Contact copying

Atairmifu · 2007-07-12T12:30:45+00:00

Hallo alle miteinander, ich hab mal eine Frage zum Kontakten. Die einfache Form ist ja: Papier + Negativstreifen + Glasplatte. Wie sieht's aber mit dem Gl...

Atairmifu

Hello everyone, I’ve got a question about contact printing. The basic setup is: paper + negative strip + glass plate. But what about the glass? Window glass isn’t always particularly streak-free – does that make a difference, or is it negligible? Another option would be a plate from a picture frame, but those are treated (anti-reflective, etc.). What other options are there – without a contact frame? Many thanks for your replies! Have a lovely day Micha F.

piu58

Hello everyone, I’ve got a question about contact printing. The basic setup is: paper + negative strip + glass plate. But what about the glass? Window glass isn’t always particularly streak-free – does that make a difference, or is it negligible? Another option would be a plate from a picture frame, but those are treated (anti-reflective, etc.). What other options are there – without a contact frame? Many thanks for your replies! Have a lovely day Micha F.

Both window glass and picture frame glass are suitable – to a certain extent. I’ve used both for a while. It’s not the irregularities in the glass that are the problem, but the fact that the panes are so thin. The films aren’t held properly flat and in contact with the paper. Of course, you can press the glass down with both hands, but how do you then switch the enlarger on and off? Thick glass panes are, of course, incredibly expensive. Luckily, one came my way.

cfb_de

Hi there, You can get 5mm-thick glass shelves in all sorts of sizes at Ikea, and they’re really affordable :-) Best regards, Franz

TA

Hi Micha_F, A while back, Aldi had a really good and affordable solution. It was called a ‘plant roller’ and consists of a sheet of safety glass about 1 cm thick, measuring roughly 35 x 35 cm – so it’s really heavy B) . Four ‘feet’ are stuck to one side, into which you’re supposed to screw the supplied castors – which, of course, I didn’t do. These feet can’t be removed, but they don’t get in the way either, as they’re spaced far enough apart to easily provide exposure for a 24x30 sheet; they simply stick up and work quite well as a ‘handle’. The glass is perfectly flat, has no streaks whatsoever and is relatively shatterproof, as it’s actually designed for heavy plant pots. Oh yes, there were two versions, one in frosted glass and one in clear glass. For contact printing, it makes sense to choose the clear version :unsure: . You can certainly get one of these at a DIY store or, less frequently, at discount stores, for a hefty 4.59

Atairmifu

Hello everyone, and thank you very much for your suggestions!! Micha F

Wolfgg

One more tip for anyone planning to make colour contact prints (RA4): not all glass is colour-neutral. If you look at the glass from the edge, most of it has a distinct green tinge. All such ‘coloured’ types of glass are unsuitable for colour contact printing, because the green-tinted glass, for example, shifts the colour tone of the contact copying slightly towards purple compared to an enlargement with the same colour head setting (as the light does not pass through the glass plate in that case). This would result in an annoying colour shift between the contact copying and the enlargement. So here, the glass plate must absolutely look white when viewed through the edge. Regards, Wolfgang