high contast film

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Bob - 27 May 2007 17:34 GMT

How Do I achieve very high contrast .. printing I would use Grade 5 paper
( Ilford MG using a grade 5 filter) but to increase the contrast should I
have High contrast film and how do I do it .

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Nicholas O. Lindan - 27 May 2007 18:42 GMT

> How Do I achieve very high contrast .. printing I would use Grade 5 paper
> ( Ilford MG using a grade 5 filter) but to increase the contrast should I
> have High contrast film

Yes

> and how do I do it .

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?cat_id=406&pid=1214

The same stuff is available in many brands in all countries.

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Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Darkroom Automation: F-Stop Timers, Enlarging Meters
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/index.htm
n o lindan at ix dot netcom dot com

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Ken Hart - 27 May 2007 21:49 GMT

>> How Do I achieve very high contrast .. printing I would use Grade 5 paper
>> ( Ilford MG using a grade 5 filter) but to increase the contrast should I
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> The same stuff is available in many brands in all countries.

Years ago, I played with Kodalith (which is probably similar to the Agfa
product in Mr Lindan's link). I used it similarly to regular photo paper.
Processed in Kodalith developer, I got black and white- no grays. Processed
in Dektol, I got high contrast with a few gray tones. I usually printed a
35mm neg to a 4x5 size piece of Kodalith. This gave me a transparent
positive. I contact printed that to another piece of Kodalith for a negative
that I could enlarge.
It was fun stuff to play with, and I got some really interesting results.
One thing you might want to try is to take a positive and a negative, put
them together just over so slightly out of alignment, and print the result.
You get a kind of line-drawing/bas-relief effect.

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Peter - 28 May 2007 21:52 GMT

> >> How Do I achieve very high contrast .. printing I would use Grade 5 paper
> >> ( Ilford MG using a grade 5 filter) but to increase the contrast should I
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> - Show quoted text -

I'm not sure how high "very high" is. If it is extreme, the
suggestion of Kodalith or a similar product is a good suggestion.
There is a range of contrasts available with most film by increasing
the development time (or using a more energetic developer). Typically
this also leads to a more dense negative and the exposure can be
adjusted if needed.

Over expose (relative to some standard) and under develop gives a
lower contrast; under expose and over develop gives a higher contrast.

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Ken Hart - 29 May 2007 04:26 GMT

snip

> I'm not sure how high "very high" is. If it is extreme, the
> suggestion of Kodalith or a similar product is a good suggestion.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> Over expose (relative to some standard) and under develop gives a
> lower contrast; under expose and over develop gives a higher contrast.

Kodalith (and equivalent products from other manufacturers) is designed to
give either black or white (actually clear, since it is a film material).
It's used for making printing plates. In the old days of newspaper printing
(for example), you made up a single copy of the day's newspaper (called a
"paste-up" because the individual stories, design elelments, headlines, etc
were pasted on a newspaper size sheet of paper). The paste-up was
photographed with Kodalith at one-to-one, providing a negative the same size
as the newspaper. That negative was then used to "burn" a printing plate.
The printing plate was placed on the rotary printing press, and the morning
news started coming down!

Kodalith can be "improperly" processed to yield some gray tones. I doubt
that it can be processed to provide a full tonal range image (but I don't
know that for a fact!).

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Peter - 29 May 2007 06:38 GMT

> snip
>
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
> that it can be processed to provide a full tonal range image (but I don't
> know that for a fact!).

Please pardon my less than careful remark. I meant to emphasize that
there are processing choices with whatever film the orignal poster was
using. Mr. Lindan mentioned a process that can produce extreme
contrast; there might be some interest in an intermediate amount of
contrast unless the OP has already explored this (not clear from his
post).

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bob - 30 May 2007 16:31 GMT

I cant get hold of lith film easily here in the UK
but I will experiment with different development times and filters
One interesting thing was I used old film developer and it gave a nice
grainy look on Ilford Delta 400 film

> How Do I achieve very high contrast .. printing I would use Grade 5 paper
> ( Ilford MG using a grade 5 filter) but to increase the contrast should I
> have High contrast film and how do I do it .

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Nicholas O. Lindan - 30 May 2007 18:19 GMT

> I cant get hold of lith film easily here in the UK

Believe it or not, you can get hold of lith film anywhere.

Just don't go the camera store... You need to find
graphic arts, prepress, printing, etc. suppliers.
Go to Kodak, Agfa and Fuji web sites and look for
the graphics division. An email should get you a
list of local suppliers.

If there is a printing shop nearby see if they
have any they are chucking out: most plates are made
directly with a laser imagesetter in these modern times.

Search ebay for "film" in "printing & graphic arts", "office
supplies" or "industrial supplies". There is usually some
one selling imagesetter film or some such.

Signature

Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Darkroom Automation: F-Stop Timers, Enlarging Meters
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/index.htm
n o lindan at ix dot netcom dot com

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