You need a glass carrier! I never had much trouble with negs 'popping' from
temp change in my enlarger when I had a darkroom but I used a diffusion
colorhead, which produced a fairly cool light (cool temp, not cool color).
I use a glass carrier in my Nikon scanner for EVERYTHING no matter how flat
the film is, I just can't get sharp results otherwise with any film...that
scanner's lens just has no depth of field!
--
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-424-0897
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work!
On 11/29/09 5:22 PM, "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I finally got the "Wet-Prints" exchange prints finished. Whew, what a task.
> Once you have EVERYTHING set up and rolling, making a print or ten of
> something is usually a pretty easy task, but when rebuilding a darkroom and
> getting everything rolling again after a two-year hiatus, it was anything
> but simple.
>
> For some reason I was fighting a focus issue. I couldn't figure it out for
> the life of me. I'd focus the negative, and get it precisely where I wanted
> it, but when I went to make the print it was out of focus again. I'd adjust
> it and the next attempt it was out of focus all over again! This went on
> and on... I was blaming the equipment--always blame the equipment, right?
> So, what every good darkroom technician does is step out of the darkroom and
> go do something else for a few minutes. Coming back in, the neg was in focus
> again I hadn't touched anything. But as I'm staring at the image on the
> easel, the stinking thing went right back out of focus! I fully understand
> that my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be, but this is just plain
> nuts.
>
> I am a voracious reader and vaguely recall something I read about this Fuji
> 100ss B&W film--it has a thinner base and will easily warp when in the
> enlarger. When I focused and framed the image the negative would warm up and
> as it warmed up it would bulge up and go out of focus as I use a glassless
> negative carrier for 35mm film. So, my misdirected frustrations against the
> enlarger (after spending an hour tweaking and maintaining the stupid
> thing--good thing too, since I found a couple other problems), were directed
> to the negative instead.
>
> The question is which way should I go with the printing? Do I shoot the
> print almost wide-open for 1.5 seconds and wait a bit between each print
> (printed 16 copies altogether), or do I stop down to F11 and print for 15
> seconds so I can do a touch of dodging and burning? I opted for the long
> exposure so I could dodge and burn and get a touch better image. But what I
> had to do was keep the negative warm. I kept the enlarger on until the
> moment I got the next sheet of paper out, quickly shoved it into the easel,
> then covered the lens with my hand while I turned the enlarger back on for
> five seconds, off, removed my hand and pressed the go button. Doing it this
> way, MOST of them stayed pretty sharp. :) No biggy, as the image is kinda
> dreamy looking to begin with.
>
> What an adventure. Just a note for the curious, that Fuji 100ss B&W film is
> pretty funky in a multitude of ways. I'm glad it was as inexpensive as it
> was and I'm also glad I tried it, but sadly, it ain't no Ilford film. I'll
> go back to shooting PanF and the Deltas without regrets.
>
> AG
--
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