Week 5 – Push it (Push it real good) – Arista EDU 400 (Push +1 Stop to 800)

January 30, 2015

It's funny to me how things work out sometimes. The roll that I loaded for this week actually ended up in the trash a few minutes after putting it into the camera. I realized that the film wasn't advancing through the camera, popped open the back, and then instead of rewinding just the leader I ended up rolling the entire roll back into the canister.

After a few awkward minutes of butter-knifing I decided it was a lost cause, loaded a fresh roll, and ordered a film extractor. Then I took the first shot actual shot on the new roll.

I have this sign on my wall, it just says "Make mistakes". Its a reminder that not every day will be perfect, and that sometimes you just have to experiment. That was what I accomplished with this roll. None of the following photos will be winning any awards any time soon for their content, but I still consider this a success because I feel I have a grasp now on pushing film during the development process. Enough yammering, onto the photos:

Developing Notes:
Arista EDU - 400 iso (Push +1 to 800 iso)
Recommended Development:
Rodinal 1:25 dilution
5.5 Minutes Development time at 70º
Used:
Rodinal 1:50 dilution (5ml in 250ml water)
16 Minutes Development time at 70º
Standard Fix - 4 Minutes
Used Photo Flo.

Very low contrast images (easily corrected in post), expected grain increase.

Wordpress and Tumblr Visit UNEXPhotography.com/52rolls for gallery below:

Week 4 – Rodinol and Robots – Arista EDU 100

January 23, 2015

Its been cold here in Atlanta. I know, Laugh all you want. Comparatively speaking our "cold" isn't nearly as cold as some other places around the world. And I'll admit after living in Montana for several years I am still mostly comfortable walking around without a jacket. However its still cold enough that I don't want to go outside in the windy-wetness-of-misery.

This week was all about experimentation. I tried to use all of the various lenses that came with the manual 35mm camera that I have been primarily shooting on. Not everything worked out exactly as planned, and it probably didn't help that I was trying to shoot indoors on 100 iso film mostly without a flash. But I still think I did ok for the most part, save for a few focus opportunities.

This was also my first time processing with Rodinol, and I have to say "where have you been all my life?". This is so much faster and easier than the caffenol process I am used to. I love it!

But without further ado, here are the images from this week. As always Tumblr/Wordpress users may need to visit UNEXPhotography.com/52rolls to see the gallery.

Obligatory cat photo.

Developing Notes:
Arista EDU - 100 iso
Recommended Development:
Rodinal 1:25 dilution
3.5 Minutes Development time at 70º
Used:
Rodinal 1:50 dilution (5ml in 250ml water)
7 Minutes Development time at 70º
Standard Fix - 4 Minutes
Used Photo Flo.

I was very happy with how this roll came out. Now I just need to conquer my dust problems.

52 Rolls – Week 3 Extras

January 16, 2015

Ok. So I just couldn't stop playing around with these two images. I couldn't figure out why the original scans just didn't look the way I wanted. Then I realized that even the best scanner can sometimes not reproduce things 100% correctly.

So I made a few changes through photoshop to adjust levels and curves and all that fun stuff, and I came up with these two final images. To see the originals please make sure to check out my 52 rolls blog at UNEXPhotography.com/52rolls.

Week 3 – Old Camera, Modern Flash – Fuji Superia X-TRA 400

January 16, 2015

Most of this roll (about half) was an experiment. The camera I'm using has an external flash port. The studio lights at my day job have a cable to hook into said flash port. So why not put 2 and 2 together. Using a digital camera as a light meter (since I didn't have one that could sync with the flashes) I composed a shot in our studio and had two of my co-workers step in as models.

The rest of this roll was from walking around work and shooting more "abstract landscapes" much like my test rolls.

Unicolor C-41 Kit:
Standard Everything.
See Week 2 post for more details.

Wordpress and Tumblr users visit UNEXPhotography.com/52rolls to see the gallery below:

Week 2 – Pack Faster Film – Kodak Max 800 (Expired)

January 09, 2015

So far so good. I am on schedule to make things happen this year. It's becoming harder than I expected already, not because of shooting and processing a roll a week, but more because I am trying to only shoot a single roll a week.

The following images were taken on New Year's Eve/Day using a roll of film that was given to me sometime within the last year or so. It hasn't and hadn't been kept in a temperature controlled environment so I had no idea how the images would come out. My only worry shooting it was thinking that I should have experimented with pushing it to 1600 iso. The only image I thought was properly exposed was of a lit up cigarette machine.

This was also my first attempt at home developing C41 film using this kit.

I read and watched everything I could to hopefully get everything right. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck the whole time. I have processed film before (See Week 1) using a Caffenol process, and in a darkroom during college, but this was my first time using a pre-made system that was very temperature specific.

UNICOLOR C-41 Powder kit:
Factory instructions/Dilution

Tumblr/Wordpress visit UNEXPhotography.com/52rolls to see the gallery