Printing C-41 negs onto Fujitrans/Kodak Endura "digital" display material

[iandvaag]

I am interested in trying out printing colour negatives onto clear RA-4 material.

I found one particularly interesting discussion about this material, but only one person in that thread had actually tried this material for the purpose I am suggesting.

Have any of you tried using Fujifilm FUJITRANS Digital Display Material for printing colour negatives? The equivalent Kodak material's publication says it "can be exposed both digitally and optically." Is this also true for the Fuji product? The Fuji publication seems to only mention digital exposure. The reason I am primarily interested in the Fuji product is because it is available at half the minimum order quantity of the Kodak product. It also appears that only the "translucent" version is available at low-ish minimum order quantities. Do I understand that the translucent version is designed for viewing with a lightbox? I assume this would yield an acceptable image for viewing with a backlit handheld viewer? Is this product or the clear product suitable for projection (not my main goal, but it would be good to know.

Is the process any more difficult than printing with regular RA-4 paper? Do you need to put a black surface behind the material when enlarging to prevent back-reflections? Any other considerations?

I love looking at slides (stereo slides in particular), but I was unaware that there existed a currently manufactured material which would enable me to produce slides using a neg-pos process, which I find really attractive for a number of reasons.

If anyone has any experience with these materials, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks.

 

[AgX]

With all reflective materials the backscatter is inherent. But in this case using a black surface would not harm either and at least in theory it would be benefitial.
The more so in the case of projecting as here the scatter affected image is smaller than the corresponding print and this would image would be enlarged.

 

[greenrhino]

Unfortunately, it does not work well. It has a heavy UV layer in it so your exposure times will be exceeding long. Like in the range of hours with a very strong exposure unit. It been about 8 years since I tested it so I can’t give you the exact amount of time the exposure took but it was not viable.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Unfortunately, it does not work well. It has a heavy UV layer in it so your exposure times will be exceeding long. Like in the range of hours with a very strong exposure unit. It been about 8 years since I tested it so I can’t give you the exact amount of time the exposure took but it was not viable.

I remember this discussion as I thought about fujitrans for digital negatives and it was indeed you who tested.... I use Ortho film in large rolls and inkpress or pictorico.

 

[iandvaag]

Like in the range of hours with a very strong exposure unit.

it was not viable.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm really kind of surprised by this, isn't it designed to be printed with?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm really kind of surprised by this, isn't it designed to be printed with?

no fujiclear was designed to compete with Fujitrans for monster backlights.. fuji trans required a opaque like plexi to make it work wheras Fujitrans was to be used with clear plexi.

GreenRhino and I were considering this material for making digital negatives for alt process, I stopped when I heard his/her results.

 

[AgX]

Unfortunately, it does not work well. It has a heavy UV layer in it so your exposure times will be exceeding long. Like in the range of hours with a very strong exposure unit.

That does not make sense to me.

 

[MattKing]

I think Bob and Anthony (greenrhino) were thinking of using the material for digital negatives that would subsequently be used to make contact prints with UV based alternative and traditional processes. The UV blocker would interfere with that use (just as the UV blocker in T-Max 100 makes that film unsuitable for that purpose).
That UV blocker makes sense, given the typical use of this material for outdoor displays.
I am a little confused though as to why the UV blocker would make the material unsuitable for enlarger prints. It would seem more likely that any such unsuitability would arise from the material being designed for very short, very high intensity laser exposure, as one might find in a Lambda printer, rather than the lower intensity and longer exposures obtained from an optical enlarger.

 

[AgX]

You got the point.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I used this material on Lambda with laser exposure, its made for this, I think the UV blocker in the material itself would cause problems with Nuarc exposure which is high in UV.??? yes / no

I never used this material btw for the alt process as it is over 2 k per roll to purchase and these days I only do inkjet and not RA4

 

[AgX]

This thread is about using these films under an enlarger or in a camera with duplicating attachment or in contact printing. All with white light.
This is not about UV-lights.

 

[iandvaag]

I found the thread where you guys were discussing this back in 2010. Now I understand, thanks Matt and AgX for the clarification.

To be clear, as AgX said, I am interested in using this material as a final positive output. I have C-41 negatives that I would like to contact print onto this material to generate a colour slide. Thus, I will be exposing with visible light obviously (Chromega D enlarger).

My concern is ordering a large amount of this film (due to minimum orders) and finding out that it is not suitable in terms of grain/sharpness/contrast/colour or practical printing considerations for my intended purpose.

In the thread I linked to in the OP, Stephen Frizza said that he had tested this material for duplication and projection and found it not to be suitable. He didn't elaborate more, and I'm curious what the problem would be. Does anyone have any insight? I'm not intending to project, nor am I trying to duplicate over several generations. I do intend to view these in a stereo viewer, which is certainly not the intended application of this product.

The material is RA-4, and allegedly designed for RA-4 printing from C-41 negative (in addition to chromira, lightjet, lambda, etc exposure), so there shouldn't be a problem with contrast or colour. In terms of grain/sharpness, it is a slow speed print material which I think means it should have better grain/sharpness than a camera film. Perhaps there are practical difficulties in exposing or processing the material, I really don't know.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I have made prints with enlarge, and lambda on Fuji Clear and Fuji Trans. It is a RA4 product and is totally good for making large transparanceys. Every light box in advertising used either trans or Clear.. just used different plexi

I believe Jeff Wall made all his huge analoque murals with Ciba Clear.