I have finally
got down to some Ciba colour printing, but only one session. Since
losing my darkroom on moving to Dorset, I am restricted to winter
nights. I made up a litre of each solution from a nine years old
Cibachrome kit and used some recently purchased Ilfochrome Classic
(formerly Cibachrome) 10" x 8" paper.
In complete
darkness I first cut one sheet into halves and the other into four
5" x 4" sheets. with a print trimmer. Using the suggested
filtration on the packet (Y25 M35 C0) with a stepped exposure resulted
in a very red print.
I next
applied three stages of corrective filtration, removing Y and M but the
print was still pink. On a piece of 8" x 5" I then placed
eight slides and filtered out more red/pink cast but the resulting print
was still pinkish. By the time it was past 11pm and there was clearing
up to do, so I decided to call it a day. I wouldn`t think that the kit
had gone off as it has been well stored and looked like brand new, and
its all clear liquid except for one part of the
Bleach, which is a powder.
I was hoping to
have another session before writing this but my evenings have been very
busy lately. When I do have another go I intend using a Simma colour
Filtration Calculator. This is a 5" x 4" piece of plastic,
about ½" thick with a lot of small coloured filters in circular
holes. A slide is positioned in the enlarger and this item is placed on
a piece of printing paper. A diffuser beneath the lens scrambles the
light, and after processing ,the print is a mass of small coloured
blobs, and only one should be a neutral grey. A chart indicates which
filter produced the neutral grey and this should be the correct
filtration, but only if it was from an average slide with a fair range
of colours. I am so rusty on colour printing I need to get back to an
item of equipment *( used when I first started.
BLACK
& WHITE ENLARGING
At Area 22`s
recent A.G.M. Reg Ricketts was showing us some black & white prints
processed in PyroMetol developer, that`s Pyrogallol and Metol. This
developer has an unusual property. When used with a high speed film it
fills in the gaps between
the grains to give an impression of extra fine grain. We were shown
several prints which illustrated this property.
For
Weird effects try Infra – Red
By Roy Salmons (Area 3 Co-ordinator)
There are
currently two brands of Infra-Red black and white film on
the market. One is made by Kodak and the other by Konica.
I don`t have
any experience of the latter so my remarks will have to be taken for the
Kodak material, although the basics would of course be identical. The
first time I used the film was over thirty years ago and the above
picture was taken then. In those days Kodak used to supply the film with
a length of opaque leader film attached so the film could be loaded
quite normally into the camera. Now a days the story is somewhat more
complicated-the opaque leader is no longer attached and for this reason
the film must be loaded into and unloaded from the camera in complete
darkness.
To use
infra-red black and white film to give you the effect as above you must
expose the film through a filter. You have a choice - it can be a proper
infrared filter, or if you only want to try the film once then a deep
red filter would be useful in other applications. The advantage of the
infrared filter is that the effect is rather more
pronounced, but the disadvantage is that it is visually opaque!
You therefore have to compose and focus and set the exposure before
putting the filter on the camera. This makes the use of a
tripod absolutely essential.
Bracketing for
exposure is strongly recommended on the first trial - Memory can let you
down. You can use your favourite brews for developing the negative and
printing can be carried out on any paper you happen to have around.
Expect to pay
around £8 - £9 for a 36
exposure cassette of the Kodak Professional Infrared film 2481 and about
£7 for a 24 exposure cassette of the Konica. The Konica is also
available in the 120 roll film size at approximately £9 per roll.
Kodak also do a
colour slide infrared film - but that is another story.