Ultrafine Fiber Paper users?

[kchoquette]

Hey everyone,

I just decided to pick up a box of this stuff, seeing as how I'm a broke photo student who's just sick of printing on RC. We've got the ability to work with Fiber, but I was wondering how this compares to Ilford Fiber papers. I'm not expecting the same results, but certainly somewhat better than the quality I'm getting with RC. If any of you have any scans of prints, please post them, I'd love to get a better idea of what this paper looks like!

Thanks!

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

You won't be able to tell much from a scan what the paper looks like, because of how it's processed, etc.

I have heard from others that the paper is inconsistent from box to box. But that may or may not matter depending on whether you need to reprint stuff later down the road or not.

That's all I know. I haven't tried it myself.

 

[Ektagraphic]

I have not had a chance to try Ultrafine's Fiber paper yet but (although it doesn't apply to this all that much...) I can say that they RC is outstanding!!

 

[Born2Late]

I've used it and had good results. The only problem that I've run into was one box was supposed to be matte and turned out to be glossy. Photo Warehouse made it right. The offered to replace it and gave me the option of keeping the glossy for half price, which I did. There was an emulsion speed difference between the two, but that was no issue for me. Developed in Dektol, it provides a slightly warm image, which I prefer.

 

[agnosticnikon]

I just got a box of the glossy fiber paper a couple of months ago, and have been generally pleased with it. I do think that Ilford is better by comparison, as the whites on the Ultrafine don't seem to be as white. And I don't mean it's a warmer paper, just a little drab, not bright and well, real white. Maybe the paper was quite old, I don't know, but I found plenty of negatives to print that looked just fine on it, some looked a little better than the Ilford because of the mellow tone. The RC paper I got is as good as most other RC papers I've used though. Confused now?

 

[kchoquette]

I finally got a box of their glossy a few weeks ago and have been working with it a fair amount. I actually like it a fair bit. At first, I thought it was hard to work with, but I hadn't really paid attention to my negatives--which turned out to be incredibly thin and hard to print from in the first place.

Like agnosticnikon, I've found the paper not to be as true white as Ilford, which actually works for what I'm doing a lot. It responds to rapid developer really well and the prints in the end come out wonderfully, I think. The quality and feel of the paper itself isn't as good as Ilford, but it definitely produces a print that I would be more than happy to display. Another plus is that when you press this paper, it dries much more flat than Ilford, which is kinda great! Here's an 8x10 print I made, pushing T-Max to 1600 to some great, creamy results. Though a scan of my print isn't the best indication (using an Epson v750), the comparison to my scanned negatives is almost night and day. I think I really enjoy this paper.


Untitled by Dead Link Removed, on Flickr