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Review Summary
2013-12-25T19:00:00
Adorama's house brand paper really is a steal. Less than half the price of comparable high end brands. However, this paper is just too fast and contrasty for small prints. About a stop faster the MGIV paper, making prints in small sizes is a big pain. 5x7's under a condensor enlarger,50mm at f/11 yielded exposures in the 4-5 second range. Once dialed in, prints looked like MGIV printed under a 3.5 or 4 filter. I am using a condensor enlarger, though, so YMMV with a diffusion head. Having naturally high contrast works great for some subjects, but I'd recommend keeping a baseline of a 1.5 contrast filter with these. Skip these and go for the bigger sizes, though! More reasonable exposure times with 8x10s and 11x14s, and the big sizes of Adorama are cheaper than the competition's small paper. If you use a diffusion enlarger and/or can keep contrast under control, it's a huge bargain to print big. Paper doesn't feel as nice in the hand as Ilford or Adox, but my finished pieces are always matted, so that is a moot point.
fretlessdavis


Adorama VGRC is a high speed, variable contrast, black and white enlarging paper with a medium weight, polyethylene coated base. The paper base is 190 g/m2 coated on both sides with 40 g/m2 of polyethylene giving a base weight of approximately 270 g/m2 and a thickness of approximately 245 microns. The silver halide emulsion has a silver content of approximately 1.5 g/m2.
Adorama VC RC gives a consistent image tone across all grades, exhibits excellent image sharpness and is available in Glossy & Pearl surfaces. The use of yellow and magenta colored filters permits selection of required contrast from a range of grades similar to that of graded papers. A neutral-cool image tone and clean white base combine to give a high quality paper equally suitable for tray or machine processing.
Adorama VGRC is designed for use with tungsten or tungsten halogen light sources, other light sources may give different contrast values. Exposure of the paper is straight forward, depending on which filter system is in use. For Ilford Multigrade filters, grades 00 to 3.5 have the same speed (ISO P250) and grades 4 and 5 require approximately twice the exposure. For the filter settings of table B, grades 0 to 4 have the same speed (ISO P320). Grades 00 and 5 require more exposure (ISO P250). When no filter is used, the paper has a contrast of approximately grade 2 and a speed of ISO P 640.
Open only in a photographic darkroom illuminated by standard OC or red safelights containing 15 watt bulbs or equivalent. The safelights should be at least 3 feet from the paper at all times and good working practice of keeping exposure to safelights at a minimum should be adopted. Unused paper should be returned to its original packaging for storage.