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Showing posts from April, 2018

A New Method for Processing X-Ray Film

Anybody shooting large format film today knows that film is extraordinarily expensive. A sheet of 8x10" black & white film will run anywhere from $3 to $10. Those interested in ultra large format photography have come up with various ways of shooting on a budget: paper negatives, lith film, and X-ray film. X-ray film costs anywhere from $.50 to $2/8x10" sheet. When you first think of X-ray film, you might imagine a film capable of seeing through surfaces. But get your mind out of the gutter! For the conventional photographer, X-ray film has some quirks. But if anything those quirks limit what the film sees, not expands. X-ray films typically are orthochromatic. Much like films in the really olden days, they are not sensitive to the red spectrum. For your photography, that means a really red rose will look blackish. For portraiture, that means that freckles and zits will look darker than they do, so keep that in mind. A big plus to orthochromatic films is that they c

Semi Stand Development in HC-110

The use of Rodinal is most common with Semistand Development. I've been playing with Semistand development on and off for a while with the more common Rodinol. Yesterday I gave HC110 a try. And I liked it. Dilution: (from syrup): 1:120 Temperature: unmeasured Prewash: time unrecorded (maybe 5 minutes) Time: 40 minutes Inversion: first 30 seconds or so, then one more time roughly 20 minutes (half way) into development Equipment used: My old trusty JOBO 4x5 drum, Kodak HC-110 (duh!), Lauder fix, lots of water Film(s): these show only Fomapan (Arista.edu) 4x5 samples, but the exact same shots were done with outdated Agfapan 100, Kodak Plus-X Pan, and Tri-X professional (320) Camera: Toyo (Omega) 45d with Fuji Fujinon 250mm f6.3 and Caltar IIn (Rodenstock Sironar N) 150mm f5.6 Scanner: Epson V700 All in all, I was quite happy with the results. Density of negatives was pretty good. I actually shot two of each motif on four different types of films and processed t