Author Topic: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)  (Read 8961 times)

Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #50 on: February 17, 2017, 10:59:29 PM »
You sure it doesn't come from Chernobyl or Fukushima?

There's gotta be something to do with it other than decorating...

Lets think about this scientifically.
Fog is the even exposure of the silver crystals all over the film. The fog is at the bottom of the contrast curve. As the fog level rises, you tend to loose part of the exposure curve that always keeps the same angle for a given development. So we have a film with a very shallow exposure latitude but regular contrast under normal development. If we over develop, we just make the fog layer more visible by converting more silver in the negative. So we need to underdevelop the film to keep the fog at a minimum of visibility. It will always be there, just less present. But underdeveloping will reduce overall contrast at the same time. A massive overexposure would be needed in order to put most of the image in the highlight section, but you will experience some clipping on both the bottom (shadow) because of fog and at the top (highlight) simply because the curve tops off at that point.

We know the film can produce something, not a lot but still there is a bit of life left in it. So exposing at maybe EI3 and developing for ½ the time in C-41 (no point in spending on E6 here) might be a good start.

What you can do is shoot a few frames at EI 3, just anything out the window for a test, take the camera in the dark bag, open the back and using some safety scissors cut a bit of the film and process just a few frames. Readjust and then test again. At least you won't be wasting good chems.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #51 on: February 17, 2017, 11:10:13 PM »
We know the film can produce something, not a lot but still there is a bit of life left in it. So exposing at maybe EI3 and developing for ½ the time in C-41 (no point in spending on E6 here) might be a good start.

What you can do is shoot a few frames at EI 3, just anything out the window for a test, take the camera in the dark bag, open the back and using some safety scissors cut a bit of the film and process just a few frames. Readjust and then test again. At least you won't be wasting good chems.

This is more or less what I did. I shot at EI6 (less exposure) and developed for 2min (slightly more than half) in C41. Sure, I can try EI3 and developing for exactly half the time. What I was thinking of doing was just set my camera on max aperture (1.7 or 1.4) and as slow a shutter speed as I can manage (probably no slower than 1/8, maybe 1/4) and shooting a whole roll like that in reasonable lighting conditions (ie, bright daylight to cloudy daylight) and dev'ing in C41 for 2min. SOMEthing should (might?) come out...

Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #52 on: February 18, 2017, 02:51:41 PM »
Try and be a bit more methodical about it. You'll get a lot more information out of it.

Also, keep in mind that everything related to film is not linear.... That has a big effect on things.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #53 on: February 18, 2017, 03:30:28 PM »
I feel like I've done all my methodical testing already and now I'm just going to say f**k it and shoot  ;D Though, of course, you are right.

Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #54 on: February 18, 2017, 04:24:45 PM »
I know there's going to be a point where you hit the sweet spot. The only problem is that the sweet spot is very narrow so going by big increments will most likely make you miss it entirely.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

jharr

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #55 on: February 18, 2017, 06:41:35 PM »
I know there's going to be a point where you hit the sweet spot. The only problem is that the sweet spot is very narrow so going by big increments will most likely make you miss it entirely.
But the sweet spot may not be to your liking, so then you would have used a lot of time, film and chems to optimize something you don't like. If it were me, I would either find something simple and passable (shoot at EI6 and stand dev in Rodinal), or trade the lot for something that would make me happier. I understand the feeling of finding a deal on 50 rolls of film and seeing all of that potential only to be disappointed in the final result. I did the same thing with some Svema FM64 120. Now I just shoot it once in a while and try to embrace the ugly. It turns out that some people actually like the results! Given your general shooting style and results, I would like to see you shoot some more of this and see what happens.
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Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #56 on: February 18, 2017, 08:42:34 PM »
I do get your point.
Personally, I think it will be a miracle if anything comes out of this batch. But then again I'm not the one exposing and processing it (as in I don't think I could do much more than this). I'm just trying to see if there's nor something I can think of that will bring a bit of an image on these negs.
And what I call a sweet spot in this case isn't related to the sweet spot we normally refer to. I'm thinking more in terms of the "Hey! I can see something!" spot.

But at the point Indofunk is at, I'm afraid it might just be flogging a mostly dead horse.

Anybody interested in doing collages or crafts?  ::)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

jharr

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #57 on: February 18, 2017, 09:24:02 PM »
Yeah, I guess the final option if you don't want spend any more time on it is to sell it on Etsy as 'decorative/crafts' and let someone make gift bows out of it.
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Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #58 on: February 18, 2017, 10:20:35 PM »
Or glue to the border of a frame...

Somebody should invent a fogged film detector.

But there is an easy way to know if a film is fogged beyond usability! (I just thought of that)
Just develop an unexposed piece of film and measure its density using something like a camera's lightmeter and a stable light source. You can compare to a known benchmark that is not fogged in any way. While not as precise as using a densitometer, it should give you a good enough comparison of density.

And even better yet, develop a piece of unexposed frame next to a piece of exposed frame and measure the difference between them. That's the space left to put an image in.
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #59 on: February 18, 2017, 10:49:12 PM »
Just shot a whole roll at roughly EI 6 (sometimes overexposing because what the heck), and tomorrow shall develop in C41 pulled back to 2min. Let's see what comes out! ;D At the very least I can say it was rather fun being able to expose at f/1.4 in broad daylight! :D (of course, on the other hand, it was quite annoying to HAVE to expose at f/1.4 in broad daylight ;) )

Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #60 on: February 19, 2017, 02:49:41 PM »
I'm glad you're enjoying the process :)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #61 on: February 20, 2017, 10:50:39 PM »
Aaaaand ... success?

These were shot roughly at EI6, developed in 100oF C41 for 2 minutes. I also blixed this stuff for 13min instead of 6.5min, but I don't think that helped at all (my theory was that it would fix out the fog, but it didn't). My scanner thought all the exposures were blue/purple, so I did a bit of color correction in Epsonscan, and even less in Lightroom. I assume the color variances within each frame is due to the fact that a 2min dev cycle doesn't give the color couplers enough time to work properly. I can deal with that. What I don't know if I can deal with is the whole EI6 business :D I can only shoot outdoors between 10am and 3pm ;D

But here they are. All things considered, not bad?


























MacArron

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #62 on: February 20, 2017, 11:01:56 PM »
This is psycodelic photography taken to the highest level :)

I must say I like them all, but as you say you have too many to use this way, which may be tiring...

And each day their properties will be even worse. You will end up shooting at ISO 1 at 1.4 a sunny midday :)

However, this seems to be the best result by far. I would stick with this "process".

Thanks for sharing the results.
Cameras to enjoy (I use them all):
Contax 139Q/Contax RX/Exa 1b/Exa 1c/Kowa Six

Francois

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #63 on: February 20, 2017, 11:09:16 PM »
YEAH! That is nice!

If you want to get a longer dev time, you can try and process at 80°F for 6:35.
That should give you about the same development level but more time for the chemicals to do their thing.

Also, tripod is highly suggested for this one ;)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

jharr

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #64 on: February 20, 2017, 11:20:47 PM »
I can only shoot outdoors between 10am and 3pm ;D

It would be a great film to take to Harlan, KY then!
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Bryan

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Re: More stored in a desert film! (Was: Pulling C41?)
« Reply #65 on: February 20, 2017, 11:34:33 PM »
Congratulations Satish!  I like the bubbly clouds in that last one.