BW400CN / trad. b&w printing

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:15 am

Just a little bulletin.

I recently did some prints from kodak bw400cn, using the traditonal b&w printing process: non-colour head, ilford b&w paper and chems etc. It works fine. I am not going to say that it is as easy as working with "true" b&w film, it certainly isn't. I used multigrade paper and had to work pretty hard to get the right contrast etc. I used some ilford filters and basically overexposed the paper (relative to what I would do with normal b&w film) and then reduced the paper development time just a bit. Of course once I had the right formula it was quite trivial.

In my prints I think the tones were eventually very nice; the whites and blacks were well defined. It simply took me twice as much paper to get everything right.

So this confirms what another member said (I don't recall who) that you can print CN via the standard process.

This whole thing was brought on by Mike Alex who sent me some xpan negs shot on 400CN. Mike, if you're reading, I've done your 18" prints on fiber, I just am not quite satisfied yet because there was quite some dust on the negs so I'll clean them and reprint when I get time. I may ditch my idea of printing on uncoated fiber though, my finding is that the greys are too predominant on the fiber, and RC there will be better contrast.

:) keithwms

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 9:56 am

Thanks Keith. I look forward to seeing the results. Take your time though, I'm in no rush.

Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 577 Location: Rochester, NY

I have some nice prints from T400CN on traditional B&W paper. I think I had mentioned in a previous thread that I usually needed to punch up contrast a little bit. Thank heaven for VC papers!

Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:17 am

mdd wrote:

I have some nice prints from T400CN on traditional B&W paper. I think I had mentioned in a previous thread that I usually needed to punch up contrast a little bit. Thank heaven for VC papers!

Ah yes now I think I remember it was you who said that b&w printing from 400CN was possible.

I'll be trying some 6x9 shots on it next week.

:) keithwms

Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 62 Location: 70802

I've printed from 400CN. Haven't had time to mess with it in a couple of months though.