Here is a fullish documentation of the steenbeck contact print mod that I have been using.
This adaption of a steenbeck is completely non-destructive and the machine can happily be returned to its normal function in a matter of seconds.
from Lewis Heriz residency
To carry out this adaption you will need the following:
1. Somekind of camera/printer magazine to house the RAW stock and allow it to feed out smoothly. I am using a Mitchell style magazine which is clamped onto the left side of the machine with enough packing to make it the same level as film normally loaded onto the viewer. This magazine could just be a light proof box, pizza box, anything that protects the film from the light which is useful for lacing up.
2. A slit / gate type thing. You could try printing without this, but the bulb in a steenbeck is bright enough to totally over-expose the film (for eg Kodak 3303 or ORWO PF2) and you will need someway of placing ND filters in the light path. More on the slit later.
3. Usual stuff to put exposed film into bag/tin to take to darkroom.
4. Some thick foam, blackout material.
The first things to do are block any light leaks. I use a black casement material but cinefoil or thick card will do. Turn the machine on in the pitch black and look out for leaks. With the viewer light on a very obvious leak is the screen itself. Make up a piece of foam (from camera case) that fits tightly inside the viewing hood. In my experience so far the red power button does not fog the film.
Next, the magazine is seen here clamped in position. It can be loaded with 400ft of RAW stock and left in this postion all the time as it does not interfere with normal operation.
You can perform these steps in room light and only the section of RAW stock you handle will be fogged. You first lace the RAW stock into the steenbeck head making sure to purchase the sprockets. You can wind a bit forwards onto a T-core or spool.
Then you lace up the negative or material you are printing using the lower platter. Reopen the gate guide rollers and slide the neg INFRONT making sure to feel the teeth purchase on both films. I always wind a bit forwards here as the noise it makes is a good indicator of correct lacing.
The usual convention for contact printing is emulsion to emulsion. However, the neg or OG (original) film you are copying is actually TAIL OUT as it is impossible to load it HEAD OUT with emulsion facing away and sprockets DOWN (steenbeck convention).
MAKE SURE YOU ORIENTATE YOUR NEG TO BE TAIL OUT, SPROX DOWN, EMULSION AWAY.
Lets say you have a neg you have processed and are watching it on a steenbeck. You would load it on the left, head out, sprox down and it would view correctly. Once it has finished and is on the right side you keep it flat, move it over to the left and in the process of doing this you flip it so the emuslion is orientated for contact printing. But if it has wound onto a T-core by steenbeck convention of winding onto right side it will now spool of the steenbeck on the right. This is ok BUT REWIND WONT WORK. Thats ok as you dont need to rewind.
Now both films are laced you can place the gate/slit into its position. A close up of the gate shows that mine has been made to fit exactly the profile of the mount that holds the prism. People will have to explore their own ways of doing this. Also another picture shows the slit. The distance form the prism to the film surface is enough so that if your slit is roughly next to the prism you will get a ‘double band’ on the film with one bright strip between two slightly darker strips. This is because the light form the prism is effectively unidirectional and not collimated (made parallel) and so passes a fan of light if you like.
What you want to achieve is a slit about 1mm wide, as absolutely parallel as you can, that is as near to the film plane as possible but with enough room to be able to tape ND gel onto the front. 3D printing might work, etc. The quality of a contact print depends on the nature of the OG and you will almost surely need to make several tests until you get the ND value right.
When gate/slit is in place I cover the whole gate area with another black cloth just for superstitious reasons. Then you can enter darkroom state with safety light of correct type for the RAW film you are using. You can run steenbeck forwards now and when ready turn on the lamp button on controls which I have marked with tape so as not to hit the sound amp/exciter power which for some reason on my stenbeck is before the viewer light??? As the machine runs you can see light emanating slightly from the left of the gate, when ready you switch the light off and let it run a bit to leave a bit of leader.
You can very easily make short loops and load these around the gate.
Now the scissors you have hanging around your neck or by the machine can be employed to cut the film, I cut over by magazine and run last bit of film off. The load into bag/tin and take to the processing department for develpment.
If I had a pound for every time the gate/slit device was accidentally knocked ont the floor I’d have about 5 quid now. So I made a little padded box to preserve its special and fragile nature.
NOTES.
LOOPS.
An obvious thing you can try is making up LOOPS which will print over and over again. This will put your splicing skills to the test.
MASKS.
You can make masks out of black tape and place across the slit so for instance printing onto the image area only and holding out the soundtrack area. Then rewinding the film, loading a soung neg, reversing the mask and printing to the sound track area. However at the moment my tests produce soft edges on the mask which I think if a function of the double band problem mentioned earlier. The black tape mask, as it is only present in one of the planes of the slit, allows a small amount of diffused light
RESULTS.
The results are extremely good I’d say. A KEY factor is the accuracy of the parallel-ness of the slit. If the slit is for instance tapered, which you could do on purpose, then the exposure will not be even across the frame. Tiny imperfections in the edges of the slit and thus the parallel will show up.
Heres a bad illustration of the optics that you have to think about to get as fine and sharp a slit as you can. Also, the double band of light is a function of how close the slit is to the film plane. This area on most steenbecks is about XXXX. So my adaptation is based on the fact that the metal holder and curtain arrangement was made before learning about the problems with shadows. So design something that gets close to the film plane but still allows ND gel to be taped infront and/or black tape. Experiment with a ‘corridoor’ rather than a slit/s as this is the same thing.
