im thinking paper tiger

mysteryscribe · Aug 22, 2006

In the early days to promote photography as a serious art form... Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and a few others formed an exclusive club known as f64 should have been named us 128 but they backout off. They were afraid they would sound like a motorcycle club I guess.

Anyway I'm thinking paper negative shooters should have a club. You know with meetings and parties. Maybe even our on house on campus when we convert enough others. We can maybe even merge with the chess club. Maybe even costumes and a secret handshake would be appropriate. Get ourselves a grand poobah maybe, who knows.

JamesD · Aug 22, 2006

mysteryscribe said:
Get ourselves a grand poobah maybe, who knows.

I nominate Charlie as Grand Poobah. All in favor, say Aye. And, who can make a tiger suit out of paper for him to wear to our meetings?

mysteryscribe · Aug 23, 2006

No thanks of the poobah.....

JoeVanCleave · Aug 26, 2006

I'm new to the forum, but have been lurking for awhile, and also have enjoyed Mysteryscribe's posts over on f295, where I spend a lot of time.

I think the idea of a paper negative group is cool, since I've been shooting mostly paper since the mid-1990's. Pinhole or glass. Actually, glass lenses are fast enough that, with a tripod, paper negatives are useful even for portrait work - although you still have to deal with the flesh tone problem of ortho media.

The thing I immediately noticed about shooting with paper is, aside from the convenience of loading/unloading/processing under redlights, was the lack of dust and scratches when contact printing and scanning. Its just a more foregiving medium than sheet film.

I've also played with enlarging 4x5 pinhole paper negatives to 8x10: the results are remarkably good, warranting more exploration.

~joe

mysteryscribe · Aug 26, 2006

I tell you the truth I don't really like pinhole but I do love paper shot under glass. Frankly paper suits my artist nature (lol). You can never be sure what you will get, but you can usually do something with it.

I have a bunch of home made cameras but I'm looking forward to the one I just finished. I set the back and holders for 3.5 by five or half a sheet of black and white paper. I think it is the size I am going to rely on for paper.

Since I canabalized other cameras I didn't have to buy anything but some liquid nail. Oh it did cost me a couple of layers of skin off my left index finger. Im dangerous with an exacto knife.

Since you have shot so much paper under glass tell me if im right that the paper has a differnt iso rating inside than it does outside.

One more thing since you are new here you can be grand poobah lol

JamesD · Aug 26, 2006

Welcome to the forum, Joe! I look forward to seeing some of your work, particularly pinhole. I'm a member over on f/295, but I haven't frequented much, since I've been doing so little of that type of work.

I'm the resident pinhole freak around here, so far. I positively love the technique. Regrettably, I haven't used it at all lately, and I didn't use it much before. This should be changing in the near future; on my project list (along with calibrating my paper processes, negative and print; building the 4X5 monorail view camera; designing and building a 120 and 4X5-sized enlarger; and a bunch of other stuff) is constructing a regular pinhole camera. In fact, I'm planning to add a pinhole lens to my (very short) lineup of lenses for use with the view camera.

Anyway, it's good to have you, and I look forward to seeing your work!

JoeVanCleave · Aug 29, 2006

mysteryscribe said:
Since you have shot so much paper under glass tell me if im right that the paper has a differnt iso rating inside than it does outside.

Regarding paper's 'iso' rating (actually, it's EI, or Exposure Index; if you see me using that term, just know that I mean ISO): I've only done calibrated testing using daylight lighting.

When I did calibration tests today, using my Polaroid Land 800 and Arista RC grade 2 versus Ilford MG-RC-IV, I derived an EI of 2 for the Arista graded paper; the Ilford appears to be a tad slower, in side-by-side testing, using the same scene, lighting and camera settings.

When I calibrate for film speed, I don't get fancy and use a densitometer (heck, I don't even own one - except my flatbed scanner supposedly will do that). I shoot a daylight lit scene, composed of bright, medium and shaded subjects, at a variety of exposures, then review the resulting negatives. The negative that gives the best spread between blown out hightlights and dense shadows - that is, the one that places the medium tones well centered between the extremes of highlights and shadows - is the right exposure.

I'll then compare the metered light reading taken at that time with the exposure settings used to take that negative, and figure out the EI of the paper by setting my Gossen meter to the appropriate settings and see what EI it reads out.

For the Arista grade 2, I got a speed of 2. That is using daylight as the light source.

The problem with comparing the film speed of paper in daylight vs indoors is that as the color temperature (the color spectrum) of the light changes, it effects the overall sensitivity of the paper to the exposed scene.

I've made shaded daylight exposures, using this same camera, in the shade of my north-facing covered porch. There seems to be little or not reciprocity failure between brightly lit daylight and shaded daylight, using Arista grade 2 and my Polariod Land 800. The exposure times between the two sources of light have varied from 1/12 second to 15 seconds, with apertures varying from f/8.8 to f/35. My meter, and the resulting images, tell me that the paper is fairly linear in this broad light range.

So, any variation there may be between daylight and indoor light is not because of the intensity of light, but rather the color of the light. There's just not much blue/UV given off by incandescent lamps. Even indoor flourescent bulbs aren't supposed to give off UV (unless there's a flaw in the flourescent coating).

Therefore, to shoot indoors, one would have to conduct a seperate set of calibration tests, to be absolutely certain. But, it sounds like you've found a handy way of compensating your exposure. I'll have to do more indoor shooting and see what results I get.

~Joe

JoeVanCleave · Aug 29, 2006

JamesD said:
Anyway, it's good to have you, and I look forward to seeing your work!

I would like to begin posting some images to this forum, but the Moderator has not yet allowed me permission to post attachments. I'm not sure, on this particular forum, what the process is for getting permission to attach or upload images. My images are located on my local harddrive, not on a website.

Except that I've posted lots of images, mainly pinhole, over on f295.com, so you can visit over there and look for my name. At the main front page of f295 I have a gallery of images.

mysteryscribe · Aug 30, 2006

the easy way to post the image for us is to right click on the image at 295 and then the prefernce window to get the url of the image.... when you come her you want to paste that into the drop down window with the icon of the mountains in yellow above this box. that will use the linc to it at 295....

My dad used to talk about dirt the way we are talking about light. Dirt is dirt but some dirt is better than other dirt. For me the iso is what allows me to set a meter up to give me an f/speed setting that is ball park. I develop in a daylight tank so I have have a pretty consistant setting.

I was going to ask you to try something for me. If you double the developer to water rations Ie 1/4 instead of 1/9, and then you raise the temperature to room instead of controlled 68, you should get a huge increase in paper speed. What I don't know is how much the image suffers. I am curious as heck and I only scan, so I lose a huge amount of detail anyway. Give it a try sometime and let me know how much I am losing.

JamesD · Aug 30, 2006

JoeVanCleave said:
I would like to begin posting some images to this forum, but the Moderator has not yet allowed me permission to post attachments. I'm not sure, on this particular forum, what the process is for getting permission to attach or upload images. My images are located on my local harddrive, not on a website.

I believe that attaching images to posts is a feature that comes with a paid subscription to the website. (Terri, correct me if I'm wrong.) A lot of people use free image-hosting services like photobucket.com for making their images available. You might inquire into this. The paid subscription is, I believe US$25 per year.

As for the color temperature effects on a paper negative exposure... I was pretty sure it lay along those lines...

mysteryscribe · Aug 30, 2006

this is frm the studio shot at iso 15 with strobe should have been iso 25

JoeVanCleave · Aug 30, 2006

How about this name: "Group ISO25"? I suppose we'd have to first agree on what the standard Exposure Index of paper normally is - just like Group F64.

Thanks for the tip on linking images from F295.

This image was shot using my Polaroid Land 800, using Arista grade 2. I metered the scene using EI = 2 in incident mode, in bright sunlight

; it recommended EV10, which on the Land camera is f/8.8 @ 1/12 sec. However, due to the high reflectivity of the background stucco wall, reflective metering recommended EV11. I should have gone with EV11, as I had to pull the negative early out of the soup only after 35-40 seconds, due to it getting too dense too fast.

terri · Aug 30, 2006

Hey guys, I'm just now catching up on this thread.

Welcome, Joe! I'm sorry for the confusion about posting the images. Unless you feel like coughing up the bucks to become a subscriber, something like photobucket (or any place like that where hotlinking is allowed) is your best bet. You also get a gallery here with a subscription and can upload directly there, which a lot of people find easier.

/commercial. :razz:

I like the image! I hope to see more posted here, as much as you like. Holler if I can help in any way, ok?

JamesD · Aug 30, 2006

I'd prefer EI 25 over ISO 25. It has more of the same ring that f/64 had. However, I've found that, at least with the paper I've been using, that it's closer to 5 lol.

How do you deal with the deep, deep shadows that appear in paper negatives. The best way I've found is to direct more light into the shadows, but that can be tricky if you're working in direct sunlight. I've had to use large, aluminum-foil covered boards for reflectors, and while it works fairly well, it isn't very portable. I suppose that with exposures of less than a few seconds, a flash might suffice...

Terri, subscribers get a gallery?

terri · Aug 30, 2006

Terri, subscribers get a gallery?

They do indeed, sir! I just checked in there and nope, your name hasn't been added to the user galleries. Chase will be more than happy to do this for you - just shoot him a pm. I use mine all the time, it's a great feature!