Using Ortho/Lith film for pictorial non HC

[Surly]

I was given some 4x5 holders that contain Kodak Lith film, as well as, an entire box of the same. I shot two sheets at 25 EI and souped them in D-23.
I cant remember my times but I think I used 6ish minutes at full strength.
The negs were very high contrast with little detail but very sharp. (It also looked a bit fogged, but this is old film and I expect that). Can anyone reccomend a starting point developer and time wise for this film for regular continuous tone negs? I mix my own chem. so any formulas are welcome.
Thanks-Matt

 

[Ole]

Try paper developer for about two minutes, under safelight. Expose at EI 6 to 12.

 

[glennfromwy]

I have played with it a bit, though not extensively. My findings are Dektol at 1:3 or greater, D-76 at high dilutions (try 1:9), Technidol. The big thing to remember is, Kodalith was never intended for continuous tone pictorial work. You probably will never get a full range of tones, but you can come close with a lot of experimenting. Kodalith has a wealth of other possibilities, too. Solarization and posterization can make some wild and unique photos using this film. Porters sells a developer made just for solarization that would work well with this film. If your film is indeed foggy, try a drop or two of benzotriazole in your developer. Have fun and don't worry about wasting the film, it's very cheap on ebay. Oh, yes - don't forget to try it for making HC B&W positives. Even from color negs.

 

[JG Motamedi]

Try this:

http://members.aol.com/fotodave/Articles/LC-1.html

I have been using it with freestyle's HC lith film, and have gotten printable results. Nothing spectacular, but quite respectable.

 

[Aggie]

I work quite a bit with ortho/lith film. Don't worry about the fog. it won't harm the image. You develop it under yellow or red safelights. I use a very weak Dektol devloper. the fun thing is you can watch the film develop in a tray under the safelights, and pull it when it gets to the proper point. then use water stop bath, and on to a fixer. My times run anywhere from 90 seconds to 2 minutes for a negative. When you are done you have a nice positive instead of a negative. You can then in the dark, sandwich the regular negative film to the positive, and devlop like you normally would for regular film, or you can enlarge the positive using a larger size Ortho/lith film. Put the positive in the enlarger like you were going to enlare a negative, but expose it with a sheet of the ortho/lith film in a film holder. I have taken my medium format negs up to 8x10 using this method. I love watching negatives delop in a nice safelit darkroom.

 

[dr bob]

Gotta be different.... I have gotten great results using HC110 b at a dilution of about 1:5 (quite dilute). The development time varies as it was by inspection, but I think it was around 1 couple of minutes. I did not see a positive as Aggie commented, but a rather high contrast continuous tone negative. Maybe I can find the 4x5 neg or a contact print to post - maybe....

 

[Surly]

Thanks!-those are all cool solutions. I really like the LC-1 formula idea. I'll also try the benzotriazole. I've been told it's good to have on hand for fogged paper and film but I've never used it. Now if it will only stop raining........