A few basic printing questions

[Doremus Scudder]

Bite the bullet and get yourself a longer enlarging lens. Should be cheap enough on eBay these days. Go ahead and go for 100mm if you ever plan on doing 6x9.

BTW, moving the easel should not really cause this kind of vignetting. Sure, you could overrun the image and get the edges of the negative carrier blocking a side of the print, but that would be a straight edge; corners being clipped looks a lot more like inadequate lens coverage to me.

Best,

Doremus

[cantore]

The 100mm sounds like a good choice for me since a have a bunch of old 6x9 negatives that i never printed.

[Bob Carnie]

Actually moving the easel would cause this. plus a bit of inadequate lens coverage. Have to disagree but it really is a basic error a lot of technicans make. the OP is probably enlarging the image and then moving the easel off the center axis.. just my 2 cents though.

Bite the bullet and get yourself a longer enlarging lens. Should be cheap enough on eBay these days. Go ahead and go for 100mm if you ever plan on doing 6x9.

BTW, moving the easel should not really cause this kind of vignetting. Sure, you could overrun the image and get the edges of the negative carrier blocking a side of the print, but that would be a straight edge; corners being clipped looks a lot more like inadequate lens coverage to me.

Best,

Doremus

[Bill Burk]

Hi cantore,

Since you disassembled, and reassembled, this thread may interest you (just in case you got it back together wrong)...

http://www.apug.org/forums/viewpost.php?p=1213425

Don't beat yourself up. Same exact thing happened to me a couple days ago.

[cantore]

Thanks for the link Bill.. I appreciate it.

[Doremus Scudder]

Bob,

My thinking is simply this:

If the negative is in a carrier, and the light source is adjusted so that the entire negative is evenly illuminated, and the lens has adequate coverage for that size negative, then moving the easel will not result in vignetting, rather the straight edge of the negative carrier will be "shown" on the paper, including the corners of the negative, since they are all within the cone of view for the lens. Only if the lens coverage or the circle of illumination are inadequate will the corners be vignetted. The OP is using a 4x5 enlarger, so illumination coverage is not his problem. Therefore, if he has vignetting, his enlarging lens is not seeing the corners of his negative as far as I can tell.

I can certainly move my easel off to one side and still print the corners of my negatives, even if they end up in the middle of the paper! For that matter, one should be able to use a smaller amount of enlargement and print all four edges of the negative carrier on the printing paper without vignetting at the corners. Sometimes I intentionally do this so I can trim the print exactly to the outside of the image area easily. I'm enlarging 4x5 with 150mm lenses and never have clipped corners.

Best,

Doremus

[Bob Carnie]

Doremus

You are assuming he/she is printing full frame, I am assuming he/she have magnified the negative and is printing a section of the negative by moving the easal off axis to accommodate the crop... give it a try , you sill see falloff .. notice most of the falloff is on one side of the image, if it was a lens falloff it would be even minus density on all four edges.
I would be interested in hearing from the OP whether this is full frame or a crop?


Bob

Bob,

My thinking is simply this:

If the negative is in a carrier, and the light source is adjusted so that the entire negative is evenly illuminated, and the lens has adequate coverage for that size negative, then moving the easel will not result in vignetting, rather the straight edge of the negative carrier will be "shown" on the paper, including the corners of the negative, since they are all within the cone of view for the lens. Only if the lens coverage or the circle of illumination are inadequate will the corners be vignetted. The OP is using a 4x5 enlarger, so illumination coverage is not his problem. Therefore, if he has vignetting, his enlarging lens is not seeing the corners of his negative as far as I can tell.

I can certainly move my easel off to one side and still print the corners of my negatives, even if they end up in the middle of the paper! For that matter, one should be able to use a smaller amount of enlargement and print all four edges of the negative carrier on the printing paper without vignetting at the corners. Sometimes I intentionally do this so I can trim the print exactly to the outside of the image area easily. I'm enlarging 4x5 with 150mm lenses and never have clipped corners.

Best,

Doremus

[tkamiya]

Bob?

In your own practice, if you have to crop, do you move the film so that your easel is always located at the dead center of the optical axis of the lens?? I move the easel myself....

[Bob Carnie]

I use glass carriers I over 10 of them, and I have dedicated full frame indicators on the back side of each one for each format. This allows me to always know where the dead center location is. And yes I always move the negative into position rather than move the easal.... this is what I am trying to point out to the OP and of course Doremus.
On one of my threads I have alluded to this practice, learned after years of making mistakes....
Moving the easel for crop is a very bad practice... a hair ok but the sweet spot is the sweet spot , no sense arguing this from my point of view... others may like burning in edges and having soft areas, I prefer even light and sharp corners.

Bob?

In your own practice, if you have to crop, do you move the film so that your easel is always located at the dead center of the optical axis of the lens?? I move the easel myself....

[cantore]

Bob.. magnified the negative and is printing a section of the negative by moving the easel off axis to accommodate the crop.. This is exactly what i did. Im going to center the easel and print the full negative and post it here.