Kentmere VC Select Paper Need Help

[mryoda]

OK, the magenta is there for you to increase contrast. The yellow is there to decrease it.

It still seems like your negative is very thin, meaning the developed silver is not of adequate thickness to stop too much of the enlarger light reaching the paper surface. That's what is causing your excessively short printing times most likely. So what I would suggest is to photograph the film by setting the ISO dial to 50. This will give you better shadow detail, and then develop normally for a more dense negative, which will give you longer printing times.

Once you have that figured out, print your negatives again. If the contrast is too low (like in your above post), just increase the magenta until the contrast is right. If the contrast is too high, you dial the magenta to 0 and start adding yellow.

Hope this makes sense.

- Thomas

PS. Make sure that ALL of your film processing liquids, including the washing water at the end, is at 20*C. Developer should be bang on 20*C, and the other liquids could be +/- a degree or two without ill effect. The reason I'm saying this is that for being ISO 100 film your print is extremely grainy, which leads me to believe your stop, fix, or wash water may have been much too cold.

Thanks for that Thomas, i will give that a go,
Yes it does make sense, i have another film in the Camera ready to go, so i will use that one

[paul_c5x4]

Any thoughts ?

I use a fair bit of Kentmere paper, and it is indeed quite a bit faster than say MGIV.. A couple of thoughts spring to mind:
See if there are any local apuggers willing to make a print from your neg - This would allow you to see what effect different techniques can have on the final print.

I think the Open Studios season is coming to a close across the country (most areas seem to be June/July), but it might be worth seeing if there are any darkrooms close by where you could pick someone's brains - If you were in this neck of the woods, you'd be welcome to drop by.

[Simon R Galley]

Dear Paul,

Good idea.....

If Mr.Yoda would send me the neg I would happily print it for him.......Simon.

Simon ILFORD Photo / Harman technology Limited :

[mryoda]

Thanks for that Paul, i will have a google to see what i can find.
Trouble is Taunton is not in the best location for population masses lol
So it may be hard to find someone willing that has there own darkroom.

Simon, PM me you address and i will definatly send you the negative
You can then also give your thoughts on how thin is it ?
Thanks a lot

[mryoda]

OK Guys well i tried a different method to developing the film
R09 (rodinal)
9 mins, 7 vigorous turns to start
and 5 Vigorous turns every 30 seconds

Continous vigorous turns for a min in the Stop
and 5 Vigorous turns for 2 mins in the fixer every 30 secs,
5 min wash

They are still poor prints
I am still getting dark foreground subjects or blown background
I have been able to drop the lens to F11 to achieve the same results as before.
All temperatures were 20c, even the wash.

Here is a scan on the Neg and if it matters, Its bulk loaded Kentmere


Kentmere 100

[Steve Smith]

If you were in this neck of the woods, you'd be welcome to drop by.

Where is Ye Olde England?


Steve.

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Those negatives seem pretty dark, so density is definitely not an issue.
How do these compare to the old ones you were printing?

If your other negs are this dense, or almost this dense, you must have an incredibly powerful light source in your enlarger to get printing times in single seconds at f/16.

Do you know how powerful your enlarger light source is?

[mryoda]

I assume that its a standard bulb for the Enlarger
Its a durst M370 Colour and now i am going to take it apart and see lol
will report back....

[mryoda]

OK stripped and its a
12v 100w Halogen

[Thomas Bertilsson]

OK stripped and its a
12v 100w Halogen

That's about equivalent to a 150W incandescent light bulb in luminance, which is about normal.

So, we have negatives of normal density and contrast, and an enlarger with normal light source.
It's probably such that your developing times are what they are, and you have to live with it.

What's different between Ilford and Kentmere is that Kentmere is about 2-2.5X faster.

Regarding the poor contrast:
1. I'm starting to wonder if it's a safelight problem, where the Kentmere would react quicker to safelight issues than the Ilford would (because it's twice or more sensitive).
Have you tried just taking a single sheet of paper out of the box, holding it in the safelight illumination (for as long as you normally handle it when printing), with a coin or something like that on it to stop the light in a small area, and then develop it without exposing it in the enlarger? That would be a simple test to do to see if your safelight is safe for the Kentmere paper.
2. Is the paper developer at full strength?