Author Topic: A question about making acontact print  (Read 2258 times)

astrobeck

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A question about making acontact print
« on: January 10, 2008, 08:41:20 PM »
Before you laugh hysterically at this lunatic idea,  just know I'm not a darkroom person....yet.  :)
I have an enlarger and sinks waiting to be built in my house, but for now I have nothing set up.

However, in my endless desire to make my own hand crafted prints , it occurred to me that I might be able to make a contact print using Moonlight.

Is this a totally insane idea?  Should I just jump off the ledge now and end my misery early?
Or is it feasible to try?

Any ideas?  I really want to try it though... being I'm obsessed with the notion for now.   :)

Becky


Ailsa

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2008, 08:54:40 PM »
OK - before I start you should know that I'm also completely clueless about this sort of thing, but...

As far as I'm aware (and I'm sure, with your expertise, you know this already), the 'type' of light the moon gives off is the same as the sun, but just less powerful. I've seen ultra-long exposures taken in moonlight that appear to be taken in broad daylight - but just have a peculiar quality about them that's difficult to define.

Therefore, I reckon if you had a night that was guaranteed to be flooded by moonlight, and could find a spot where your contact print frame would be exposed to that moonlight for the whole duration from sunset to sunrise, then it's got to be worth a try.

And if it doesn't work out, what have you wasted? Just the one sheet of paper. And you never know, the result might be amazing. Good luck!

(This is probably a case of the blind leading the blind, so feel free to ignore at will.)

astrobeck

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2008, 09:09:49 PM »
I have night exposures as such on my astronomy blog taken by moonlight at

pardon the digital for this example...
<http://infinity.my-expressions.com/archives/2368_1035328070/273971>

Maybe a test strip is in order for this?

Andrea.

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2008, 09:22:48 PM »
Maybe a cyanotype is in order. Expose at night for 1 year or something :-)

Francois

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2008, 04:22:25 PM »
Or just do like moths do when they see a light: they think it's the moon ;)
And fly close to it... and when the light surrounds them entirely, they think day has come...
Just get yourself a frosted light bulb hanging from a wire on the ceiling...

Or, go according to the following:
Exposing a scene only by moonlight, according to Kodak, is 8 seconds at f/2 on iso 400 film.
Considering a contact print to be "lensless", it could be thought that it would be equivalent to f/1... thus 4 seconds on iso 400 film.
Now, considering that paper is about iso 6...
So the recommendation for iso 400 film gets to iso 6.25 (close enough) with the following sequence: 400, 200, 100, 50, 25, 12.5, 6.25 = 6 stops
So the 8 seconds of exposure go from 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 seconds.
512 seconds is roughly 8:30 minutes... for a full moon and no clouds.
But that's not counting in the Schwarzschild effect (reciprocity failure) which would push the exposure somewhat longer...

As I said, if you don't want to be at it all night, get a light bulb...
Or, if you want to do it using only the power of nature, expose to sunlight like they did in the old days. A contact printing frame fitted with tinted glass will probably do fine.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

astrobeck

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2008, 12:13:00 AM »
Thanks all for the commets.
I think I'm going to try it in about ten days when the moon is full.

I'll probably "waste" some paper, but heck it's just paper, and since I can't do too much serious astronomy, might as well make a print.

 :)
Becky

LT

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2008, 05:43:04 PM »
becky - Susan Derges did/does(?) moonlight exposed cibachrome photograms where she placed thepaper on the bottom of streams




taken from artnet

I dont know how faster or slower cibachrome paper is compared with mono papers, but I'm sure it's worth a go - be fun to experimnet anyway 
L.

Francois

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Re: A question about making acontact print
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2008, 10:00:23 PM »
Surprised it didn't get too affected by pollution  ;)
I was expecting all those nice muddy colors  ;D
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.