Ciba Died?

Often old processes die leaving only a few practitioners remaining like soldiers on an abandoned, forgotten island.

amateurs built Ciba; amateurs killed Ciba. 

Ilford Imaging Switzerland’s bankruptcy was in December 2013.

The gossip boys ,on the barstools of the internet ,hang out telling tales of the past. Easy for them to miss the changes in currents around that lost island, since they never were there, and they don’t know how to swim.

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Big Name Ciba

would you rather ask a thousand people who don’t know the answer, or 1 person who does?

Asking the rights question of the right person is the only way to a correct answer.

Burkett is a big name in Ciba prints. He is a long time landscape photographer, so should be ready reference for the Formulaic photographers. He is represented in many of the destination galleries. Even a lesser known photographer knows the Ciba answer. And he is a popup exhibitor.

A Last Lab

I doubt they print anymore, but at one time Richard Jackson’s “Hance Lab” was a major ciba lab for exhibition and portfolio work.  Richard has moved on, preferring digital prints. So, just as the best Dye Transfer printers moved to digital, at first with regret, later with a smile, even a joyous twinkle.

The (Usual) Places

B&H … they have partial supply (June 2016)

Dr. Damien Moigno DFI

What’s A Poor Boy To Do?

It will die, Ciba — this year (2016) will be the last year of chemical manufacture. The interest in this, like most color processes, is vapor. Dye transfer has come and gone 3 times in the past 15 years because people talk instead of working. They would rather brag, and boast about their exploits. What they really do is get fat on the barstool, talking about their glorious  gift.

A kit for home processing costs p30kit

The last Ilford directions (PDFs) are:

As always —

  • use it or lose it.
  • when it’s gone, rebuild, or move on.
  • don’t trust the first answer.
  • don’t accept conventional wisdom, unless you want the conventional outcome
  • sometimes, things are talked to death.

dig until you get deep enough to see light

Others writing Ciba’s epitaph: https://association-cibachrome.com/patrimoine/technologie/

Chloride Papers

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Chloride papers are lower in sensitivity than are bromide papers, but they are faster to develop. Silver chloride papers usually are fully developed in 60-75 seconds, while typical bromide enlarging papers develop to the same level in 120-140 seconds.

Chloride papers are ‘contact’ speed. They are used under a bright light, not an enlarger, with a negative in contact with the paper. The final image size is the size of the negative, which, probably, means you are working with a large format film.

Current chloride papers are the revived Azo styled “Lodima” and the newly introduced Adox “Lupex.”

current chloride papersAdox announced Lupex with a very considerate offer of free shipping, so I bought a sample pack, and then a box of 8×10. I like the paper. The shipping from Germany to Texas takes 10 days — be patient. Lodima shipment takes only 4 days.

I have seen posts (apug) that Lupex is slower (not much) and warmer than Lodima. That isn’t what I see.

Lupex. Lodima Scan

Lupex v Lodima
Lupex & Lodima: 25 seconds exposure

both papers exposed to same light, for same time. Both papers were developed in the same developer at the same time. To compare color of emulsion, I’ve scanned the papers against a Kodak grey card.

Lupex Fomabrom Scan

Lupex compared to Fomabrom & Fomatone paper

Foma makes 2 papers which provide distinct differences between warm and neutral images. Lupex is closer to the Fomabrom 111.

Exposure Setup

contact light
Soft LED white light in darkroom

Exposure is set using a Gossen lightmeter in diffusion mode. The ASA is set to 320. The lamp is raised to a point where the EV is 10. With the lamp at that height, exposure is 25 seconds for the Stouffer TP 4×5 wedge.

Developer

I use different developers, depending upon the image requirement. Many current users follow the Amidol road (spell lodima).. my preferred formula is in my ‘formulary’ section; also Lupex responds well to variable contrast developers, even more so using the 2 tray method.

More recently, I’ve souped both in Lith developers — they each offer brilliant color ranges in both Fotospeed and Moersch developers. I will probably use Lupex and Moersch later for more than just verification and idea generation.

Notes: See Easy Amidol for developer notes

Resources for making emulsions:

https://www.processreversal.org/public/workshops/handmade_baltimore/HandmadeEmulsionResources.pdf

Kodak Publication AJ-12, “Making a Photographic Emulsion.” https://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Emulsion/emulsion.html

EJ WAll

The Light Farm: http://thelightfarm.com/Map/ContactPaperDev/ContactPaperPart3.htm

1996, Kodak: Process for making high chloride tabular grain emulsion using multiple stream addition of iodide. Patent