Need paper advice

[pyusmc66]

I started B&W printing in the early 70's, but have been out of it for the last 10 years. Finishing up my darkroom in the current home, and will be using my old 23C with cold light head. I am noticing that graded paper is becoming more scarce and may not be available forever.
My question is can I us the VC papers with my contrast filters without buying an expensive Beseler 23C VC head? I'm sure that I could experiment and figure it out eventually, but would appreciate some advice from more up to date folks.
I'm new here and look forward to visiting here often to get back up to speed.
Regards
Phil

 

[Ysarex]

Yes you can use filters with with VC paper and your cold light head, BUT, those filters and papers assume a tungsten light source rather than the fluorescent light in your cold head so you'll have to adapt and learn to calculate a differential as you change papers, but some careful testing up front should take care of that. It is also possible that you won't have access to the full range of contrast the paper is capable of -- depends on your lamp. Here's some data: multigrade. Modern fiber multi (variable) grade papers are excellent and give you the option to burn and dodge through different filters -- a terrific advantage.

Joe