Gast
Dear Forum,
There are so many different films, photographic papers and chemicals from various brands, both cheap and expensive, so I’m wondering whether they’re all of equal quality, or whether some are generally so poor that you’d advise against them?
As I’m just starting out with black-and-white development, I don’t want to lose my enthusiasm for it straight away because I’ve cut corners in the wrong places.
It’s enough for me to know what I should steer clear of, or what’s good and sold at reasonable prices.
Kind regards,
Julius
Gast
Hi Julius,
These days, I can’t really think of any materials that are so bad that I’d advise against them. It’s more a case of materials that are too specialised.
So: to start with, go for an RC Variokontrast paper, neutral or cool-toned. Fomaspeed, Forte/Classic Polykalt, Tetenal (I can’t remember the name anymore, since Works is now only available in fixed gradation). Kodak Polymax, while it’s still available.
To start with, steer clear of baryta, fixed gradients, etc. Or that extra-thin document paper from Foma.
Ditto for developers: (cool-neutral-warm) Eukobrom, Moersch Warm, and whatever else they’re called. No special super-warm-tone developers, no glycine developers, or anything else.
And another thing: steer clear of “attic finds – 50 boxes of some old photographic paper from my grandad, cheap because it’s past its sell-by date, so ideal for experimenting”.
You never know whether you’re messing up yourself, or whether the stuff’s just gone off.
Regards
Martin
skahde
For films such as the one I recommend, expose them at half the rated speed and develop them for 20% less time than the manufacturer specifies. The result is better shadow detail, greater flexibility in processing, and a negative that is generally easier to enlarge and produces better results. To start with, I would also not recommend films with modern emulsion technology such as TMAX 100/400, as these require very precise processing.
When it comes to developers, it is better not to choose specialist products, however highly praised they may be. Their advantages are particularly noticeable once you have the processes under control, and I would not assume that is the case at the beginning. The ‘wrong’ developer, applied correctly to a film, will in any case deliver a better result than the optimal developer for the film and application if the development time, temperature, agitation or dilution is incorrect. It’s better to start by learning with forgiving and versatile standard films and then choose your own options based on your own requirements and techniques.
Good luck!
Stefan
MirkoBoeddecker
And because you can’t say it often enough: make sure you use the right darkroom light!
You wouldn’t believe how many beginners complain that their multigrade paper produces (in their own words) “no contrast” because they’ve processed it under Grandad’s old yellow-green Duka lamp (“but it’s a photographic paper lamp, it says so on the label”).
Good luck!
Mirko
mau
You have to hand it to FOTOIMPEX – they’ve sorted out the asterisks in the catalogue very neatly.
As for the Duka, I can only echo what Mirko said. Use only dark red light for processing positives. It’s not called a darkroom for nothing.
