Contact printing

[StephenM]

I just looked at the Firstcall Photographic new products page and found contact printing paper. Years ago, they were referred to as gaslight papers, as they were fine with gas light (and, yes, I can remember gas lights in the house...). Slower than enlarging paper, they were ideal for contact printing.

Possibly worth taking a look if you fancy contact printing. And even if your negatives are too small to make reasonable contact prints, you can still contact print an entire 35mm film on a 10x8 sheet.

New Products - Firstcall Photographic Ltd

New Products

www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk

 

[Asha]

What’s the difference between this paper and ´standard’ darkroom wetprint paper ?

From what I can see they both require the same processing etc unless I’m missing something which is quite likely

 

[StephenM]

Chloride rather than bromide or chloro-bromide. Different image colour (slightly - the difference between warm tone and cool tone paper) and lower sensitivity in the chloride only papers. I noticed that in the description they were described as 8 times less sensitive. What this means in practice is that not only is safe safe lighting (intended double use of "safe") less necessary ("gaslight") but exposure times are longer, which will help if using a bare bulb rather than an enlarger lens for the illumination.

The papers I used for contact printing in the 1950s let me get away with a nightlight (torch bulb fitted into an adapter to replace a normal lightbulb) instead of a safelight. If these are the same, I expect that would work now. Which would enable someone to make prints without a light tight darkroom or even a safelight. For the print sizes I made as contact prints back then, I used saucers for developing dishes, and measured water for dilution on the kitchen scales (1 fluid ounce weighs one ounce).