Tag Archives: kodak

Anybody Need an Album Cover?

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When i line up my photographic dreams they make quite the parade.

Depending on the day, i either want to be: shooting for 23 envelope; floating around under the south china sea cataloging coral reefs for future generations (but with a little more style than your average marine biologist); hiking through the mountains of japan shooting buddhist statuary…

That’s a lot of dreams for a man who tends not to leave the house five days a week.

Tri-X in Rodinal

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The death of Presto has moved my good friend, and mentor, Thomas, onto Tri-X. I was earnestly trying to convince him that if he wanted interesting grain, he should have a go at developing it in Rodinal. It’s something of a struggle to explain the differences, and no doubt, almost entirely subjective.

The easiest thing is an example, so here is an extreme case:

(click to see it a little larger)

Tri-X in Rodinal @ 20ºC for 13mins. Gentle agitation for the first 30s, and for 5s every minute. Taken using a 6×9 back on a 4×5 Pacemaker Speed Graphic, and an 8″ Dallmeyer-Pentac f/2.9 lens.

Pink Negatives

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I’ve been developing quite a lot of Kodak T-Max 400 recently. One of the problems with the negatives is that they have a purple-ish / pink tint after being fixed. The Kodak support page says the following:

Important: Your fixer will be exhausted more rapidly with these films than with other films. If your negatives show a magenta (pink) stain after fixing, your fixer may be near exhaustion, or you may not have used a long enough time. If the stain is slight, it will not affect image stability, negative contrast, or printing times. You can remove a slight pink stain with KODAK Hypo Clearing Agent. However, if the stain is pronounced and irregular over the film surface, refix the film in fresh fixer.

which suggests to me that the fixing time for Fuji Super Fix is probably longer than the 6mins that i’ve been using… or the fix is close to used up. The latter doesn’t seem likely to me, as the last couple of rolls of Neopan that i developed came out perfectly grey. Although, it does warn that it uses up developer faster than usual film, and the rolls that Manny processed were fine. All very confusing.

It could also be that there is some important difference between the Fuji QuikWash and the Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent… but that doesn’t seem very likely.

The next rolls of T-Max that i process can sit in the Fixer for a good ten minutes! If that doesn’t sort it, it can go in a fresh batch, and at least i’ll know.

Pushing Up

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Didn’t develop any film this weekend. Seem to have been too busy to shoot much over the last couple of weeks. Which is somewhat of a problem as i’m signed up to produce things for two projects…

There are several themes that i’d like to develop, some are new things, some are refinements of things i’ve tried before, one is something that i just need to keep plugging away at until the right things happen.

I’m fascinated with the use of time and movement in photography right now. The idea that time and movement combined distort form, make monsters against the backdrop of a stationary scene. Visions of dark forms flowing out of subway entrances… need to work out how to execute this as a shot.

Could be suggested that i’m reading too much Lovecraft…