Black and White Paper Reversal Results

D

Dave Walker

Active Member
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.IMG_2023_11_15_130243.jpg
IMG_2023_11_15_130256.jpg
IMG_2023_11_17_120751c.jpg
 
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
 
Ian Grant said:
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
Click to expand...
Fascinating! Do you remember what the proposed advantages were for a positive-positive process?
 
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
 
Ian Grant said:
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
Click to expand...
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...
 
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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top