Long weekend

This weekend I got out finally and went through four and a half rolls of medium format, three of which were black and white.  I also spent a day making contact prints and printing in the darkroom, so there are some older shots that I'm just now finally seeing and decided to scan.  The interior is an old public use cabin I stumbled on in the woods.  The window was covered with plywood, but the plywood had been burned.  I'm not sure when these were last used, but note the pepsi can on the ground.  Kinda an old design.  The others are of some of the other dams around Spokane.  I finally went further than 3 miles for some dam shots.

Moving back

One of my harddrives crashed.  It was the one with a years worth of digital photography and a lot of scans on it.  I dislike scanning because it can be time consuming.  This just further reinforces my enjoyment of film, though.  

TMax

I mentioned earlier that I didn't really like TMax as I could never get good results.  I talked to a few people about it.  One told me my fixer was a dud and I wasn't washing long enough.  The other said most people dislike it unless its going through a machine.  I just mixed a fresh batch of fixer when I found my last roll of TMax I hadn't shot from when I bought up a bunch (not realizing I would dislike it).  I developed it, fixed it with brand new fixer, and washed it for not 5 but 10 minutes (used hypoclear, stop bath, everything according to Kodak's directions, except a lengthened washing time).  Here is the result.  I don't think this is the expected ping tinge or an issue with my fixer.

Pushed Tri-X shots

Marathon Development

I took these photos maybe two weeks ago, and I'm just seeing them now.  I had actually forgotten about them...  3 out of 15 came out pretty good, so I'm pretty happy.  I accidently shot the roll of Delta 100 at 50, so some of the contrast was missing.  I beefed it up in photoshop (the contrast) and I think it looks a lot better.  I still have 6 rolls of 35mm drying, I wish I had a quicker way to scan than a flat bad, but thats ok.  I'm taking a break because I've been developing for 4 hours.  I should look into a bigger tube.

absence

i've been lazy lately.  i have 6 rolls of 35mm film, and one of 120 to develop.  i've just been too lazy...

Expired, cheap, and surprising

I found an old camera at an antique shop.  It had no metering so I used sunny-16 with a roll of film gifted to me that had been in a box somewhere for a long time, unrefridgerated.  It was a roll of Kodak Gold 400.  I didn't wait for it to warm up, I took it out of the freezer, popped the canister, and loaded it.  I got it developed at Walgreens and I can't believe the colors when it was exposed correctly.  Even the grain in some cases wasn't too bad.

 

I took this photo and wished I was shooting black and white film.  So after scanning it I converted it.  Which looks better, color or black and white?

Color Films

The place I take my color films for development is closed on weekends.  So I try and get my film in before they start that day's run, and then patiently tap my feet waiting until 3 when they're done.  I still get giddy everytime I shoot slide film and possibly waste some film with silly shots just so I can get it developed.  And if I love slides in 35mm, I go absolutely gaga over 120 slide film.  I can scan both and get a big enlarged version, but more fun is putting them on a light table and enjoying them in my hands at the kitchen table.  However, I've decided that my 35mm film for color would be Ektar 100 because I've really enjoyed it thus far and it is a little cheaper.  But occasionally I let myself forget the extra cost of development of slides and shoot a roll.  Ektar has lots of latitude so when I use sunny sixteen instead of a meter (my old rangefinder's doesn't function yet) I'm happy, and the colors are fantastic.  I've shot in 120 as well, but I just love the light box too much to shoot a color negative film in 120.  If I could do color prints at home, my opinion would change but with color I'm helpless so I don't care either way.

Veliva 50, 120 

Velvia 50, 120

Ektar 100, 35mm

Choosing tools

In the past 6 months I've shot 100 feet of Kodak Plus-X 125 in 35mm, Plus-X in 120, Ilford HP5 400 in 35mm and 120, Kodak TMax 100 and 400 in 120, Ilford Pan F 50 in 120, Ilford Delta 100 in 120, Ilford FP4 in 35mm, and recently was given 100 feet of Kodak Tri-X 400 as a birthday gift.  I've also shot two rolls of Ilfords SFX 200 in 35mm, one without the deep red filter and one with, but SFX is supposed to be a near infrared film, so I won't include it.  I bounced around some much because I was trying to find the best film for me, and it took some time because I had to learn what it was I was looking for.  Originally I wanted the best resolution with tons of sharpness all the time no matter what.  It wasn't until a lot of experimentation that I really learned what it was I wanted.  For 35mm I now am using Tri-X as it is very flexible, its a fast film, and it can be pushed quite a bit.  Its not the sharpest, or the highest resolution film, and I'm happy with that.  The only reason I went with Tri-X over the Ilford HP5 was because the local store didn't have HP5 in a bulk roll, and I couldn't tell much difference between the rolls of each I'd developed before deciding.  With shooting medium format, I'm still looking for the clarity of a high resolving film.  It was because of this that I originally went for TMax 100 and 400.  I've had bad luck with the film though, getting a pink tinge that goes beyond acceptable, or requiring washing times 4 times whats normal.  The pictures also lacked the amount of contrast I wanted, but I knew that was something I could fix later.  I'd given up on using TMax though because the development was such a pain for results I didn't like anyways.  I'd almost given up on black and white film in medium format altogether until I tried Delta 100.  I must say, I love Delta.  I haven't tried the 400 speed yet, but the 100 speed has given me great contrast and fantastic resolution.  If you're looking for a cooperative, high resolution film for medium format, give Delta 100 a try.

The difficulties of wet prints

I got a used enlarger from a camera repair store because I fell in love with the way the images would pop out on contact prints while I watched.  It was an Omega C700 and the shopowner couldn't find the correct negative holder for it.  I went home with a 35mm negative holder for an Omega B22 and went to work with a hammer so it would work.  Part of the reason I wanted to do wet prints myself was because I'm cheap and have spare time.  Because the correct negative holders cost the same as I paid for the entire enlarger, I instead cut a temporary 6x4.5 negative holder out of matte board.  It seemed to work fine.  I would just raise the head so the image was about an inch over the edge of the easel on each side, and the image would look fine.  Or so I thought.

Last night I did some 11x14 prints.  I have an inexpensive easel that does 3x5, 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10.  No more no less.  The enlarger also supports images up to 11x14.  The negative holder and the lens, and the lack of easel all made for a frustrating experience and subpar prints.  Its still worth it though just to see the image pop in the developer tray.  Anyone have an old C700 negative holder they don't use in either 35mm or 6x4.5?

Getting grain in film

Up until a week ago, my quest in photography was to create images devoid of grain.  After a healthy dose of perspective from another blog, I decided I wanted to see the grain.  Having recently finished 100' of slow speed film, I opted to waste my time fighting grain with my medium format camera and got a roll of high speed film.  The grain wasn't readily apparent, so I pushed it from ISO 400 to ISO 800.  I didn't see much grain.  I wasn't making huge images, I wasn't making wet prints, and I wasn't seeing the grain I wanted to see.  So I pushed to ISO 3200.  Due to finals getting in the way, it took a few days for me to develop the rolls I shot, and a little longer to actually get them scanned.

After the first batch of scans, I was dumbfounded.  Where was my grain?  It didn't seem like there was much more grain, so I checked my scan settings to make sure grain correction was off.  Then i checked my next image and I found my grain.

Despite being warned about the lack of shadow detail I was still caught off guard, especially because my black cat disappears in any shots with him not on a black background.  It also seems like some shots just get more grain than others.  Some I can't tell if I focused correctly, others look like they were barely pushed.

I feel silly

While my generation embraces the idea of blogging, it has never settled well with me.  While learning how to code web-based programming languages, I set up a blog, but quickly dropped it.  So here is another venture into the blogosphere.  I hope to share my experiences and what I have and will learn as I delve head over heels into photography.