starting in november i will be living in tokyo for 14 months . . . without access to a darkroom. i've decided this will be a great time to explore printing out paper (POP) and possibly some other alternative process that utilize the sun as a light source for printing.(posted 8431 days ago)i've been doing some research, and have learned that the best negative for POP is most likely from a film capable of a long tonal range that is overexposed and overdeveloped. very dense.
now the problem i have is where do i get started here. i've always used APX. and have grown to love efke 25. but APX is no longer available and efke 25 (as far as i know) is not available in 4x5. and my research suggests that TMX or fp4 is best anyway (the centenial POP faq says so) - both films i'm not familiar with. to top it off i love rodinal (its the cheapest thing out there and agfa products have never ever done me wrong + its easy + the whole cache of being the oldest manufactured developer. very cool. and BAMO! acutance is something like a very dry martini).
so who out there has been working with POP? what film/developer combo do you use to get the best POP negatives? is TMX in rodinal a done deal? what about this new fuji acros? i know everyone loves pyro. but i'm not sure if i'm ready to make that leap. worried that it maybe difficult to get pyro in japan (don't speak japanese). and just how great is this pyro anyway? will pyro negs help me do POP? if so, i'm there. so what do you all think? how do i get the best negs for POP? the less i have to fool around (though i know its valuable) the better.
thanks in advance. cheers.