Black and White Paper Reversal Results

[Dave Walker]

Hello all,

After a Summer of RA4 colour reversal images in my Pinsta pinhole camera, I decided to turn my attention to Black and White reversal. After some early successes with Dichromate bleach, I set about trying to find a less toxic method of achieving nice results and I think I've cracked it.

Using an Ilford-recommended bleach (potassium permanganate and sulphuric acid) that is used for film reversal, I have managed to dial-in my pinhole images and I'm thrilled with the results. These are using Kentmere VC Select RC paper. The ones with torn edges are 4x5 and the church is 10x8 (using the Pinsta expander back).

If anybody's interested in the details of the process, I intend to write up an article for 35mmc soon, but will happily share details ahead of publication to anybody who wants them.

These are unedited scans.

 

[Ian Grant]

Back around 1973/4 I went to a talk at my Student Union photographic society, on Reversal processing. The talk was given by a research student at Birmingham School of Photography, he was sponsored by Kodak. Essentially he was shooting FP4 and PanF reversal processed, then making reversal processed enlargements, the results were stunning, but it wasn't commercially feasible. To get the best results exposures and processing had to be incredibly tight.

I worked on reversal B&W processing for a company in London a few years ago, they wanted to offer a commercial alternative to Scala.

A photo-chemistry company is nearly ready to market a B&W direct reversal developer, which could be interesting.

Ian

 

[Dave Walker]

Back around 1973/4 I went to a talk at my Student Union photographic society, on Reversal processing. The talk was given by a research student at Birmingham School of Photography, he was sponsored by Kodak. Essentially he was shooting FP4 and PanF reversal processed, then making reversal processed enlargements, the results were stunning, but it wasn't commercially feasible. To get the best results exposures and processing had to be incredibly tight.

I worked on reversal B&W processing for a company in London a few years ago, they wanted to offer a commercial alternative to Scala.

A photo-chemistry company is nearly ready to market a B&W direct reversal developer, which could be interesting.

Ian

Fascinating! Do you remember what the proposed advantages were for a positive-positive process?

 

[Ian Grant]

Amazing tonality, he was using graded Ilfobrom papers, and the reversal process with fibre based papers is very time consuming, compared to films and RC papers. Long wash times between steps.

Ian

 

[Dave Walker]

Amazing tonality, he was using graded Ilfobrom papers, and the reversal process with fibre based papers is very time consuming, compared to films and RC papers. Long wash times between steps.

Ian

I must say, I can believe it. The tonality of reversal processed RC paper from pinhole images is much prettier than I was expecting. I reckon FB would be lovely. I have a box of FB graded Ilfobrom...

 

[Pete Askew]

Interesting stuff both and the output you have achieved is great, Dave. In many ways I like the aesthetic of these even more than from negatives. I think it is the 'baked-in' elements of the tonality and vignette that are so appealing.

Please pop a link to the 35MMC article here when you have a published it.

 

[Dave Walker]

No article yet, but Graeme Jago took this of me this evening same bw reversal process.

 

[David Freed]

Hello all,

After a Summer of RA4 colour reversal images in my Pinsta pinhole camera, I decided to turn my attention to Black and White reversal. After some early successes with Dichromate bleach, I set about trying to find a less toxic method of achieving nice results and I think I've cracked it.

Using an Ilford-recommended bleach (potassium permanganate and sulphuric acid) that is used for film reversal, I have managed to dial-in my pinhole images and I'm thrilled with the results. These are using Kentmere VC Select RC paper. The ones with torn edges are 4x5 and the church is 10x8 (using the Pinsta expander back).

If anybody's interested in the details of the process, I intend to write up an article for 35mmc soon, but will happily share details ahead of publication to anybody who wants them.

These are unedited scans.View attachment 18251
View attachment 18252
View attachment 18253

Dave, I have 'pinned' your article and will read it soon. In the meantime, I wonder if you can give me some advice:

After years of shooting digital, I bought a Pinstra camera. I've mostly used the Harman Direct Positive paper. However, I want to also shoot using 'regular' photo paper to create paper negatives that I can then create prints from.

My question is about the exposure times for the regular photo paper - I'm using Arista VCRC pearl- compared to the direct positive paper: I did a 13 second exposure on a bright morning in my Pinstra using the Arista paper. When I developed it in-camera the print is way too dark and the features in the image can barely be seen; I assume means if I used this as a paper negative, the resulting image would be washed out.

So, should my exposure be longer or shorter for the Arista paper, or any photo paper I want to use as a paper negative?

Best, David.

 

[Pete Askew]

Do you intend to create a ‘print through’ negative or do you want to scan the negative and invert it? Either way it sounds like you need to increase the exposure time.

I have no direct experience of the Pinstra camera system, but when I built a camera to use paper as the negative the exposures were about 1 - 2 minutes and that was with a lens and not a pinhole. There might be some useful information fo you in this thread though:

Large Format, Paper Negative, DIY Camera Project

In response to Hamish's DIY camera challenge I decided to build a simple large format camera, similar in design to some of the early 19th century designs. I'd thought first of making it out of wood but with sheet plastic material I can do it in the studio without making too much mess. I was...

realphotographersforum.com

 

[Pete Askew]

Actually, having just read your previous thread I now realise I misread the above. As with Tony I found Multigrade to have a low ISO (about 6 in the studio as I recall), but you are getting too much exposure at 13 seconds with the pinhole camera and Arista paper which is a little surprising. What chemistry are you developing it with?