Zone 0 paper black times - way short, thoughts?

Hallo,
Just run a zone 0 paper black test and am rather surprised at the times I am coming up with!
Using a blank piece of HP5 processed at box time for 400 iso stock solution, printing on Ilford multigrade fibre based processed in multigrade dev 1:9 at 20C I had to get down to starting the test strip from 2.67 sec. This was for 6x6 printing "full frame" at 7.5cm x 7.5cm on 10x8 paper, closed down 3 stops on a condenser enlarger.
On first cursory inspection the test strip shows the strip about 1/2 stop down from 2.67sec to be the first of the deep deep blacks. This time seems really short!
I am sort of ok with this, as I have some ND gel on order to slow the times down, but any thoughts or comparisons to your experiences with zone 0 paper black? Can't really see what I have done wrong except having a stupidly bright enlarger for 6x6!!
Sim2.

Raise the enlarger to cover the 8x10 with the neg carrier in it, and then make a test print. A 3x3 in print from 120 film is not much enlargement so there's a lot of light being focused on the paper. With the enlarger up higher, you'll get longer exposure times.

What kind of paper, and what kind of enlarger. Which lamp? Are you using any filters with a variable contrast paper? I know sometimes I can get really short printing times with some papers under my Chromega II lamp house. That thing is really bright, but it was designed for printing color negatives which can be pretty dense, and onto color papers which likely were a lot slower than they are today. Modern variable contrast papers can be pretty fast, I imagine because they are designed to be used with filtration. If this is an old enlarger, it might have been designed with much slower paper in mind.

YOU may also need to change to a lower wattage light in the lamphouse.

fschifano said:

If this is an old enlarger, it might have been designed with much slower paper in mind.

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It is a way old enlarger, well not ancient in the grand scheme of things but around 30 years old. Condenser enlarger, 6x6 max neg size, no height adjustment of condensers. It's an Omega enlarger with 75w bulb as specified.

As originally stated, printing on Multigrade fibre base paper - matt with grade 2 filter.
Not printing at 3x3 but 7.5x7.5 on 10x8 paper - my standard enlargement size at the moment.
Sim2.

Maybe an oops, but the 7.5cm x 7.5cm as in your first post is 3x3 inches.

Sim2 said:

Not printing at 3x3 but 7.5x7.5 on 10x8 paper - my standard enlargement size at the moment.

Click to expand...

That's not much enlargement... Tiny "enlargements" alway expose with much less time than larger enlargements. Make a full frame print on 16x20 inch paper and see if your times are too fast... You'll be glad you have so much light.

(It looks like I forgot to type a period after "3x3 in" so that it read "3x3 in.").

why would you only stop down "3 steps"? that's most likely f11, if the max aperture is f4. sweet spot of the lens and such is all well, but i think in this case you should go down to f22. 2.5 seconds really doesn't give you enough room.

or - if you are doing proof prints here - just make contact prints. in this case you can put the light source of the enlarger further away from the paper. or you could use some neutral density filters.

another suggestion would be a neutral density filter. which model enlarger is it? i'd love to have your problem. i'm using ilford fbmg with dektol 1:3 with a vivitar e-34 ( uses a 75w sylvania 211 ) and it takes me about 80 secs to reach black. the enlarger lens is set at f8 ( componon-s 80mm ). i'm printing 6.5x6.5cm... how could similar(?) setups produce vastly different results? is it the combination of ilford products?

Assuming you've done everything correctly, the timing is probably fairly accurate (as other contributors have stated at such a small enlargement the concentration of light will be high).
However, adopting short exposures may lead to problems. For instance, how accurate is your timer within this range? If you want to adjust the main exposure for a print, how accurately can you do it when a large proportion of your test exposure will be taken up with the bulb 'warming up'? Or, to put it another way, the potential for percentage errors increases dramatically with shorter exposures.

As you suggested : I'd use ND Filters to extend the exposure or, alternatively, fit a lower wattage bulb, in order to bring your exposure into a more manageable range.

Regards
Jerry

Thanks for the inputs -
I actually do not want to print on times this fast!
It is waaaay tooo short for consistency i.e. bulb warm up time, voltage fluctuation etc, on such short times a minor variation does take up too much of the overall time percentage wise. That is why I stated and have received today a sheet of ND gel This will be experimented with to increase the times to something more sensible.

I need to have slower times for the consistency and to allow time for any dodging to take place.

I can see the advantage of this set-up for doing 20x16 prints but that is not on my agenda right now. Most of my stuff is printed 7.5"x7.5" so that degree of enlargement is my "base-point" to work from.

I have some Dektol, so it will be interesting to see if my times slow up any with this developer as opposed to standard Ilford MG dev.

Rather reasssured actually that the consensus of opinion is with me, in that, whatever the reason this time is stupidly short!

Sim2.

Is it 7.5x7.5 inches, or centimeters as you stated above in your first post?

Regardless, a ND filter should work just fine here.

Sim2 said:

Hallo,
"full frame" at 7.5cm x 7.5cm on 10x8 paper, closed down 3 stops on a condenser enlarger.
Sim2.

Click to expand...

Oh, that is sooo bad *hangs head in shame* :rolleyes: totally embarrased now......
Thanks for making me reread my original post - so so wrong.
Not printing at 7.5cmx7.5cm but printing at 7.5"x7.5" (inches) on 10"x8" paper. So sorry for the confusion.
Having a bit of a giggle now about trying to print at 7.5cm, the comment about doing a contact print makes some sense to me now!!!!

Note to self: proofread before posting.
*runs off to hide*

so did the dektol slow your times down?

el wacho said:

so did the dektol slow your times down?

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Hallo,
Haven't tried with Dektol yet, scheduled for some printing at the weekend.
But have recieved the ND gel, so will be trying printing with this first as a direct comparison to my existing test - once that is done it will be repeated with the Dektol to see any difference with changing just the developer. Watch this space!
Sim2.