Digital BW, The Print

Ginny,

>I do hope these papers are available in cut sheets. 

Yes, all the ones I mentioned are


>Where does the Hahne Photo Rag he mentioned fit into your scheme 
>of papers?

PR is a great paper, Dourian is the same stuff.  I use Dourian because
it's double sided, so a bit more economical.

>BTW, just how archival are these cotton papers compared with
>Heavywgt. Matte?

I don't know the HWM rating, but all of the ones I listed are acid
free, etc. They are all in the chart in the Paper Chase article, which
shows the important specs.  For actual longevity ratings some of these
may be listed on the Wilhelm web site, but probably not all of them.


>I used TX with HC-110 

My favorite as well.  I found a dilute solution that still gave
HC-110's famous sharp edgy look but without golf ball grain. 
Beautiful negs and prints.  Tri-X/HC-110 has got to be the all-time
champion classic combination.  It should be in a photo Hall of Fame. 
I miss the look and the large negs, but time moves along and things
change.

My 6x7 outfit, including tripod, was 26lbs.  My digital outfit,
including carbon fiber tripod, is 7.5 lbs.  My back and shoulder are
happy <g>.  I spent all day walking and climbing on Mesquite Dunes in
Death Valley Nat'l Park last winter and was not hurting at all that
evening.  What a blessing to have been able to do that.


>And, I must admit, I still have NOT bought a digital camera. I'm 
>waiting for something in the 12-14 megpixel range to be affordable. 
>Or has that happened alrdy?

"Affordable" is relative, of course.  Probably the Canon 5D is the
best thing going right now, 12mp and about $3K.  The 20D, at 8mp, is
another excellent price/image quality deal at about $1.5K (and the
Rebel XT is even lower cost for same image quality, just lacks some
features).  I'm using an 8mp Canon Pro-1 (smaller sensor than 20D, so
lesser image quality).  8mp is enough to make acceptable 11x14s and
still have room to crop.  I consider it to be the minimum acceptable
resolution.



>I can fondly remember the 'good old days' when my friends were 
>testing every new film that appeared. I just stuck to Tri-X for 
>B&W

I went through a phase like that for about two years.  I finally
realized one day that I was worn out from hours and hours in the
darkroom, that nothing had yet beaten Tri-X/HC-110, and why was I
spending all this time and effort on this gerbil wheel?  So I stopped
all the testing and immediately entered one of my most creative and
productive stages.  I felt like I had been set free from a dark
prison.  I stuck with Tri-X for the rest of my film career.  Couldn't
stand T-Max, too slick and creamy looking.  It's why I refer to BO
printing as "Digital Tri-X".  There's something intense and compelling
about them that's reminiscent of Tri-X/HC-110.  


>I mention this because I don't want to get 'lost' in all the 
>choices for paper to print B&W on. 

My experience is that we need to keep on hand at least a
representative selection of the different types because not all images
look best on the same paper.  For K3 at the very least I'd recommend
these four:

VFA - medium warm, best dmax, bright paper, textured

PR  - medium warm, very high dmax, bright paper, smooth (smooth vs
texture will important for some images)

Merlin Natural - a warmer colored non OBA paper, excellent dmax but
not as good as VFA/PR, for the long scale platinum look (HotPress,
UltraSmooth or some other "natural" papers might serve here as well,
but MerNat excels at the long scale look)

Kayenta - for a cold white paper, excellent dmax but not quite as good
as VFA/PR.  Kayenta is really nice with K3.  Strong, contrasty, truly
black tone possible.  Condor BW is also excellent here, a bit more
finicky re ABW setting, but really fine for some images

These will carry you a long way.  They are my favorites in each
category and work well with K3 (PR is a bit finicky re finding an ABW
color setting that's convincing, but it can be done).  More could be
added to this list (I also regularly use Merlin Smooth and Aurora
Art), but I'd consider these four to be an essential foundation. 

Of course I'm talking about matte papers here.  The PK papers and the
now emerging ADFBG emulation papers are another thing altogether.  In
those categories we don't have the wide range of choices that matte
papers give us.  


>The tech explosion has been a wonder. A far cry from my early
>darkroom years developing my dad's Plus-X and Anscochrome in the
>darkroom! (This goes back to the early '50s!)
>Awww..I'm giving away my age, now.

Same here.  I got my first camera, a Kodak Brownie with 127 Verichrome
Pan, in 1954 on my 8th birthday.  My father was a photographer and
there were BW family pics all over the house.  My first ever picture
was of my black and white pet rabbit on BW film.  I remember the 3"
square deckle edged prints from the drug store.  When I was 11 I
graduated to a Brownie StarMite with the flash bulb reflector on top
(surely you remember those little thumb sized flash bulbs...I used to
burn my fingers trying to change bulbs quickly).  At 13 I got my first
35mm camera, a Kodak something (still mostly brown plastic with some
metal on it).  It was a view finder with fixed focus and shutter speed
and two aperture settings (for Color or BW film). Took my first color
slides on Boy Scout campouts.  Lots of fond memories from those days.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm