This didn't start out as a comparison but the results of my first print I suppose made it inevitable.
I have been taking a lot of 45 photographs in the last few months. Fall and Winter seem to be the times I break out my Intrepid 4x5 and spend mornings in the local woodlands. This has left me with an itch to get back in the 'The Beast' and print some images. The Beast is my ancient Durst 4x5 enlarger I got for free. In a recent post I made some contact prints of a couple of 4x5 negatives and decided I should make larger prints. I started out with the birch trees I contacted printed earlier. That contact print was done on Ilford MGFB Classic matte paper.
Adox MCC 110 Paper
I was going to cut down some 16x20" MGFB paper into 8x10 sheets but I found some Adox MCC 110 glossy FB paper so my laziness moved me to use this paper. I bought some of this paper a couple of years ago based on someone online exclaiming its deep blacks etc. The paper is good but not quite what I was sued to with Ilford. In any case I proceeded to explore what the print should look like.
I measured the light under the lens with the negative removed and adjusted the aperture until I got an Ev near 6 (6.1 actually) which I know gets me close enough to get a decent test strip. I then made a test strip (print actually) with soft filter right to left and hard filter bottom to top.
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| Adox MC 110 Test print with soft filter right to left and hard filter bottom to top. |
I went through a bit of paper after this to try and get the contrast to match my contact print. I got close with this basic print...
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Adox MCC 110
(#00 8 sec, #5 32 sec) |
This still seemed dark and not enough contrast as the whites are still a bit gray. I finished with the following print...
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Adox MCC 100
(#0 4 sec, #5 27 sec, #00 22 sec burn corners) |
This got me my best print but I still was not happy. This in turn led me to think I should try the Ilford MGFB paper.
Ilford MGFB Paper
I cut down a couple of 16x20" sheets into 8x10" sheets for the next phase. Again I made a test print in the same manner as the Adox paper.
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| Ilford MGFB Classic Test print with soft filter right to left and hard filter bottom to top. |
From this I determined the Ilford paper is a little faster by perhaps a half a stop or a little more. I stopped the lens down to f32 to get more it more in the range of the paper. The first print I then made was based on the #00 8 second #5 22 second version from above but doubling the times to account for the added stop from f22 to f32.
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| Ilford MGFB Classic; f32, #00 16 seconds, #5 45 seconds |
This was close but a little too much hard filter and it needed some burn as before in the corners.
<<second image>>
f32 #00 16 seconds, #5 38 seconds, #00 burn corners 32 seconds
Comparison Adox MCC 110 and Ilford MGFB Classic
In the end though this is not a completely objective comparison I can make a few comments. The Adox paper I have is in gloss and the Ilford is matte finish. This means the comparisons are not apple and apple however glossy tends to be thought of as having higher contrast which is my first complaint about the Adox paper.
I find it easier to achieve a clean white color on the the Ilford paper and the Adox always appear dull even with just 4 seconds #00 filter. This is not apparent in the scans I posted here as my convention is to set the white point of the scans to the white border as that equalizes the scans and represents what the eye sees. It seems the high contrast #5 filter response of the Adox paper is not as sharp (less steep density/exposure curve) compared to the Ilford paper.
One thing I am losing patience with is my tendency to try out so many different things. There is a lot of power in reducing the different materials you use and trying to improve using those. I don't really need to play with so many different black and white films. I don't need so many papers in the dark room either. I can say that in general I prefer matte/pearl finish papers over gloss. Increasingly I think my paper will boil down to some 8x10 RC for basic experiments, Ilford MGFB and Ilford MG Art 300 for finer prints. The MG Art 300 offers a texture not available in other papers. The some papers for Lith work when I up to it.
I am rapidly switching from Ilford FP4+ on large format to HP5+ as the grain is of no consequence on a large negative and the extra speed and flexibility of the film is useful.
I note that Alex Burke has standardized on one film type Kodak Portra 160 for his large format work. It save weight in his backpack and simplifies choices. I would follow suit but for the 700 odd sheets of 4x5 colro film I have accumulated. My choice would likely be Kodak Portra 400 for negatives and Fuji Provia for the chromes.
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