue and screws) can make a huge difference.

Doing 16x20 on the 67c, I'd change a filter and wait for the head to stop vibrating. The bracket made a big difference and it in no way gets in the way of working, a set and forget thing.

I agree with the Pan-F in XTOL suggestion. I use Pyrocat-HD, and I like it a lot; it may work well also. In any case, some experimentation is needed. Often, big enlargements look dull compared to their smaller cousins. Developing for a brighter image (generally just developing a bit longer) may be called for. Some developers work better for big enlargements than others. From what I have heard, XTOL works very well. Try some small prints at big magnifications and see how you like them. Adjust developers and development based on what you find.

My sincerest thank you to everyone who participated in this thread. This discussion has given me such an incredible wealth of things to think about and plan for.

You are welcome. You can sure get your money's worth at APUG.