Why is 98% of all paper available VC?

[chip j]

I always thought graded paper had more guts.

 

[markbarendt]

Because it's a pleasure to use?

 

[snapguy]

all

A lot of people seem to believe that VC is all there is and are puzzled when you tell them there are Single Grade papers that give you a real 3, 4 and 5. I don't know if they still make a 6.

 

[Fixcinater]

Please define "guts" in this context.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Convenience, probably cheaper/easier for manufacturer to produce… VC papers have plenty of guts.

 

[Luis-F-S]

I suspect it's supply and demand. With the little demand for paper these days, VC from a manufacturer's point of view makes sense. At least we can still get FB paper! L

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I always thought graded paper had more guts.

I prefer VC paper because of its versatility

 

[gzinsel]

I think it has to do with the "political will" to use only the perceived "standard times" for developing film and using "that" time for EVERYTHING. Instead compressing or expanding their negatives to hit a C.I. that will print well for grade 1,2,3,or 4, or 5. Today, regardless of the scene, or contrast ratio in the scene, people just go with manufactures recommended times, set the ISO for box speed, auto exposure, and HOPE for the best!!! usually saying " it might be a little off, so I will buy VC paper to fix my little mistakes.sometimes its laziness, Or/but the roll will have many shots of the all different kinds of "outings", so for a roll of 36, 35mm you may end up with 36 different c.i.'s !@!@! now what to do with that???????? VC paper! of course!!!!!! develop for the average. I think most people use roll film. its hard to use the zone system with roll film. I think most people understand these limitations of roll film. I also think VC manufactures have done a great job improving its ability to work well for most negatives. So therefor VC paper sales are higher than graded. I think most people like flexibility.

 

[Slixtiesix]

Barry Thornton did a test on this topic in "Edge of Darkness" and he came to the conclusion that graded paper has a small advantage in sharpness when directly compared to VC. (I think it was Ilford Galerie and Ilfospeed vs. Multigrade and Multigrade FB, not quite sure). However, this would only be visible if: 1. You start with a perfect negative from the beginning, 2. your enlarger is well aligned, 3. you use a glass or even glass-sandwich negative carrier (he had some strong opinions on that!), 4. you use a high-quality enlarging lens, 5. you hit the right point when focussing your enlarger. I think most people won´t be able to show the difference be it from lack of technique or equipment. On the other hand, if you take a look at the specs, Galerie had a better Dmax when compared to MGIV but the new MG classic is better in this regard, though it does not match Galerie either. The difference is small though. Would be interesting to see a practical comparison.

 

[Roger Cole]

Because today's VC papers are so good any advantage of graded is much more theoretical than visible. At least this is true within the middle range of grades 1-4. VC can get weird curve shapes at the extremes of its range (though this too has been improved.) But those grade 0 and grade 5 contrasts are no longer available in graded papers anyway.

I haven't used a graded paper since the 1980s and the introduction of Galerie, which I tried, liked, and used a bit of, and a bit of the old Portriga. I do have some Ektalure I bought off eBay in my freezer though.

 

[AgX]

..., probably cheaper/easier for manufacturer to produce...

Quite sure [VC-paper] is not cheaper/easier to make as such.
On the other hand there are less different products to make, store and ship. But also less to sell. From a marketing point of view maybe not a that good idea.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Quite sure not cheaper/easier to make as such.
On the other hand there are less different products to make, store and ship. But also less to sell. From a marketing point of view maybe not a that good idea.

It probably has more to do with customer demand;can;t see that it is easier to produceexcept for the reduced complexity

 

[Rick A]

The obvious reason is convenience of economy. Why buy six boxes of graded paper(plus have two or three different developers) when you can buy one paper and a set of filters to fine tune your results. Who here remembers keeping Dektol, Selectol, and Selectol Soft in the DR to adjust graded paper.

 

[DWThomas]

The obvious reason is convenience of economy. Why buy six boxes of graded paper(plus have two or three different developers) when you can buy one paper and a set of filters to fine tune your results. Who here remembers keeping Dektol, Selectol, and Selectol Soft in the DR to adjust graded paper.

+1

As someone who does a relatively small amount of printing, a box each of a couple of sizes is all I need to keep on hand.

 

[David Allen]

Because it's a pleasure to use?

+1

I would only ever go back to using De Beers developer, water baths, pre-flashing, Farmers Reducer, etc if graded Fibre-based paper was all that was on offer. The subtle changes that you can easily make with VC papers makes printing so much more pleasurable than in the 'old' days. However, to take full advantage of the benefits that VC papers deliver, you still need to do as much work getting your negatives correct as was the case with graded papers.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

 

[Ronald Moravec]

One needs to stock multiple boxes of paper which may never be used. There is no more running to the store for #4 if you need it in the middle of printing session.

In past decades, VC did not give the deep blacks single grade did. That gap has been narrowed if not eliminated. I would need to evaluate current products. If you need to use 4-6 or 0, the print will never be up to expectations anyway. 2 & 3 are the target grades.

Oh I forgot, different areas of the print can be exposed at different contrast grades, a big advantage.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Being able to split-grade print is a huge plus.

 

[Hatchetman]

all of the above, plus my box of filters has like 10 different grades. (I never used ungraded paper).

 

[MattKrull]

For printing, I have zero interest in usign fixed grade paper. I shoot a wide range of subject, lighting, and I print from both B&W and colour negatives, so I use pretty much the full range of grades.

I do however wish I could order fixed grade paper (my local photo store won't even import it as a special order) for use as 8x10 paper negatives, simply because I don't want to mount a VC filter in front of my LF camera. Instead I went with (single sided) X-ray film. I'll have to deal with higher contrast, but I'll also be getting ISO50ish instead of ISO6, so the trade off seems worth it. I haven't shot any yet, so we'll find out...

 

[RobC]

VC paper makes the transition from good quality work print to fine print one hell of a lot easier. The ability to selectively print different parts of the print at different contrasts is not something that is easily if at all possible using graded paper.
And the control of overall contrast is much more easily controlable using VC paper.
The downside is that contrast filters can put wavy contrast curves into a print but that is only really at very soft contrast settings and most people wouldn't notice anyway.
Both Fixed Grade and VC papers can produce extreme high quality prints so take your pick.

 

[chip j]

YIPPEE! I found plenty of graded Slavich paper at Amazon!!!

 

[Xmas]

Only 2% of sales are graded.
Even the dinos use VC...

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I disagree

I always thought graded paper had more guts.

The people that print with graded paper has more guts

I think photographers that use graded paper have their film processing more dialed in. I worked with an old photographer that graduated from Brooks that told me I was a wimp using VC paper. He had a philosophy of building a negative for a graded paper.

To me, it's really cool being able to split grade print and bump up a 1/2 grade with VC paper. With VC paper, gone are the days of printers having many boxes of different grade papers. I'm just a victim of convenience.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Convenience, flexibility, split filtering, lower personal inventory and of course supply and demand.

 

[Rick A]

YIPPEE! I found plenty of graded Slavich paper at Amazon!!!

Look at B&H for Slavich graded paper.