Printing Speed

Alan9940 · Mar 23, 2017

Just curious if others are seeing the significantly increased speed of enlarging papers of today vs old papers...or, is it just my imagination?

Back in the day (about 1974 - 2000, for me) I did all my printing on a Beseler 45MX with an Aristo cold light head doing both contact prints and enlargements on Ilford Ilfobrom, a bit of Ilford Galerie, a bit of Oriental Seagull (the old stuff), and Zone VI Brilliant. When I moved across country in 2000, I donated my stock of about 2,000 sheets of paper to a local high school's photography program.

I started shooting "not analog" in 2000 and just recently (within the past year) got back into shooting film and printing in the darkroom. I still use my Beseler 45MX, but years ago I upgraded the head to an Aristo CL4500 w/V54 tube. This unit requires filters to be placed above the negative in a specific made filter drawer. My favorite printing paper nowadays is Foma Fomabrom Variant 111 and I use either Liquidol or home brewed D-72 for paper developer.

My typical film stocks have all been tested to produce a CI typical for printing with a #2 filter, but I'm finding my print times to be around 5 - 10 secs, even with the light intensity control of the Aristo unit turned down as far as it will go and my enlarging lens set to f/22! This is much too short for any kind of dodging work. In the old days, my printing times ran about 25 - 45 secs with the enlarging lens set, maybe, 2 stops below wide open.

Are today's enlarging papers so much faster than the papers of yore? I'm fully aware of diffraction effects compromising sharpness in a taking lens, but will stopping my enlarging lens down to f/32 or f/45 cause any issues? Any idea how I could "slow" the light down in order to increase my standard print time?

Thanks for any help provided.

chris77 · Mar 23, 2017

Alan9940 said:
Just curious if others are seeing the significantly increased speed of enlarging papers of today vs old papers...or, is it just my imagination?

Back in the day (about 1974 - 2000, for me) I did all my printing on a Beseler 45MX with an Aristo cold light head doing both contact prints and enlargements on Ilford Ilfobrom, a bit of Ilford Galerie, a bit of Oriental Seagull (the old stuff), and Zone VI Brilliant. When I moved across country in 2000, I donated my stock of about 2,000 sheets of paper to a local high school's photography program.

I started shooting "not analog" in 2000 and just recently (within the past year) got back into shooting film and printing in the darkroom. I still use my Beseler 45MX, but years ago I upgraded the head to an Aristo CL4500 w/V54 tube. This unit requires filters to be placed above the negative in a specific made filter drawer. My favorite printing paper nowadays is Foma Fomabrom Variant 111 and I use either Liquidol or home brewed D-72 for paper developer.

My typical film stocks have all been tested to produce a CI typical for printing with a #2 filter, but I'm finding my print times to be around 5 - 10 secs, even with the light intensity control of the Aristo unit turned down as far as it will go and my enlarging lens set to f/22! This is much too short for any kind of dodging work. In the old days, my printing times ran about 25 - 45 secs with the enlarging lens set, maybe, 2 stops below wide open.

Are today's enlarging papers so much faster than the papers of yore? I'm fully aware of diffraction effects compromising sharpness in a taking lens, but will stopping my enlarging lens down to f/32 or f/45 cause any issues? Any idea how I could "slow" the light down in order to increase my standard print time?

Thanks for any help provided.

diffraction will be an issue! many enlarging lenses produce optimum results around f8, others are best wide open.. after f11 diffraction becomes a sad fact. (depending on print size).
you could add neutral grey gel filter in the filter drawer.
thats what i do. works great and almost triples exposure time.
chris

darkroommike · Mar 24, 2017

I've had a similar issue on some of the school's 23C enlargers when making small prints. ND filtration is the only answer, in a pinch I have cut a piece of paper to fit in the filter drawer but for better results a piece of ROSCO gel works very well.

HiHoSilver · Mar 24, 2017

Posted almost identical thread a month or so back as I started wading back into printing. Even 15-20s is a bit demanding for any complex dodge/burn.

Cholentpot · Mar 24, 2017

I stumbled across this from the other way.

I started printing about a year ago, but all the lit I've read on darkroom was from the 60-70's. I used all that wonderful info and tips for printing but my times were way way off. I did a run a few nights ago and was printing @f/8 15s for perfectly exposed Tri-x 400 on Ilford Multigrade RC paper. The books I've read suggested 30-45s back when they were written.

Prints came out nice but not much time at all for dodging or burning.

Jim Jones · Mar 24, 2017

As I vaguely recall, Kodak nearly tripled the sensitivity of some of their RC papers in the early or middle 1970s.

jeffreyg · Mar 24, 2017

I print with an Aristo VCL4500 on an Omega D2 but I was using an Aristo cold light before that and don't recall ever stopping down to f22. I used graded paper Brilliant and Seagull as you mentioned but later switched to Ilford FBMG with no problems and have been using it with the VCL4500 for quite some time. I print with the lens stopped 2 and 3 stops from wide open. My guess is that the bulb is the culprit more so than the paper. You might get or make a neutral density filter to fit the drawer to give the longer exposure times at the lens setting you prefer.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

Alan9940 · Mar 24, 2017

Thank you all for your input. I started looking into my ND options today. The fitting of the actual VC filter holder itself is to tight to hold both a VC filter and an ND filter. I'm thinking what I'm going to do is custom cut a piece from gel sheet (Rosco, maybe), then tape this to the top of the filter holder. I think this 'sandwich' would still slide into the filter drawer hole.

jeffreyg-I vaguely remember that my printing times were indeed longer when using MGFB, but that paper doesn't happen to be my current favorite.

Rick A · Mar 24, 2017

Shoot denser negatives. Do some testing to see what works for you. It's what I've done to get my preferred printing times.

ChuckP · Mar 25, 2017

Could you add a second or denser diffusion piece on your cold light head? Or put the ND filter in the head on top of the diffuser.

Alan9940 · Mar 25, 2017

ChuckP said:
Could you add a second or denser diffusion piece on your cold light head? Or put the ND filter in the head on top of the diffuser.

Hi Chuck,

Seems iffy that I could modify the head in any way, but you got me thinking about the round diffuser disk I used with my old Aristo head. I'll have to try slipping that diffuser into the carriage, then placing my current head on top of that and see if I have light leaks because the head won't be sitting down into the carriage like it's supposed to.

Thanks for the idea.

silveror0 · Mar 25, 2017

I bought three sheets of Rosco ND filters (1-, 2- and 3-stops) at about $8/sheet (they're about 20x24"), to cut down for use in my Sinar gel filter holder, among several other uses. If you use a glass negative holder with anti-newton glass on top you could tape the desired ND filter on top of the upper glass.

nworth · Mar 25, 2017

I'm not sure if it is the paper or the light sources. The paper speeds for today's papers are only a little faster that those listed for the papers in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the standards for measuring paper speed have changed a bit in that time, and I'm not sure if they are truly comparable. Enlargers have changed a quite a bit. Today they use tungsten halogen lamps that are much brighter than the old P111 and P211 enlarger lamps. But they also pass the light through dichro and other filter systems that cut it down a lot. My Beseler 23CII with its Dual Dichro S head seems a bit slower than the old condenser head with a P111 lamp, but my Beseler Dichro 35S is extremely fast, and I generally use it with a 0.6 neutral density filter.

Peter Schrager · Mar 28, 2017

try foma 131 you will have plenty of time...ususally around 30-35 seconds

Printing Speed

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