# dinner for 1 paper ne



## mysteryscribe (May 10, 2007)

paper neg shot with a cobbled together simi vue cam... voitlander lens.


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## mysteryscribe (May 10, 2007)

well it looked a little lonely all by itself


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## RacePhoto (May 11, 2007)

Paper Negative? Can you explain that more?

I have an old 8x10 view camera and thought that shooting direct positive would be interesting. I have two film holders, but no desire to spend loads of money to get film and use a cobbled up camera, to take expensive low quality shots.

Never did find a good way to do it. But if I could shoot paper negatives, that would be cheap fun. 

How did you do the color?


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## mysteryscribe (May 11, 2007)

ah I love to talk about paper negs. 

The only modification you have to make to your film holder is to run a bit of card board about the thickness of a cereal box down the spring holders on the side so that the thicker paper will slip into them without binding.

Then you simply load the paper just as you would a sheet of film. Paper curls emusion side up so it's almost impossible to load it wrong. There are a couple of issues with paper. I does not capture all the detail you would like. The negative is a more detailed than my scans but still isnt film, but

It does have an antique quality to it. I lust after an antique 8x10 camera to carry to civil war reenactments. 

Okay back to how you expose it. I buy arista black and white rc paper. I think rc might be a little easier to handle. I set my light meter for iso 2 or 3 indoors. if im outside in the shade I set it at is0 5 and iso 10 in the bright sunshine. If you are going to tray develop you can make some corrections. I develop my paper in daylight tanks so those iso let me use standard development times and it works great.

Then I personally scan it to work it digitally. Some people print through the back of the paper.

Those color were just air brushed on digitally . Just have to set it up light and go slowly. But I also have a tint program i use but with airbrush you can over spray and change the color a little you cant with a tint program.

The one here was shot in my lab with a 100 watt open bult light and a 75 watt flood, I think it was f22 at 15 seconds. The camera was cobbled together voitlander lens on a polaroid 250 frame.

Take a look here and youll find a lot of paper negatives http://www.f295.org/DIYforum/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl/Blah.pl?b-bw/

You might have to go back a ways but retroshooter (me)  and joe van cleave both do a lot of paper negs on that site.


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## RacePhoto (May 23, 2007)

mysteryscribe said:


> ah I love to talk about paper negs.
> 
> The only modification you have to make to your film holder is to run a bit of card board about the thickness of a cereal box down the spring holders on the side so that the thicker paper will slip into them without binding.
> 
> ...



Yah, I think I meant direct positives, but now that you mention it, paper negative, scan it, print it. Back when I thought about this old view camera it was the 1970s and I didn't have a scanner... Funny how the mind gets trapped in the dark ages. 

You can probably find a very decent view camera on eBay, not too pricey. When I was going to sell mine and make some money, I found the prices so low, that I didn't think it was worth the trouble, plus I thought it was more fun to keep it for what it was worth.

I suspect that the film holders are harder to find than the cameras, but I might be wrong. I have two, which is more than enough.

Knowing my tastes I'd probably find some nice F5 paper (or don't they make it like that anymore?) and go for more contrast. Thanks for the ISO suggestions, that would have been a mystery.

I owned two Burke and James 2 1/4 cameras. Lost them in a flood, but I kept the film holders and developing film holders, just in case. I rescued the Polaroid back as well, but just didn't want to think of what the mud did to the lenses and shutters.

Since you do scans, you might find a nice 4x5 press camera?

Sounds like a perfect project for the Pinhole people. Shooting 8 x 10 paper negatives, using a cardboard box for the camera. Black electrical tape for the shutter.


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