Now I’ve started scanning film, I’m having trouble stopping. The other day I found out a file of old negatives in my darkroom, shot mostly with my old Mamyia C330 on 120 Tri-X. I’d forgotten they existed, so it was a nice surprise. I’m now in the process of scanning and editing them. This should keep me busy for the most of lockdown, at any rate!
Here are a few so far, all of which were shot in 2008:
Old man at the bottom of the steps.
I like this old tree, it has plenty of character. It’s at the bottom of the steps, up to Mnt. Joy. 2008.
Mamiya C330, 80mm lense, Kodak Tri-X 400, Xtol 1+1, 8 minutes with 4 minute pre-soak, Canoscan 8800f and Vuescan x64, Edited in Exposure X5.Steps… lots of bloody steps.
These are the side steps up to Mnt. Joy. 2008.
Mamiya C330, 80mm lense, Kodak Tri-X 400, Xtol 1+1, 8 minutes with 4 minute pre-soak, Canoscan 8800f and Vuescan x64, Edited in Exposure X5.Parkhurst Trees 1
Mamiya C330, 80mm lense, Kodak Tri-X 400, Xtol 1+1, 8 minutes with 4 minute pre-soak, Canoscan 8800f and Vuescan x64, Edited (barely) in Exposure X5.
Also, today’s film scanning music is provided by The Black Keys 🙂
So, last time I said that I didn’t know how to scan film properly. Well, I’m not saying that I now know how to do it properly, but after 2 days of going through old negatives I’m getting a feel for it. Vuescan is now a friend.
I’m surprised by how many scans I like, for negatives I’d forgotten all about. I suppose they got developed, given the once over and then I went on to other shiny things.
Taken with my Diana F+, Ilford Hp5+ @ 400, Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 at 20C for 9 mins. Canoscan 8800f and Vuescan x64, Edited in Exposure X5.
It has however, given me a new taste for film photography again. I love the results I get from my Zeiss Ikon Nettar. A lovely little camera. It doesn’t lend itself to quick photography, but that’s not necessarily bad thing. Also, the Diana F+ is a bit of fun. In some ways, medium format is where it’s at for me, being the middle ground between small negatives and really bloody heavy cameras!
I’d love to do some more street photography, with film. For me, it’s a matter of confidence. I can take photos of people walking away from me, no probs, but if they’re heading in my direction, I chicken out!
Taken with my Diana F+, Ilford Hp5+ @ 400, Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 at 20C for 9 mins. Canoscan 8800f and Vuescan x64, Edited in Exposure X5.
I also can’t forget my old friend, the lensbaby. It adds a new approach to street photography, isolating a subject. I also lament the fact that my Petzval 55 MK II is a Z mount lense. It’s great on my Z6, but I’d love to be able to use it on my f100. That would be fun!
Anyway, I’ll be shooting more film and scanning it now. Once my darkroom is up and running again (I’ve not really been in the mood to sort it out) lith printing will resume too. I’ll finish with one last scan:
After shooting a roll of film, it doesn’t mean that that’s the end of it. I shot a roll. I developed it. And after developing it, I found there were major light leaks at some point. Could barely make out the frames and there were no details on the negative. Bugger. Had to shoot another roll to check it wasn’t the camera. It wasn’t. Either I’d cocked up, or there was a problem with the film.
I don’t know how to scan film…
I really don’t. Today I’ve spent some time scanning films with Vuescan. Sometimes I’ll get a good scan, sometimes I won’t. The silverfast demo gave me some better scans, but again, very hit and miss. This is something I’m going to have to teach myself. It doesn’t help that my scanner is getting a bit long in the tooth.
My darkroom isn’t clean enough…
When scanning my film, you notice all the blemishes. Lith printing is my preferred printing process, and it’s very forgiving of crap negatives. Scanning negatives however, is less forgiving. There’s dirt on the scanner, for sure, but there’s also dirt on the negatives. After drying the last film, I noticed there was a lot of dirt. Hairs even. Time to sort out the darkroom I think!
I have a soft spot…
I do love the Pentax ME Super. It was my second camera and when my old one died, I got a refurbished one from a popular auction site. Bought a 28mm lense for it, so I could go walkabout with it (not that I can now, with another lockdown in sight). I’m not sure if it was a good investment, as I seem to get very contrasty negatives from the SMC lenses.
Taken with a Pentax ME Super, with 28mm f/2.8 Pentax SMC-A lenses. Scanned with Canoscan 8800f, vuescan x64. Edited with Exposure X5.
The past, or the future?
I’ve started scanning my back catalogue of negatives too, as what often happens is I’ll choose a shot or two for lith printing, then abandon the other shots. Worth a punt anyway!
Taken with a Nikon f100, Lensbaby Composer and Sweet 35 Optic. Ilford Delta 400 @ 400, Ilford DD-X 1+4 @ 23C for 6 minutes. Canoscan 8800f, Vuescan x64. Edited with Exposure X5.
So, after a long period of not getting in the darkroom, I managed to get a session of lith printing a few days ago. It took longer than I thought for to get my eye back in, but I’m happy with a few of the prints.
I tried something a little different during this session, by using a higher concentration of developer, 40+40+1000 : A + B + Water, as compared to my usual 20+20+1000. I also used 200ml of old brown too (old, exhausted and oxidised developer) as compared to 20-40ml I’ve used in the past. I’ve found the addition of that much old brown gives colourful prints, earlier in the development cycle.
I’ve also enjoyed the shorted development times associated with this higher concentration developer, 6-8 minutes, as compared to 8-12+.
It’s a strange thing, waiting for a lith print to develop. I put on some music and sort of zone out, the process of waiting being almost trance like. Then as soon as the print is in the stop bath, and then the fixer, I become incredibly impatient. Minutes feel like hours. Eventually the time passes and I move the print to the water bath and turn on the lights.
Something I truly love about lith printing is the unpredictability of the process, something I’ve most likely mentioned before. Each time I make a print, I have a rough idea of what I’m after, but am quite often surprised!
Anyway, here are a few of the prints from this session.
Shot with a Nikon f100, Lensbaby Composer and the Edge 35 Optic on Ilford Delta 400 @ 400. Developed in Ilford DD-X 1+4 for 6 minutes @ 23 C. Border added in GIMP. Please excuse scan quality.
When I started playing with my large format camera the other day, I was fully expecting to have six beautiful negatives I could share here. Instead, I’ve had two crap negatives and the rest were completely unusable. So when it comes down to it, what went wrong?
Well I seem to be under exposing the negatives. But here’s the thing, I don’t know if it’s me or the shutter not working correctly. I’m also unsure how to compensate for a very extended bellows, so I’m just guessing.
On the interesting side of things, it’s forcing me to slow down and think. It’s been a while since I’ve really stopped to think about what zone something should be in. I’ve just relied on in-camera light meters and chimping it. I’ve had to slow down my process of taking a photo too. Check this, adjust that and play with the other. It’s enjoyable and frustrating at the same time! It’s very much like learning photography all over again.
The other downside in the darkroom is that it took an age to load the Mod 54, which last time was an absolute breeze. You win some, you lose some.
I’m posting the photos here, as much as a reminder of where I’m starting from as anything. So anyway, for your delectations, two very crap photos. Enjoy.
Wheelbarrow and box, Fomapan 100 in DD-X 1+4A rose leaf. Fomapan 100 in DD-X 1+4
Well I thought this would be a two part post, but it’s slipped over to three. I didn’t realise how much detail I wanted to provide and I didn’t quite realise how long it would take to write. Still very new to this blogging lark!
This is what you’ll need for the wet side of developing your film:
Developer (Ilford Ilfotec DD-X)
Stop Bath (Fotospeed SB-50)
Fixer (Fotospeed FX-30, Odourless)
Wetting agent (Ilford Ilfosol)
Measuring cylinders. These ones take 600ml. You can get bigger and smaller, the latter will help measuring smaller amounts of chemicals. A top tip is to label your cylinders (eg. Dev, Stop, Fix). Even pros can accidentally put the fixer in first!
Paterson triple timer. You can get analogue timers too, but I find that the Paterson digital ones are very resilient.
Syringes. Again, useful for measuring small amount of chemicals.
Thermometer. I prefer the digital probe type.
So, you should now have your film nicely tucked away in the tank and ready for development.
A quick mention of how the chemicals work. The developer develops the exposed silver in the film. The stop bath stops this process. The fixer removes excess, undeveloped silver from the film, preventing it from “developing out” in the light. You then need to wash the fixer off the film. Finally, you can use a wetting agent to help the film dry evenly. It’s also worth noting, some chemicals can be re-used and this is indicated as capacity of the chemical.
The first step is to mix your chemicals. If you look on the bottle, or the documentation for your chemicals, it’ll give you a ratio, such as 1+4. So for every 1 of one thing, there’s 4 of another, usually chemical to water. If you look on the bottom of your Paterson developing tank, it’ll tell you how much of the total mixture you’ll need to develop one roll of 35mm or 120 film. Since we’re just developing one 35mm film, you should need to mix up 290ml of solution.
So, assuming your chemical needs to be mixed at 1+4, you divide the total mixture by the total parts… in other words 290 / (1+4) or 290 / 5. This gives you 58. This is the 1 of the parts, so that’s 58ml of developer. You can add this to your measuring cylinder and then fill up to 290ml with water that’s 20 degrees C.
Now, you can develop at different temperatures, but 20 C is the “standard” temperature. Ilford provide a compensation chart for different temperatures.
If you’re really lucky, your water might come out at 20 degrees, but chances are it doesn’t. If you have a mixer tap, you should be able to get it right, but if like me you don’t, you just have to fill a container with warm and cold water until it’s “just right”. If you don’t want to do this (for instance, if you’re using deionized water in a bottle), you can fill a tray or large container with ice water or hot water and put your cylinder/s in it. This can take quite a while to get to the right temperature though and you will need to periodically stir it to get an even temperature.
Development info for Ilford Delta 100
You also need to know how long to develop your film for. This can also be found on your developer bottle or your film packet… but, your film or developer may not always be listed. This is where the Massive Dev Chart comes in. Select your film and developer on the left, click search and it will list time, dilutions, temperature, film size etc. Bookmark it, now!
Now you’re ready to go and in part 3, we will actually develop the film.
I’d like to preface this series of posts by saying, I’m not an expert. I’m self taught, through books, the internet and by making many, many mistakes. If I get something wrong, I’m happy to be corrected. I wanted to create something that a young me would have found helpful, which could also help someone just starting out.
The first step is quite simple and very complicated. You need to settle on a film and developer. When I first started developing my own, I wanted to try every film and every developer. The problem with this is, you don’t learn what works. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting, it just helps to focus down for a bit and find what gives you the results you’re after.
So, how do you choose a film and developer? There are many places that can explain this better than I. I would highly recommend “The Film Developing Cookbook”, which, while a bit out of date, is very helpful. To start off with, it may be worth sticking with a film and developer of the same brand, which are designed to work with each other. Don’t get me wrong, you can use most developers with most films, you can even mix your own developer, but as I said, sometimes focusing in is a good way to start and will remove unwanted variables.
Price may be an issue, especially if you shoot a lot. but budget options aren’t necessarily bad. Foma film is very usable and a hell of a lot cheaper than some of the other big brands. I shoot Ilford, but am moving to Foma for cost reasons.
What you need…
So, we’re now getting closer to the actual process of developing a film. There are yet more options: Steel tanks and reels for your film, or Paterson (or JOBO) plastic ones? Film extractor or bottle opener? This or that? I’m going to go with what I use.
The changing bag. It’s worth getting a good quality one, so you don’t risk exposing your film to the light. This is a large Paterson one.
The developing tank, where all the magic happens. Your film goes in on a reel and you pour the chemicals in. This is also a Paterson tank. You can get tanks of differing sizes. This tank takes 2 x 35mm films or 1 x 120 film.
This is a Paterson reel. Your film spools on here.
This is another Paterson reel, extended to develop 120 film. This is an advantage of the plastic reels over the steel ones.
Your 35mm film!
A bog standard bottle opener. You can buy special openers or things that retrieve the end of the film from the canister, but to be honest, this is cheaper and works just fine.
Scissors. Handy.
This is all the dry side kit you’ll need. The tank and changing bag are light tight, so you don’t need a darkroom to develop your film.
I highly recommend practising the process of loading the film on the reel, with an expired unexposed film, or film you don’t care about! Firstly with eyes open, secondly with your eyes closed. If you use the following instructions, you shouldn’t have too much trouble loading the film .
Step 1, use the bottle opener to take the bottom off the film canister.
Step 2, snip the end of the film leader off.
Step 3, snip the corners off the end of the leader. This makes it easier to load the film onto the reel.
Step 4, locate the guide notches (red) on the reel and slide the film between them. Then pull the film round until it passes the ball-bearing (yellow).
Step 5, where things get interesting. You need to hold each side of the reel and turn them in the opposite direction to each other and then back again. This will pull the film onto the reel. Keep doing this until you reach the end of the film.
Step 6, Snip the end of the film off the reel.
Step 7, Put the centre column from the developing tank through the reel and place the reel in the tank. Put the light-tight top into the tank and turn it clockwise to lock it in place. Then finally push the lid on.
That’s it! You’re ready to develop your film, which is covered in part 2.
Up Close And Personal 