I am hoping someone out there can help me with this. Over the weekend I did some contact printing of some pyro negatives produced this fall and got unexpected results. The prints have a hazy or misty quality in the highlight areas. The negatives were shot at different locations and developed in seperate batches of pyro. I use Bostick & Sullivans liquid pyro kit. The lighting conditions when shot were as follows. Two negatives were shot at Hoover Dam about 15 minutes before sunrise. Film is FP4 and with reciprocity about 5 minutes exposure. I believe development was N-1. The other shot was in an old train shed with direct sunlight on portions of an old engine and the remainder in darkness. I can't recall the exposure (45 secs?)but development was n-2 to compensate for the direct lit portion. All three negatives have crisp detail when viewed with a loupe but when printed become hazy. The train shed print is hazy in the highlights and the dam shots are hazy throughout.

Does anyone have some insight to offer?

Thanks

-- Kevin Kemner (kkemner@tateandsnyder.com), November 15, 1999

Answers

Are you certain that what you see in the print is not on the neg? Just off-hand, this sounds like more of a printing problem than a film development problem, particularly if the negs look good.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), November 16, 1999.

Just a thought: when I contact print I get this haze you describe when I use a thick, greenish glass at the photo-club but no problems when I bring my own, thinner, colourless glass with me. The difference is like night and day. I suppose a contact print frame with a high quality glass in it should be availabe from a well-supplied photo-dealer.

-- Peter Olsson (peter.olsson@lulebo.se), November 16, 1999.