I used Azo for about two years, almost exclusively. I didn't use amidol: I used Agfa's warm tone developer. The tonal range was almost exactly the same as amidol's: the #2 paper's scale was 1.4 in Agfa's developer.
It WAS a slow paper. I used a 40 watt light bulb suspended about 3 feet over the printing frame, and the times were about 30-40 seconds.
The main advantage of it to me was that long scale, but you might be able to get close to that by setting the filters on your enlarger light right. That's what I'm going to do if I print those long scale negatives again.
--shannon On Jun 8, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Richard Knoppow wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "BOB KISS" <bobkiss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 9:38 AM Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Agfa Paper EquivalentAFAIK Kodak no longer has the cabability of making any B&W paper. Azo was a slow contact printing paper but there have been various emulsions sold under that name over the years. For instance, my early Kodak data books describe Azo as having a slightly warm tone image but the stuff sold more recently was neutral tone. While much was made of developing it in Amidol I doubt very much if that makes much difference. Amidol is a useful developer for getting neutral tones and had a reputation for producing good blacks but I think the latter was mostly urban myth. Modern papers are capable of somewhat deeper maximum blacks than the papers of yore. Typical older papers had a Dmax of perhaps 1.8 (glossy surface) compared to around 2.2 for many modern papers. This is of no significance for a reflection print. At one time Kodak made at least four contact speed papers with various characteristics, not counting foldable paper made for mailing and similar uses. Ansco/Agfa made at least two contact papers and I think another for automatic printing machines used in photofinishing. All gone now. You can contact print on any paper with a suitable light source, usually an enlarger. There was no particular advantage to the contact emulsions. I think this stems from the fact that the very first enlarging papers were evidently not very good but that was back in the 1920's.DEAR BOB, Azo is contact speed paper. Isn't Agfa PRN 111 an enlarging speed paper? If you DO want Azo or something very much like it, I think Michaeland Paula are still selling Azo and a suggested replacement for it. I know they used to special order the enormous "minimum" required by Kodak and resell it. They are also selling a very similar chloride contact printingpaper that they hope will replace Azo when Kodak does quit. Please see: http://www.michaelandpaula.com/mp/newpaper.html Sorry I can't help you with an enlarging speed replacement for AgfaPRN. Perhaps someone has picked up manufacturing that paper as they did forother Agfa products? CHEERS! BOB--- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles, CA, USA dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx======================================================================= ====================================== To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
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