Using darkroom paper instead of film

FishyFish

FishyFish

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I watched this video earlier, and thought others might find it interesting. It's an experiment to see what the results will be from placing darkroom paper in the back of the camera instead of film.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb5tG6kuftc


I've been a subscriber of his Youtube channel since the summer when he did his 30 Days of Knight project (shooting a different camera each day for a month) and enjoy the content a lot. It's down-to-earth, interesting and enjoyable..
 
I was surprised that, having got a reasonable first exposure at f/1.7, he didn't simply work out the difference between f/1.7 and f/7.9 to determine how many flashes...

You can get direct positive paper from Harman that gives you a positive rather than a negative, and a few years ago this was being demonstrated on the Harman stand at Focus by taking portraits of volunteers using the 10x8 paper in a 10x8 camera, then developing the paper in a darkroom on the stand. The result came back after a few minutes - I have a 10x8 print of me in my darkroom.
 
Using paper negatives in large format cameras isn't that unusual; the DDS/film holder will take care of the problem of keeping the material flat and also allow the paper negatives to be loaded in advance before going out in the field.

Paper does have an ISO rating just like film - I remember seeing ISO3 referenced in the technical notes for Ilford RC paper - so you can use this to meter an appropriate exposure.

Here is a link to a gallery of paper negative images by Andrew Sanderson - http://www.andrewsanderson.com/categories.php?category=0
 
Having just read the Ilford pdf regarding this paper, it uses a specific paper developer (multigrade), but other than that the stop and fix are the same products as used for b&w negative film.

I could be tempted to have a play with this in 4x5 assuming of course that it can be developed in a standard patterson tank ( I have the 4x5 insert thingy for heet film)

Just need to find a retailer......
 
FishyFish said:
Some of those shots are beautiful.
Click to expand...

They are, aren't they! But how, in $deity's name do you get a shot of a prancing horse at ISO3??????
 
What's the problem? People managed with Kodachrome at 10 ASA.

The sunny 16 rule indicates that in bright sunlight, you'd need 1/100th at f/2.8 which isn't exactly slow; a faster lens would let you use 1/250th or 1/500th.
 
Quoting a post from the Large Format thread on this topic...

Woodsy said:
http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2015631218381820.pdf
Click to expand...

Just glancing at this again, I was a bit confused by the very last sentence in the box on p10: "Note the ‘mirror’ effect of text that will arise with the paper".

Trying to square this with slide film which is also positive, and seems to give text that is the right way round. I started to think there might be an inversion in the scanning process (I know Vuescan has a button for that), but then a slide has the text correct if you project it. Is that because the slide is turned around to be projected?
 
ChrisR said:
Quoting a post from the Large Format thread on this topic...



Just glancing at this again, I was a bit confused by the very last sentence in the box on p10: "Note the ‘mirror’ effect of text that will arise with the paper".

Trying to square this with slide film which is also positive, and seems to give text that is the right way round. I started to think there might be an inversion in the scanning process (I know Vuescan has a button for that), but then a slide has the text correct if you project it. Is that because the slide is turned around to be projected?
Click to expand...

That's right - with a slide it can be viewed through both sides (i.e. through the 'back' to make everything the right way round) but this paper only works the 'wrong' way.
 
But it does mean that the image appears exactly as the photographer composed it - we do all use waist level finders or view cameras, don't we? :D
 
StephenM said:
But it does mean that the image appears exactly as the photographer composed it - we do all use waist level finders or view cameras, don't we? :D
Click to expand...

Yes....View cameras are easy enough, but sometimes with a TLR I have arms, head and camera waving around all over the place whilst tryng to figure which way i need to move to get the subject correctly located in the frame:confused::D
 
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