Thanks everyone for your kind greetings, I feel home here already.
@Astrobeck: That's a nice pinhole image. And there must be a lot of us film folks out here in the Wild West.
@Moizak: It's good to hear things are going well with your photography.
@Leon: Those are very nice images, I would encourage you to stick with it.
@Sapata: Nice images. A bit of preflash could help with bringing out a bit more shadow detail.
@Urban Hafner: Yes, exposure times with Harman can be lengthy, and I think with large enough f-ratio pinhole cameras the extended exposure time and its resulting problems with camera movement in the weather offsets any theoretical advantage in trying to achieve a sharper image with a smaller aperture. Meaning that there's a break even point with Harman where it's better to detune your pinhole, making it larger than optimal but resulting in shorter exposure times, which can help with sharpness under real-world conditions.
Honestly, I prefer to use Harman with refractive lenses just because the exposure times are more manageable. However, a setup like a hyper focal lens with very small aperture, around f/90 or so, can still give short exposure times and reasonably sharp images. This works well with single-element meniscus lenses which get sharper as they are stopped down.
Regarding taming the Harman paper, it helps to be consistent. First, make sure your safelight isn't fogging the paper. Next, find your working exposure index. I rate it at around 3.
Third, it helps with tonal range and shadow detail to preflash the paper prior to use. My preflash light source is the same one I use for paper negatives, but I give about half the flash exposure with Harman paper as I do for negative paper. My light source is a type S11 light bulb (120vac, frosted white, 7.5 watts, standard base, round globe about the size of a table tennis ball), inside an enclosure with a 5mm aperture, suspended about 30 inches above the paper. For negatives I give about an 8 second exposure, while for Harman I give a 3.5 second exposure.
Fourth, consistent development. I always use about the same dilution of the same liquid concentrate at the same temperature (68f), used as a one-shot developer. My current developer is Ilford PQ diluted 5.5ml into 75ml of water, which I use in a Jobo test print development tank that will process two 4x5 prints at once.
Fifth is consistent metering. I set my light meter to EI 3 and meter the brightest part of the scene that I want detail and set that to about +1/3EV. Keep in mind that the paper is mostly sensitive to UV and blue light, and that shiny metals and water will reflect UV much easier, therefore rendering much brighter in the print. However, the paper will show some sensitivity to CF and higher wattage halogen lamps, so I'm learning to apply some artificial fill lighting after metering the scene lit only by daylight, which helps with additional fill lighting.
As an example, the duck image I metered on the brightest part of its body and set that at +1/3EV, the meter recommending 8 seconds exposure, and then I added some halogen fill across the kitchen with a 500 watt work light dimmed down to about half power.
I have not found any significant reciprocity failure with this paper.
I know this was a very lengthy reply, but thank you all for building this community of photographers.
~Joe
