Ilford MG ART 300 & MGW.1K meet 2nd Pass Lith

Yesterday my experiments with 2nd pass lith re-continued. This time I only used 2 papers, changed the first and lith developer, used a hypo clearing bath to thoroughly wash the prints before bleaching, bleached a shorter period of time etc. I will outline again all things I did.

Papers used:
* Ilford MGW.1K, fiber based warmtone paper
* Ilford MG ART 300 paper (their new stuff)

Chemistry used:
* 1st pass standard bw-developer Agfa Neutol WA 1+7
* 2nd pass Moersch SE5 developer 1+1+20, + 1 old brown in a total bath of 1 litre
* Sepia Bleach home-made: 100 gr Potassium FerriCyanide & 100 gr Potassium Bromide to 1 litre of water
* Amaloco S10 stopping bath 1+19
* Amaloco X89 fixing bath 1+4

Other variables:
* Temperature of lith developer +/- 20 degrees Celsius
* No MG filters used when exposing the paper
* Bleaching time approx. for all prints: 1 to 1:30 minutes, depending on density of the print

After this day in the darkroom I had better results than the one before. The prints didn’t show the stains I was suffering from the first time. This could be due to four things,  perhaps some linked to each other:

• I washed the prints with warm water +/- 25 degrees Celcius (won’t do that too often…bills and such)
• They were not in there with that many at the same time, like last time
• I hypo-cleared them for three minutes to improve the washing
• The negative itself didn’t contain that many even areas as the one before, there lots of trees, leaves, rough ground etc so any potential pollution might get lost in the details of the image…

Still the results are not what I’m after. I found the redeveloped prints to resemble the original bw prints a lot. If that’s the case why bother doing it like this, you might ask. Well, I just know the difference CAN be there, when done properly. I’ve seen some amazing stuff with redeveloping, certainly with the papers I used here. So that keeps me going to find out what the culprit might be here.

What I don’t like in particular is there’s no additional grain in the darker areas. I love that possibility with the normal 1st pass lith. On top of that I find little to no coloration whatsoever. With the MGW.1K there is no coloration, with the MG ART paper there is some, but I certainly like it more pronounced. You can of course tone the image to whatever colour you would like to have it, but the colour combined with grain and delicate highlights etc. is what makes the lith process stand out for me.

What I DO love however is the texture, look and feel of this MG ART 300 paper. It has a certain pearly like strange glossiness, but no actual real bling-bling gloss, that really appeals to me.  This may come across as utterly vague, in any way something you’ll have to see with your own eyes.
With the glossy MGW.1K paper (which I NEVER put in a, how do you say that in proper English, a glossy-maker-pressing-something-machine-, as it’s way enough glossy on its own) the contrast is higher because the blacks looks deeper. Not sure which one will win in the end. It depends on the image entirely. On to the images!

Ilford MGW.1K
12s exposure time | no filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius

Ilford MGW.1K
10s exposure time | no filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
1 minute Sepia Bleach
2nd pass SE5 1+1+20 | 1 Old Brown | 9:16 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius

Ilford MGW.1K
119s exposure time | no filter
1st pass SE5 1+1+20 | 1 Old Brown | 6:06 minute | 20 degrees Celsius

In person this last one looks much lamer than I see it on the screen. It has something that triggers me but it’s missing density and some whitish shizzle.

Ilford MG ART 300
14s exposure time | no filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius

Ilford MG ART 300
16s exposure time | no filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
1:30 minutes Sepia Bleach
2nd pass SE5 1+1+20 | 1 Old Brown | 7:05 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius

Ilford MG ART 300
12s exposure time | no filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
1 minute Sepia Bleach
2nd pass SE5 1+1+20 | 1 Old Brown | 6:41 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius

Ilford MG ART 300
50s exposure time | no filter
1st pass SE5 1+1+20 | 1 Old Brown | 6:50 minute | 20 degrees Celsius

At the time of the last print it was print 12 in the bath of 1 litre and seeing I still have to learn to work with the additives the blacks were closing in so fast I couldn’t make a subtle print no more.

I do like the third one with the MG ART 300 paper. Maybe it’s because the development time in the 2nd pass lith was shorter so I kept some of the colour characteristics I was after (?).

Maybe the dilution I used for the 2nd development was too strong, 1+1+20, and I should’ve gone with 1+1+40. ?
Maybe I should’ve exposed the paper longer, like you normally do when working with a single lith development. ?
Maybe I should’ve added something like bromide to enhance, whatever… ?

I’m not really sure where to take this from here. I’ll definitely read some more. One thing I’ll be ordering somewhere tonight is Moersch Lith Ω, which can be used a second bath (not sure in combination with 2nd pass lith but I’ll find out) which enhances density and colour. This sounds great to experiment with, if not for the 2nd pass stuff then for the 1st pass lith. I also will be ordering Slavich Unibrom paper of which I’ve seen cool examples on the lith group on Facebook. I won’t get bored anytime soon!

Oh, and I received that little gemmy lens from Da Ebayz and it’s really tiny! Looking forward using it. I also got some 4×5 film holders to modify into genuine wet plate holders (plan on getting a Chamonix one for that specific purpose but always nice to play around with stuff) so really all I need now is the camera. If anyone is interested in a (spare) kidney let me know 😉

In the meantime…have a good night, weekend, whatever!

-❤- (that’s some real chica stuff huh!)