Hi: The biggest difference between using litho film and standard film is film speed and the cost.
You should be able to get a reasonable variety of standard film with a vareity of ASA's, in the range of 50 to 400 ASA. 8x10 standard film is pricey. It does not have the large market of 35 mm 120 or even 4x5 film. It is usually used by professional photographers and its price reflects that. Ortho film is used in enourmous volumes in the printing industry. It has a huge market and so its relatively inexpensive and available in a wide variety of sizes. Ortho film must be processed to force it to act as a continuous tone film. This is usually done by using a diluted print developer, or a specially formulated low contrast developer. The sensitivity of ortho film - its speed or ASA/ISO is very dependent on how it is processed. I don't think one can get a speed of over 50 ASA with this film Processed in selectol 2:1 I rate the film at 12 ASA in Dektol 10:1 I rate it at 6 ASA In Dave Soemarko's LC-1 I rate the film at 1 ASA. Printing paper is usually rated around 6 ASA. I've had the best results with LC-1, dektol seems to be very contrasty no matter how I dilute it. Selectol is less contrasty then Dektol. LC-1 gives one incredible control of the contrast - but with a significant loss in speed. See http://members.aol.com/fotodave/Articles/LC-1.html (note this seems down at the moment) There are a number of orhto films available. Most people tend to use arista, (from Freestyle http://www.freestylesalesco.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv I use Kodak CGP because its easier to get in Canada. http://www.kpgraphics.com/USC/products/film/conv/index.html I think ARista film is less contrasty than Kodak CGP. People who use Arista are happy with their results with Dektol. Does anyone want to try some CGP? Or would anyone send me a few sheets of Arista to try? Often what you are trying to photograph determines what you will use. Taking pinhole shots with ortho film indoor with dimlight can be next to impossible. The exposure times can be hours long. Not always practical. With a 100 ASA film the exposure time could be a few minutes, rather than a few hours. If you are going to alternative process printing - you will be contact printing. There will be no graininess apparent. I process sheets 8x10 and smaller in trays under safelight - (Ortho film) Standard film must be processed in complete darkness. Standard film can be procecced in trays with reasonable care. (I've processed 100's of sheets of 4x5 Tri-X in trays) I tend not to use 4x5 for pinhole though its not big enough :) Larger sheets I process in a homemade developing tube. A 4 inch ABS pipe with end caps - though this is an awkward thing to use. Gord On Mon, 20 May 2002, Greg Newberry wrote: > I'm building an 8x10 pinhole camera and I planned on using RC paper for the > negative and then contact print it. It was recommended to me to also > consider using sheet film because of the flexibility of doing alternative > contact prints. Litho/Half tone film was recommended because of it's price. > Can someone tell me about this type of film? What kind of negative do you > get? How do you develop it? Brand & price? What you gain or loose over using > normal sheet negatives? > > Thank you in advance for your help. This is a fantastic forum. I've gleaned > a lot of information from the pro's that hang out here. > > Greg > > > _______________________________________________ > Post to the list as PLAIN TEXT only - no HTML > Pinhole-Discussion mailing list > Pinhole-Discussion@p at ??????? > unsubscribe or change your account at > http://www.???????/discussion/ > --------------------------------------------------------- Gordon J. Holtslander Dept. of Biology hol...@duke.usask.ca 112 Science Place http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg University of Saskatchewan Tel (306) 966-4433 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Fax (306) 966-4461 Canada S7N 5E2 ---------------------------------------------------------
