Direct Positive Paper
Recently Ilford re-introduced its direct positive paper offerings. After some difficulties in its Swiss plant they apparently recreated the formula and re-started production in Mobberley England. It is available in 4x5 through to 16x20 sizes on doubleweight FB paper. Imago also makes a similar product in RC base. It is considerably more expense it seems at 100 euros vs 75 euros for 25 sheets of 8x10 at the Macodirect website.
I bought a box of 8x10 paper from Silverprint ad it arrived yesterday. I cut and trimmed the paper to fit my much underused 4x5 MPP view camera. This I did under my normal red safelight. It isn't too easy as 4x5 film is slightly smaller than 4"x5", the paper is thicker, and has a distinct curl that interferes with the dark slide. This was especially true when I tried putting the dark slide back after my first exposure. It meant I had to take the camera back to my darkroom and remove it under a safelight.
I took a single scene in my living room which metered at 60s at ISO 3 and f16 (the lowest my meter will go) Ilford recommends between 1 and 3 ISO so I exposed half a sheet at 60s and the second half at another 60s. I then developed using Moersch Eco 4812, followed by normal stop and a long session in fixer as Ilford recommends 1+4 fixed dilution and my paper fix is 1+9.
The first thing I noticed about the paper was the trimmings turned bright pink (almost florescent) under normal lighting. Photograms might be interesting. The paper developed in normal time in of 2 minutes and while fixing with the lights on that disturbing pink color was all over the highlights. It was unexpected and garish so I gave it lots of time in the fixer but this did nothing to reduce the pink color. I washed the print thoroughly with no change. It was getting late so I dried the print in the microwave and all the pink color went away. Despite the warnings that the paper is high contrast it wasn't unpleasantly so. Note the reversal of the image especially the text. This is an iPad photo of the print and is warmer than the actual print.
I bought a box of 8x10 paper from Silverprint ad it arrived yesterday. I cut and trimmed the paper to fit my much underused 4x5 MPP view camera. This I did under my normal red safelight. It isn't too easy as 4x5 film is slightly smaller than 4"x5", the paper is thicker, and has a distinct curl that interferes with the dark slide. This was especially true when I tried putting the dark slide back after my first exposure. It meant I had to take the camera back to my darkroom and remove it under a safelight.
I took a single scene in my living room which metered at 60s at ISO 3 and f16 (the lowest my meter will go) Ilford recommends between 1 and 3 ISO so I exposed half a sheet at 60s and the second half at another 60s. I then developed using Moersch Eco 4812, followed by normal stop and a long session in fixer as Ilford recommends 1+4 fixed dilution and my paper fix is 1+9.
The first thing I noticed about the paper was the trimmings turned bright pink (almost florescent) under normal lighting. Photograms might be interesting. The paper developed in normal time in of 2 minutes and while fixing with the lights on that disturbing pink color was all over the highlights. It was unexpected and garish so I gave it lots of time in the fixer but this did nothing to reduce the pink color. I washed the print thoroughly with no change. It was getting late so I dried the print in the microwave and all the pink color went away. Despite the warnings that the paper is high contrast it wasn't unpleasantly so. Note the reversal of the image especially the text. This is an iPad photo of the print and is warmer than the actual print.
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| Ilford Direct Positive Paper (iPad photo of print) Left side 120" f16 Right side 60" f16 |
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