VC papers in General

[ronlamarsh]

Has anyone else out there gotten these results either be actual testing or just work-a-day printing? I have tested forte polygrade V, Adox Vario G and Ilford MGIV. All testing was done with a Stouffer 21 step wedge: exposed paper developed in formulary 130 at 2:1 for 3min, with and without safelight, polymax filters,tungsten and coldlight sources.
The results: without going into exact numbers both polygrade V and Adox were heavily weighted toward the soft end with a #3 filter producing an RN of around 125(grade 1 1/2) then a huge leap to an RN of 80 with the #4 filter and no change with a #5+. The Ilford paper claimed to be exyended range seems to meet the claims! Very smooth and distinct transistions with all filters a #3 filter prints about the same as I recall the old Forte Bromofort #3 printed...a wee on the hard side of 3.
This is all well and good and I realize all papers have their place but I find that the reduced range of polygrade and adox makes them less appealing from an ease of printing standpoint. I am able to get the contrast I want with the adox and polygrade but I need to use a #4 filter which substantially increases my exposure times. Any thoughs?

 

[rbarker]

Use Ilford instead?

 

[Nick Zentena]

Get new filters? Seems the issue is the miss match between the filters and the paper.

 

[john_s]

There is an article in Photo Techniques (I think March/April 2005) about good and not so good types of VC papers. No names, unfortunately, but sets of graphs that show that some VC papers give a set of useful grades, and some are quite inferior. The latter because they tend to have their variation in contrast only at the dark end of the range, with practically none above (lighter than) about Zone 6.

 

[Ole]

There are some useful curves on http://fotoimport.no/pg01/pg01-2-1.htm - with text in Norwegian. Rc papers are on http://fotoimport.no/pg01/pg01-4-1.htm ,yet again with Norwegian text and really neat diagrams.

 

[titrisol]

Does split-filtration come handy for these cases?

FORTE papers were pretty well behaved IIRC, a tad contrasty IMHO, but grade 3 to 4 was not that big of a jump.
Haven;t used them in a long time though

 

[Claire Senft]

What is your light source? That is a very heavy and stramge jump that your are experiencing. Are you using a coldlight source with an older style tube? Some VC papers will perform particularly poorly as far contrast grade jumps. with older style tubes. If you are using a coldlight head with an older style tube you may want to upgrade it.

 

[psvensson]

There are some useful curves on http://fotoimport.no/pg01/pg01-2-1.htm - with text in Norwegian. Rc papers are on http://fotoimport.no/pg01/pg01-4-1.htm ,yet again with Norwegian text and really neat diagrams.

Those are pretty interesting! I see Kodak Polycontrast has a nasty kink in Grade 0, and MGIV doesn't look so good at that grade either. Seems to be pretty common to have very little difference between grades 4 and 5 too.

 

[Konical]

Good Afternoon, Ronlamarsh,

As you've noted, it's not unusual to have a somewhat uneven progression in contrast steps, especially toward either extreme. Frankly, it isn't worth worrying about in most cases. First, the vast majority of your negatives will probably require one of the middle filters. Second, if not, then you need to make adjustments in your film development; that's a lot easier than trying to get good results from very flat or very contrasty negatives.

Konical

 

[naaldvoerder]

Hi, Ronlamarsh,

I use polywarmtone and i to find that grade 4 and 5 are very similar. So really no real grade5. Don't miss it much though.

JJ

 

[ronlamarsh]

Thank you all for the input i'll be going the "negative adjustment" route for harder grades for now. Just for the record I am using a Aristo V54 coldlite which is claimed to eliminate previous problems of this nature. I also have a Burke&James 5x7 enlarger with tungsten diffusion and have experienced the same results. It is interesting to note that my results come fairly close to those obtained by Steve Anchell and published in the back of his book "The Variable Contrast Printing Manual". I may switch to inford sometime in the future but I like the way that Forte and Vario G "Tone".

 

[Bulent Ozgoren]

I have tested Forte Polywarmtone PW14 in Ansco 130 1:2 2.5 minutes with my Aristo VCL4500. My results are similar to yours. I get an ISO Range of 0.88 (grade 3) with the 0.0 mixed filter setting. I have attached the results in a spreadsheet. I do split filter printing. My negatives are developed in Pyrocat-HD for DR of 1.35 (2xBlue Channel + 1xGreen Channel / 3).

 

[Photo Engineer]

Read the article on VC papers by Dick Dickerson and Sylvia Zawadski in the previous issue of Photo Techniques. They show how you can have good and bad VC papers.

PE