Contact Sheet

Hey,
I'm in an amateur photography class and our next assignment involves producing a contact sheet from a black and white roll of film. Can someone firstly advise what a contact sheet is? and what it's purpose is?

Thanks

Hi Sequin,

A contact sheet is created by placing the negatives directly onto the photo paper and then exposing the whole sheet. The result should be a page of negative sized images. You can achieve this with a 'contact sheet printer' - (companies like Paterson produce these) which hold the negatives in place against the paper and normally provide you with a header (Film No. Date, Subject etc) or by lying the negatives onto the paper and covering witha sheet of clear glass (to hold the negatives flat). You do not need and enlarger to produce a contact sheet, the room light will do the trick - but it would help to have a safelight to you can see to work by.

Contact sheets are useful as they give you quick reference thumbnails (in positve) of your negatives.

Good luck with your assignment

Regards

Hello Sequin

My preferred method of making a Contact Sheetis:-

In the Darkroom with the light on load the negatives into a Paterson Contact Printer.
Place the Contact Printer under an Enlarger with a lens fitted. Set the lens to F8 and the Enlarger timer to 10 seconds. Set the Enlarger height so that its beam of light well covers the Contact Printer.
Have separate Developer, Stop and Fixer at 20 Degrees C in Printing Trays.
Switch off the lights ( both Darkroom and Enlarger). Place a sheet of 10 x 8 Printing paper face-up in the Contact Printer and close the lid. Switch on the Enlarger Timer and expose the Printing Paper through the negatives.
Still in the dark, remove the Printing Paper and develop in the developer for 2 minutes then rinse in the Stop and then Fix for 2 minutes. Turn the Darkroom light on and wash the Contact Print.
If the thumbnail images are too light then increase the time under the enlarger. If too dark reduce the time uder the enlarger.
Of course the "in the dark" operations can be done with a suitable safelight. Recommended Safelight colours vary with the type of paper being used.
My time of 2 minutes in the Developer is what I do, many other people use only 1 minute.

I hope this gives a little more detail.

Its good to know that you are learning the old craft.

Good luck.

grahamwalton

I would echo Graham's comments, particularly about learning 'the old craft'. I am not sure if it is any more sociable to be sat in front of a computer manipulating images as opposed to being shut away in the darkroom for hours, however there is something more satisfying and rewarding about developing and printing your own images in a traditional darkroom. Certainley when I started with photography a large part of the magic was watching the image appear in the developing tray.

Thank you for all your useful comments. I bought a great book by John Hedgecoe, which covers almost everything.