Yet more Soviet paper to try on the heels of some success. This was a pack of 13x18cm RC paper. Referred to a No-2 on the label. An opened pack pack of paper from the 1980s. No watermark on the back as I have seen with other Soviet paper. I suppose in a communist system there is no need for branding. I normally have some trepidation about old paper being fogged or in other ways unusable. I have had some good luck which I suppose encourages me. This time I was bound for disappointment.
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| Package the paper came in. |
With safelight on in my darkroom, I opened the seal on the package and slid out the black envelop from inside and opened the flap. Inside was a tight stack of single weight paper and on top in the center was a smaller stack of say a half dozen smaller rectangle of paper. I took one out to cut into test strips. I developed straight away without exposure and if showed a light gray color so there was to be some fogging in the batch. No sign of a light leak though.
Next I made test strip.
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| Test strip at f8 |
This indicated 64 seconds was a good start. I took a full size sheet from the bottom of the pack and made the exposure and developed it.
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| First exposure--Light leak! |
This was a surprise. A light leak was not expected as the package was unopened. Since the this was form the bottom of the pack and the test strips came from the top of the pack I surmised the leak might only effect the bottom papers. So I selected another full sized piece from the top and exposed it the same way and developed it.
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| F8 64 seconds top of the stack |
Much better. The edges look burned probably due to the light leak around the edges. Inspecting the envelopes shows nothing obvious. I surmise that the package was perhaps exposed to bright light for a long period of time on one end and was not 100% light tight. I tried a half a stop longer (90 seconds) to see if I can bring up more detail.
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| F8 90 seconds top of the stack |
This appears marginally better. I don't like low contrast paper however. Disappointing.Finally I toned the final print with selenium toner.This gives a cooler purplish cast.
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| Same photo tinted with Selenium 1+19 for 20 seconds |
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