Ortho and Litho Film - use?

mudman · Feb 13, 2008

I have about a 100 sheets of litho film 5x7 that I have no idea of whom produced and about 40 sheets I think of kodak orthofilm that is 8 x 10. I have no idea what to do with the stuff, how its handled, enlarged or not or how to develop or shoot it. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear it. Alternatively, if anyone wants it (After I get an idea of what the hell I'd do with it) let me know, and I wouldn't mind sending off a packet or two of the litho (its in 25 sheet containers that have never been opened). I have no capability to shoot anything larger then 35mm right now.

Cheers,
Eric

Akki14 · Feb 13, 2008

For enlarged negatives, use it like paper. Normal paper developer, work under RED safelights (not amber) and use similar paper times if you have your own enlarger. Develop by inspection, it goes a little bit quicker than paper.
Might not be a lot of use to you unless you want to try out some alt processes (which are easy to do under normal indoor lighting).
The ISO is about 3 so not very useful for large format incamera use though some people do it.

winger · Feb 13, 2008

There's a whole thread on enlarging negatives - (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
and the lith film sounds like the easiest way to do it. The 5x7 lith film would make nice sized negs for contact printing methods like cyanotypes. I intend to try it - you could, too (with that nice new enlarger).

mudman · Feb 13, 2008

cool thanks! I frankly had no idea what litho film was for. So I could take negatives that I've had on 35mm or 6x9, set the enlargement to either 8x10 or 5x7 (depending on the ortho or litho film I'm using) develop and then contact print? Sounds fun.

winger · Feb 13, 2008

Yup. Cool, huh? And for alt stuff, I want to try enlarging some slides I have. Some look cool whether pos or neg. It just has to get sunny again to do cyanotypes (I don't do enough to build or buy a UV light source).

Jim Noel · Feb 13, 2008

I not only use it for enlarged negatives, and by the way "normal" print developer is too active for this, I use it in camera.

In camera, I usually use an EI of 3-6 depending on subject and develop it in LC-1, or divided D-23 by inspection under a red safelight. Jim Galli has an adaptation to Rodinal which produces beautiful negatives for him.

Akki14 · Feb 14, 2008

I don't find normal print developer to be too active. You just need to dunk the sheet in some water before you put it in the developer to help it go in more easily then it's about 40 seconds developing time - not too far off the 1minute for normal paper development when using Ilford Multigrade 1+9 dilution.

I think someone should point out that enlarged negatives is a twostep process so you'll end up with a big positive with the first enlargement which you have to let dry completely then contact print onto another sheet of unexposed lith/ortho film then process that and you'll get your negative. But it's a fun process and if you slip the positive into a sleeve with some white paper behind it, it looks like an interesting print.

Mike Wilde · Feb 14, 2008

good for Unsharp Masking as well

If you shoot 35mm it is overkill, but it is handy for 120 and larger for unsharp masking efforts.

I contact print non emulsion to non emulsion to get the fuzziness ( some diffusion aka klennex in the light path as well). Because it is ortho it doesn't work for colour negs, but is just the ticket for B&W.

With being ortho, it can be developed to a low contrast index with very dilute film developers, and you can judge when to pull the film by simple inspection under the relatively bright red safelights as you go.

For red safeligts I have successfully just fitted cut to size peices of rubylith, in lieu of the usual abmer glass filters that fit my different safelights.

craicfein · Feb 14, 2008

You could use the larger sheets for edge effects (dark lines, feathered edges, etc.) when printing some negatives. To do this effectively you need registration pins (stoesser register pins can still be found at some graphic arts supply stores) to align the positive and negative images on the litho film to the enlarger image on the paper.

Ortho and Litho Film - use?

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