Short exposure time?

[jaquesthesnack]

Hello all

The other day I did my first 6x6 copy and I must say that I was amaized by the tonality and detail.

However as I only had 13x18 and 24x30 papers at home so I did some small 13x13 prints. The problem with that was that the exposuretime was very short. Even if I stopped down the lens to f16 the exposure became very short, around 6 sec. I use a Durst m-600 and is the short exposuretime, relative to 35mm, something I have to live with or have I missed something?

The dodging and burning was pretty hard to do....

Best regards

Jacob

 

[Pinholemaster]

Try a neutral density filter over the lens, or get a dimmer for the light source in the enlarger so the blub's brightness can be dialed back.

 

[haris]

Try smaller lens aperture (if you use 8 or 11 try 16) or/and weaker light bulb (75 watts instead 100 or 150 watts bulb). I dont know about Durst M600, that is can you change light bulbs, but that is what I would do with my Meopta Magnifax 4...

Saying that, I regulary make prints from 35mm, 6x6 and 6x7 negatives using lens aperture f11 on papers 20x25 and 24x30 cm and don't have such short times. My times usually stars at about 20 seconds and goes longer, using colour head for Ilford MG papers and 100w halogen light bulb. Only when making contact sheets times are about 12 seconds...

Do you use proper condenser if you use b/w head or proper mixing chamber if you use head for variable contrast papers?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Assuming your negs aren't too thin, try an ND gel between the light source and the condensors or diffuser. This keeps it out of the image path (as opposed to a filter on the lens), so you can use a lighting gel, and you don't have to worry so much about keeping it clean and scratch free.

 

[jaquesthesnack]

Thanks for the replies

I suppose I could pop in a ND filter in the filterdrawer. Changing lightbulbs seemes lika a hassle, (gee, it must take at least 2 minutes.....

Best regards

Jacob

 

[dancqu]

I use a Durst m-600 and is the short exposure time,
relative to 35mm, something I have to live with or
have I missed something? Jacob

This you may have missed. For same everthing but
negative size, the smaller the negative the greater
the distance of the light source from the paper.

One solution may be to use a longer focal length
enlarging lens which will move the light source up
the column. That and a ND filter, if using VC paper,
will help a lot. If using Graded paper any color filter
which will reduce the blue light reaching the
paper will do. Dan

 

[dancqu]

Almost forgot. See if you can find a slower print paper.
Doubling or more of the print time may be possible. Dan