>
> Good to know. Hope to get the darkroom together this winter and will be
> needing paper soon. I have some odds & ends around, but will be needing
> to restock the supplies, I will have to give the ADOX a try.
I've been in an APUG discusson on this paper and evidently for some people
the differences between ADOX and Ilford are pretty minimal. I think it has a
lot to do with what developers you use as well as what your negs/formats are
being printed. As a general rule, I've been an "Ilford Shop" and use pretty
much the Ilford papers, but get many of my chemicals from Photographer's
Formulary. I've never really liked Dektol and similar developers in
combination with the Ilford papers for various reasons, but have done brief
(and not so brief) foreys into alternatives.
For example, for a while I used a paper and developer called
Perfecta/Perfecta-D. The paper was a custom run of Ilford Multigrade IV that
trended towards old-school gradients and the Perfecta-D developer really
changed the max-black of the emulsion and warmed it just a little. Standard
Multigrade paper and developer tends to cool the silver a bit but the
geletin trends towards yellow. The Perfecta-D developer warmed the silver
but the geletin neutralized more. I can still get Perfecta-D through
Photographer's Formulary and they make a couple batches of it a year. For
the Ilford Multigrade IV papers, I highly recommend it. I did try Amidol
with Multigrade IV, and it does increase dmax, but the silver still stays
cool. I think F130 is a nice improvement all around, but I'm not really
excited about it yet--besides, it's more costly. Based on what I've seen and
used, I think Perfecta-D is highly underrated and its history (the guy who
created it) is sketchy so there has been a bias against its usage,
unfortunately.
I was going to experiment with my own choice of developer with the ADOX MCC
110, but decided against it because of people's comments on how PRINT WA and
MCC are the perfect match, so I spent the extra money (substantially more
expensive) on PRINT WA. Whether or not I'm seeing the effects of the paper
or the developer is a mystery right now, but whichever it is, I'm quite
satisfied. After I get done with this library project (60 11x14 prints),
I'll experiment because I'd rather buy all my chemistry through the
formulary.
BTW, for all of my printing, I'm using PH neutral or PH alkaline chemistry.
I'm using a water stop and TF-5 Archival Rapid Fixer. Total wet-time for
fiber prints go from two hours down to about 30-45 minutes. I do use a
slight bit of hypo-clear, but that's not supposed to be necessary. Old
habits die hard.
It's been interesting seeing how the paper tones. It's kinda wierd but my
initial experiment with Selenium toning is that it warms the image. Not
exactly what I was looking for. I'll back that off and just tone to get the
protection, but not so long as to alter the image. The paper already gives
me the look I want without the toning. YMMV
Oh, to bring this on-topic: The pictures I'm printing right now all were
shot in the OM-4T and OM-3Ti using the 24/2.8, 35/shift and 300/4.5 on
Ilford PanF.
AG
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