Pre-Flashing of Paper Negatives

Dear All;

Just a brief note to describe some experiments I've been making with
pre-flashing paper negatives in the darkroom, prior to exposure in-camera.

As background, I shoot primarily in the American Southwest. Scene brightness
range can be very wide, and typically shadows get lost below the paper's
sensitivity threshold. A typical camera exposure in bright sun is 1 minute, but the
shadows are often paper white in the negative - no detail at all. To expose
enough to get shadow detail would entail an exposure of 5-10 minutes, at which
time the highlights would be blown out. I've also had little or no luck in
dilute develoment of paper. It doesn't seem to respond like film does.

Enter pre-flashing, an idea that popped into my head. I expose a paper neg
for 1.5-2 seconds under grade 2 light from my enlarger, lens set to f/32, then
load into the camera. A scene/camera combination that would normally expose for
1 minute in bright sun I expose for 30 seconds, or about half of normal
exposure. Upon development in standard paper developer, I find amazing shadow
detail, with highlights that aren't blown out!

A contact print of this negative is hard to tell apart from a film negative's
print.

BTW, this same camera requires 1 minute exposure for Arista ortho lith film
in bright daylight, then extended development to get somewhat normal contrast.
Therefore, I find pre-flashing of paper negatives is cheaper, and delivers
better results than, ortho lith film, and seems to increase the effective film
speed of the paper.

I recommend others try this out on their own, and report their results.

~Joe VanCleave

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Received on Mon Nov 15 08:52:36 2004