Paper brands

[theworldasyousleep]

I'm hunting around Amazon for photo paper- any major difference between Ilford and arista or ultrafine? Other than price point. I'm shooting mainly long exposure, late night images so loads of shadows and dark tones with bright highlights from lights/light trails.

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[webestang64]

I'm strictly a Ilford paper guy. I've heard that the Arista is a bit thinner and that the paper surface can separate from the base if washed to long but I do not know if that is fact.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Arista seems to always have be student level products for schools, etc. I think Ultrafine is along the same lines. You might get what you pay for.

I've gotten Ilford sample packs to try out different papers, then ordered what I liked. I love Ilford papers for digital prints as well as their papers for wet prints done in chemistry from film negs.

 

[CarlH]

If your just starting out then the cheapest you can find until you get the hang of working in the darkroom, then as suggested get some sample packs and see which suits your style of photography.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

I started on a pack of arista for cost reasons and VERY quickly moved to the ilford paper and have been able to get really great results every time. If you get the satin ilford paper its only 2$ (from BH) more a package and well worth that price difference.

FWIW I have found that other parts of the process have had a much bigger impact than the paper. Given a sheet of arista stain and a sheet of ilford satin I can get a solid image out of both by controlling all the other parts. Variable contrast paper with a decent set of filters or a good VCCE head in my case has given me great control. Ilford multigrade has been my go-to and messing with dev times, lens aperture and exposure times has yielded very presentable products.