Did my first enlarged neg last night

[Akki14]

And it wasn't scary at all. I need to do another negative though because a hair was on the glass of my proofsheet printer (hey, how about some forward planning on my part next time? Hello, you do not have any contact printing frames that hold 4x5inch film :rolleyes: ) And the negative was a bit weak... I'm thinking of exposing the film a bit more, maybe open up the lens a stop (this is for the contact printing part so I'm not losing anything) and see if that helps. Probably choosing one of the thinnest negatives I have wasn't a good start either

I used Diafine since that's not too fussy about timing and temperature and it's a nice standard 3minutes and 3minutes. I guess the low contrast nature of diafine is great for the interpositive but not so great for the actual negative. Maybe I should try rodinal in a tray for doing the next negative.

Oh and I'm using fomapan 100 because it's cheap and cheerful

Edit: I scanned in the cyanotype I did quickly between cloudiness on some kinda old (few months) cyanotyped watercolour paper. Had to bleach it back in tap water to get the white border so it's not the best cyano ever anyway. Definately needs higher contrast, going to try Rodinal tonight after I clean my proofer)

[davido]

Hey, good one for your first time. It great to see others still making enlarged negs with film. I can't supply much advice in regards to your technique (I use lith film with HC-110) but 3 minutes sounds very short (is diafine paper developer?)
The nice thing with Lith film is you can go quite large. However, the stuff is kinda fussy to work with.
david

[Akki14]

Ah I should have been more specific for people unfamiliar with diafine. It's 3minutes in Solution A then 3 minutes in Solution B. As I understand, Solution A just sort of soaks into the film, then Solution B is like a catalyst that reacts with solution A to do the developing. It only develops "to completion" so you can't overdevelop with it, just overexpose. Thought it was a good choice to start off with because it's somewhat dummyproof as far as temperture and timing is concerned.
Fomapan is panchromatic so I get to fumble around in 100% darkness.. but 50sheets of 4x5 for 17ukp is cheaper than lith and I'm used to developing fomapan in diafine. I was getting much higher contrast results with fomapan 120 film in camera so I kind of think I was just being conservative in my exposure (f/16, 2seconds, tho I have digital timer, I was doing tests in 0.5second increments)

[David A. Goldfarb]

Sounds like you're on the right track. I think the key thing you've figured out is that if you want a high contrast neg for cyanotype, maybe Diafine is not the best choice. You want something that will give you a higher contrast neg if you leave it in the developer longer. If you have Rodinal, that's one possibility. A print developer will likely give you even more contrast.

You should probably start with a normal contrast original negative until you've got a handle on the process. If the original neg is thin, you might just not get anything of interest. Even if the enlarged neg has enough contrast for cyanotype, the detail may just not be there.

[Akki14]

Print Developer with panchromatic film? I've heard of using print developer with lith film and occasionally the use of it for a more grainy/charcoal effect on films like tri-x... Didn't realise it would produce higher contrast too. I still think I was just underexposing too much, and not accounting for reciprocity error at all (which, now reading the info sheet is x2 time lengthening and -1 aperture for 1 second) because I was getting pretty decent negs for cyanotype in diafine in 120 format with fomapan100. Oh.. wait... No I think I was using Fomapan400. Maybe that's the difference.
I'll probably try out 1+50 Rodinal for 7 minutes... just guessing based on fomapan100 times given on massive dev chart (though they mention 3 1/2 minutes for 1+25! eesh, too quick)

[roy]

With the few enlarged negatives I have made I have used paper developer.
At a workshop I attended, we used Ilford Multigrade and I have also used Bromophen, the powder version of PQ Universal.

[Akki14]

With the few enlarged negatives I have made I have used paper developer.
At a workshop I attended, we used Ilford Multigrade and I have also used Bromophen, the powder version of PQ Universal.

Do you use use it at paper developer dilution (1+9)? How long? Was it with panchromatic or lith film? Sorry for the questions but I've not found much information out there to give me a starting point

[roy]

Heather, my favourite film for this is Bergger Ortho film as it can be used with a red safelight, making life a bit easier ! The link is as follows:-
http://www.linhofstudio.com/products...ms/BPFB-18.pdf
I used to use it like a piece of enlarging paper, making test strips etc to get the exposures I wanted. Ilford used to make an Ortho film but have not done so for quite a while now.

[Akki14]

I think my new interpositives came out better. I have to do quite a bit of time(3-4 seconds)... is there reciprocity error when doing enlarged negatives? I'm not doing a meter reading, I'm just going by what's on the film test "strips"/sheets so I assume not really...
Still using Diafine and fomapan 100 for the interpositives. I'll try rodinal for the negatives when I do them tonight.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Reciprocity law failure is a characteristic of the film, no matter how it is exposed, so yes, there should be some RLF with Fomapan 100 in exposures more than 1 sec.