DeBone 75
Member
First of all let me say that this is a purely unscientific test. I have no way of checking D-max, densities, curves, toes or even fingers for that matter. I am only going by how the negatives and prints look. I work for a Hospital in Erie PA and from time to time also take care of some Drs. offices. While at one of the offices I managed to talk the Dr. out of some expired ( 1996) Kodak X-ray film. Free 200 sheets. So I did some experimenting. It was cheap so nothing to loose. The film is T-Mat G/RA. My camera is an 8X10 Kodak View 2 Improved. The lens is a Wolly Velo 9 ½ in. Film developer is Beutler High Def. ( my standard ) and the paper dev is Ansco 130 1:2 dilution. All other chemicals as usual. Paper is that Freestyle “Europes Finest Warmtone” stuff. AGFA but don’t know what? Grades 2 and 3.
Next let me say everything I read about what to rate this film at was wrong. First I tried ISO 25. Waaaay over exposed. Beutler was at standard 1:1:8 dilution. Almost black negative. I tried diluting Dev. a bit more. I took 1 liter of the working stock and added another liter of water. Started to get somewhere. I was now able to get a negative that I could recognize, but not there yet. After a few more ISO changes I ended up with ISO 200. Beutler was still the more dilute mix. Negative looked pretty good to my eye. Now to print. Grade 3 paper has a better look than the 2. I contact print on an old Burke and James printer. It has a dimmer switch for the lights and I have turned way down. Time is about 6 sec. at that setting. 2 min. Ansco 130. Although not what you would call Museum quality print, ( like most all of my junk) it looks pretty good. Contrast was well with in range of pleasing and could actually be a bit more. Probably could control it with a little less dilute developer mixture. I also tried adding a polarized filter and this did increase the contrast a little. One other note I tried a pyro developer but it was not working at the dilution I was using. A little more tweaking and that will probably work also. I’m sorry I have no way of scanning the prints to show but they do look promising. I will continue to play and tweak but this will work for fun and some interesting looking prints. I love to experiment. Comments?
Next let me say everything I read about what to rate this film at was wrong. First I tried ISO 25. Waaaay over exposed. Beutler was at standard 1:1:8 dilution. Almost black negative. I tried diluting Dev. a bit more. I took 1 liter of the working stock and added another liter of water. Started to get somewhere. I was now able to get a negative that I could recognize, but not there yet. After a few more ISO changes I ended up with ISO 200. Beutler was still the more dilute mix. Negative looked pretty good to my eye. Now to print. Grade 3 paper has a better look than the 2. I contact print on an old Burke and James printer. It has a dimmer switch for the lights and I have turned way down. Time is about 6 sec. at that setting. 2 min. Ansco 130. Although not what you would call Museum quality print, ( like most all of my junk) it looks pretty good. Contrast was well with in range of pleasing and could actually be a bit more. Probably could control it with a little less dilute developer mixture. I also tried adding a polarized filter and this did increase the contrast a little. One other note I tried a pyro developer but it was not working at the dilution I was using. A little more tweaking and that will probably work also. I’m sorry I have no way of scanning the prints to show but they do look promising. I will continue to play and tweak but this will work for fun and some interesting looking prints. I love to experiment. Comments?