PolyPan F and C-C-M

Luck would have it that I was given 10 or so rolls of 135 PolyPan F (evidently an Ilford cine film, 50 ASA with little or no anti-halation layer). Using input from fellow Caffenol experimenters on Apug and Flickr I went ahead and exposed two rolls at ISO 100, and developed in straight Caffenol-C-M, for 16 minutes at 20C. One roll agitated as usual (12 inversions first minute, 3 every top of the minute thereafter), the other agitated as usual until the 12th minute, then let stand.

Can't say I could see any difference between the two. Both were a tad over-developed. And rather grainy too. Though nothing to have a nervous breakdown over. Notice the halo effect around strong light sources, due to the lack of anti-halation layer.



PolyPanF, EI100, Caffenol-C-M, 16minutes, Leica M4-2 and VC Ultron 28 f1.9

 

PolyPanF, EI100, Caffenol-C-M, 16minutes, Leica M4-2 and VC Ultron 28 f1.9



PolyPanF, EI100, Caffenol-C-M, 16minutes, Leica M4-2 and VC Ultron 28 f1.9

PolyPanF, EI100, Caffenol-C-M, 16minutes, Leica M4-2 and VC Ultron 28 f1.9

PolyPanF, EI 100, Caffenol-C-M, 16minutes, Leica M4-2 and VC Ultron 28 f1.9

I think this film has potential. These examples were rather strong in contrast, and needed a bit of work in post processing after scanning. Others have had better luck than I. Probably because they haven't pushed the film. Evidently it doesn't take to well to pushing. Next rolls will be exposed at EI 50 and developed for maybe 12 minutes. Or maybe 14 minutes, and semi-stand (agitate as normal until 8 minutes or so, then let stand - might need a spot of KBr for that - avoid streaking). We'll see.

Polaroids - yes instant film

I´ve recently started trying out instant pack film. Though Polaroid no longer make film, others do. Fuji make pack film for 4x5 and the 100 type film (3 1/4" x 4 1/4"). The Impossible project make another variant of films for the 600 type cameras including the SX-70 family and for Polaroid backs (for a number of MF cameras - the 600/600SE pro cameras amongst others).

I blame Michael Raso at the Filmphotographyproject.com for this, its his fault and his alone ;-) He´s an advocate for all things Polaroid. Making a long story short I got hold of a Land Camera 250 in original case with #268 M3 bulb flash and portrait lens kit. I first converted the camera to use 3xLR03/AAA batteries instead of the arcane #531 4.5V battery. I then removed the #268 flash from its mount and screwed on a hot shoe with PC sync chord. I can now use the kit with any electronic flash I choose. So far I´ve used the Sunpak 1600M, but due to limited output I will be trying out an SB26 instead. What about M vs X sync you say? And you would be right. The X sync flash should have finished it´s cycle when the M sync shutter opens making the flash redundant, but for some reason or another it works.

This is what the camera looks like:

With Sunpak 1600M

With case and accessories

It´s winter and for the most part not much daylight. So Fuji´s FP3000B B+W film has been put through its paces. At 3000 ASA, it can be used both indoors and out handheld, without flash (at least that´s what the ads say) - even if the Land Camera 250 (and all its automatic brethren) has a max aperture of f8.8). Indeed it does work outdoors in rather poor light, indoors however I´ve been using flash.

Indoors, with portrait kit and Sunpak 1600M

4 TLRs shot with Land Camera 250, FP3000B, Sunpak Flash

Outdoors in overcast low light, adjusted camera to +1 (lighten) exposure

Land Camera 250, FP3000B +1EV

This is fun, lots of fun. Its immediate, yet old school. I´ve ordered more film, including a few cases of FB100C 100ASA colour film.

Background for those unfamiliar with Polaroid pack film Land Cameras, and instant pack film:

The Land cameras are named after their inventor, the Polaroid mastermind Edwin Land. Read up about him, he was a brilliant mind, and one of Steve Jobs´greatest inspirations. He invented not only polarising glass, and founded the Polaroid company, at one time a massive company in any right. He also invented instant film photography. Pack film applies a method where a negative and positive are co-developed. After exposing a frame one pulls the pair out of the camera through a set of rollers which squeezes chemicals out of a sachet and in between the negative and print (positive) and development starts. Wait for a number of seconds and peel the print from the negative and you have a ready image. Its as easy as that. The negative can in some cases (some films) be kept and used for scanning. And others even for regular enlargement printing. The FP3000B B+W negative can be scanned as a negative reflective media, and then inverted in post processing. The TLR picture above is such a scan.

With regards to technical quality Polaroids do not exactly make claim to the top spot. But that is besides the point. Its immediacy is its party trick. I indeed intend to use it a parties and give away the prints, keeping the negatives for scanning.

Good Polaroid film resources: Filmphotographyproject.com , The land list , Jim´s Polaroid Camera Collection , Fuji Film (note that Instax films are not traditional Polaroid type, but another instant technology) and The Impossible Project films

Some catching up to do

Summer has been about all things not Caffenol, or anything DIY at all. Not had the time nor energy to do much testing. Though a few films have been given the once over.

Those that met with success are:

In 135:
Efke KB100, EI200 in Caffenol-C-M (RS), 14 min @ 20C

Leica M4-2, Voigtländer Ultron 28 f1.9, Efke KB100, Caffenol-C-M (RS)

Leica M4-2, Voigtländer Ultron 28 f1.9, Efke KB100, Caffenol-C-M (RS)

ERA100 @ EI100, Caffenol-C-M,13:30min @ 20C

Royal 35-M, ERA 100, Caffenol-C-M

Royal 35-M, ERA 100, Caffenol-C-M

Agfa APX 400, Caffenol-C-H, 13min @ 20C

Leica M4-2, VC Ultron 28mm/f1.9. APX 400, Caffenol-C-H

In 120:

Fuji Neopan 400 @ EI400, Caffenol-C-L semistand, 60min @ 20C. Forgot to add bromide, and yet the negatives came out without streaks and the base fog was well under control. Strange.

Kalloflex K2, Neopan 400, Caffenol-C-L

Kalloflex K2, Neopan 400, Caffenol-C-L

Ilford Delta 400 @ EI800, Caffenol-C-L, 5min presoak, 60min semistand @ 20C

Kalloflex K2, Delta 400, Caffenol-C-L

Lately had a couple of mishaps with Caffenol-C-L. I think I know why. Storing ready mixed solutions for a long time may work with the more concentrated versions, but not for C-L. There you need freshly made solutions, the tolerances are much lower, and any oxidisation or depletion of the substances will have a big effect on the result. C-M/H versions are much more robust to variations in pH.

Caffenol-C-L and TMX 135

Have not done much 135 film since I started using film again. Used to large negatives and the lovely results this gives you, I thought I'd try to give the smaller format a fighting chance to prove itself against its bigger brother. For that I brought out low pH Caffenol, the C-L version championed by Reinhold over on the Caffenol.blogspot.com

As before, C-C-L mixed by the book:
16g/l Sodium carbonate
10g/l Ascorbic acid
40g/l Instant coffee
1.25g/l Potassium Bromide

5 minute tempered presoak. Semi stand @20C for 70 minutes. 12 inversions initially, 2 inversions at the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 minute markers. Let stand for the duration.

Pictures taken from a test roll through the Royal 35-M, EI100 - no filter.

Drammen Docks, Norway, Royal 35-M, TMX, EI100, C-C-L

Drammen Docks, Norway, Royal 35-M, TMX, EI100, C-C-L

Near Drammen Docks, Norway, Royal 35-M, TMX, EI100, C-C-L

And the results? Quite pleased really. The grain certainly is quite fine, the tones are nice and subtle. Any deficiency in the quality of the pictures is most likely due to my rather puny scanner as much as anything else.

Caffenol-C-L - low pH semi stand

I´ve not tried Reinhold´s stand version of Caffenol yet. I´m probably not patient enough to wait for an hour or more for the film to develop, especially since my results with normal agitated development has been quite successful. So far, so good. However a new (old) film has dropped into my life requiring investigation. A fellow Caffenol experimenter has donated a number of films to me, and next on my list is the now discontinued Rollei Retro 400 (a.k.a. Agfa APX 400). I´ve read previously that this film is both grainy (in most developers) and quite  difficult to get good results in Caffenol. If there ever was an opportunity to try out the advantages of the low pH version, often used for slower films like PanF, Adox 25, Efke 25 etc, I  couldn´t think of one. The advertised pros being smaller grain, better tonal range, as in better control over the highlights, better shadow detail, smooth tonal gradation (the list goes on).

Not that these qualities will be unequivocally confirmed once I´ve developed the film, since I´ve not a baseline to which I can compare the results to, the film being new to me. Not to worry, if it comes out OK, it comes out OK.

I read up on different 400 ASA films in Caffenol-C-L. As with other developers they tend to favour slightly shorter development times than ASA 100 films. After a bit of thought I decided to expose at box speed, and develop semi stand for 60 minutes @ 20C.

However, it was a warm evening, and the temperature of the mix slowly rose to 21C before the time was up, so I cut the development short at 56min. The C-L mix is a low pH version with decidedly lower concentrations of both sodium carbonate and vitamin-C (ascorbic acid):

Sodium carbonate: 16g/l (8.6g for a 600ml mix)
Ascorbic acid: 10g/l (6g for a 600ml mix)
Instant coffee: 40g/l (24g for a 600ml mix)
Potassium bromide: 1.2g/l (720mg for a 600ml mix)

You need a restrainer regardless of film when doing stand or semi stand development, or you will get fog. The amount varies according to film and length of development. I guessed and added 1.2g/l potassium bromide.

Semi stand developed, in this case agitated 12 times initially, then three agitations at minutes 2, 4, 8, 15 and 30. Then let stand for the remaining 30 minutes (or 26 as it turned out).

Did the negatives turn out OK? Surprisingly, yes.

Three of the better shots to prove it:

Kalloflex K2, Rollei Retro 400, EI 400, Caffenol-C-L, semi-stand, somewhere in Norway

Kalloflex K2, Rollei Retro 400, EI 400, Caffenol-C-L, semi-stand, Old Skoger Church, Norway

Kalloflex K2, Rollei Retro 400, EI 400, Caffenol-C-L, semi-stand, Drammen, Norway

More on Reduced Sodium Carbonate C-M

A note: The idea of a reducing the pH of Caffenol-C-M and H is not new. Some claim ownership to the idea, I find that rather pretentious, its not as if one mind and one mind only can come up with such an idea. Caffenol is all about experimenting after all. Not to mention that there are many shades of grey in such a matter, exactly how much one should reduce the pH to gain best results is a matter of taste. For the avoidance of doubt I hacked out my recipe in cooperation with Mike Overs (flickrID: mikeinlagardette). I´ve decided to call it Caffenol-C-M (RS), as it is still based on Reinhold´s (caffenol.blogspotcom) recipe, the honour is his. Mike himself uses a version with even lower levels of sodium carbonate, which I very well might have a go at myself at a later date.

My first two films to be developed in a reduced sodium carbonate version of Caffenol-C-H or M were HP5+ and GP3. Both came out very nicely, and showed some of the qualities I´ve been looking for ever since I found out I had in fact developed a film in a low pH Caffenol (by accident) early on in my experiments. The main quality I´m looking for is smoother gradation of the middle and lighter tones. The aforementioned films are very nice, but are as yet not my primary films of choice.

Acros and TMX have been my mainstays since the beginning, and I still prefer them to most other films I´ve tried. I thought I´d share a few examples of both films taken over the last month or so:

Rolleiflex 2.8E3, Acros (120) , EI 100, Caffenol-C-M (RS) 11:30min @ 20C

Pentax SP1000, Takumar SMC 50/f1.4, TMX (135) in Caffenol-C-M (RS), 13min @ 20C

Rolleiflex 2.8E3, Acros (120), EI 100, Caffenol-C-M (RS) 11:30min @ 20C

Rolleiflex 2.8E3, TMX( 120), EI 100, Caffenol-C-M (RS) 14min @ 20C

Flexaret Va, TMX (120), EI 100, Caffenol-C-M (RS) 14min @ 20C

Pentax SP1000, Takumar SMC 50/f1.4, TMX (135) in Caffenol-C-M (RS), 13min @ 20C

I Adore, the 6x17 camera

The "I Adore" front (notice the sliding back door cover protruding from the side handle)

When I built my first DIY camera I started the project with the intention of building a 6x17. Somewhere down the road I convinced myself that building a multi format camera would be a better idea. Sooner or later I had to rectify this misconception. Don´t get me wrong, I loved building the 4x5/6x12 P+S, but I have to try out 6x17 one way or the other. The idea resurfaced one evening when looking at two bottles of Cognac in their wooden cases. The cases looked to be a good starting points for a panoramic camera. There had be some rather peculiar design points. For one the back has to have to slide into place, meaning the pressure plate has to have to be detached from the back. I had to make a light box/mask that can be removed in order to gain access to the film spools (tight fit). I´ve scrounged parts from an old Genos Rapid, the film rollers, the film tensioners, the red film counter window, the winder knob and so on. I've used the same lens and helical (mounted on a Linhof lens board) as for the P+S. Getting the thing light tight was the main challenge, but hey - thats half the fun. Luckily an acquaintance of mine has sent me 10 rolls of expired film I can play around with for testing purposes.

The A E Dor ( I Adore ) case was the better of the two and formed the basis for the light tight chamber. i chamfered the front corners and crafted two hardwood handles for the side walls, one of which has a slit to accept the sliding rear door. I clad front, top and bottom in oak. I made a combined chambre noir and film gate, removable in order to gain access to the film spool holders (very tight fit), the pressure plate can't be attached to the rear door, so is also removable. Not much to it really.

Some more pictures:

And the first test picture. Forgive the scanning artifacts, I don't have a film holder for 6x17 negs, so it was scanned straight of the glass.

Sande bay, Norway, "I Adore" 6x17, HP5+, EI 400, Caffenol-C-H (RSA) 13min @ 20C, 4min presoak