B&W negatives from colour film

FujiLove

FujiLove

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There is a really interesting post on the APUG site by a guy who has been trying to produce usable B&W negatives from colour negative film. He seems to have cracked it by using dilute print developer followed by a reducer made from fixer and potassium ferricyanide bleach. I had a look at the cost of materials and it works out extremely cheap. Combine this process with Poundland film, and you probably have the cheapest B&W negatives in the world (assuming it works).

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/132580-how-obtain-quality-b-w-prints-color-negative-film.html
 
Interesting, will have to sit down and read through that monster post when I have time to filter the useful information!
 
It seems to be a rather complicated way of doing things. I just put 4ml of RO9 in a 300 ml tank and leave Poundland Vista to stand for an hour. The negatives are very dense and the scanner sometimes struggles to focus but it's even cheaper than buying those chemicals. I make no great claims for the artistic merits of this shot but I maintain the image quality is as good as those posted on the APUG site.



It does need a lot of contrast boosting in Gimp or equivalent, however the above shot was taken on a damp and gloomy day in London on my XA or XA3.
 
I have used Poundland film and a version of Caffenol using Twinings tea instead of coffee and got some acceptable results :

Henham Liptonole by wickerman6, on Flickr
 
I have also developed Poundland film in traditional Caffenol:

Cat on the wall (1) by wickerman6, on Flickr

Edit : actually I've just noticed that this was well expired Kodak Gold 100.
 
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wickerman said:
I have used Poundland film and a version of Caffenol using Twinings tea instead of coffee and got some acceptable results :

Henham Liptonole by wickerman6, on Flickr
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More than acceptable I would say. I'm just wondering if it would work just as well with tea from Poundland ? That way we could produce the ultiimate cheapskate's processing technique!
 
How easy were the caffenol ones to scan? Did they need much fiddling about with?
 
Thanks for the link. I saw it a few days ago but then couldn't find it yesterday when I wanted to show it to someone on a film photography FaceBook page.


Steve.
 
NickT said:
It seems to be a rather complicated way of doing things. I just put 4ml of RO9 in a 300 ml tank and leave Poundland Vista to stand for an hour. The negatives are very dense and the scanner sometimes struggles to focus but it's even cheaper than buying those chemicals. I make no great claims for the artistic merits of this shot but I maintain the image quality is as good as those posted on the APUG site.



It does need a lot of contrast boosting in Gimp or equivalent, however the above shot was taken on a damp and gloomy day in London on my XA or XA3.
Click to expand...

Were the negatives you developed using R04 good enough to print from using an enlarger? I think that was the aim of the guy that did the experimentation. He was aiming to create a good negative, rather than something which was useless unless converted to digital and post-processed. At least, that's how I interpreted the post.
 
wickerman said:
I have also developed Poundland film in traditional Caffenol:

Cat on the wall (1) by wickerman6, on Flickr

Edit : actually I've just noticed that this was well expired Kodak Gold 100.
Click to expand...

David - how about your dev using Caffenol? Did that produce a negative that was well balanced and suitable for enlarging, or was it very dense and only usable when converted to digital? I'd rather not mess about with the bleaching technique if you guys have already found a good method.
 
FujiLove said:
Were the negatives you developed using R04 good enough to print from using an enlarger? I think that was the aim of the guy that did the experimentation. He was aiming to create a good negative, rather than something which was useless unless converted to digital and post-processed. At least, that's how I interpreted the post.
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In truth, probably not. I don't have access to a darkroom these days, so I can't test it. I would think that you would need very high contrast paper, something that I have never had any experience of. Looking at the bleached negatives, I would have to say that the example negatives appear to have more contrast, although the positives show the highlights completely blown out.

I think £1 film and Rodinal followed by heavy post processing is good for a quick and dirty effort. If you are going to go to the trouble of having a darkroom, buying an enlarger and paper etc, what on earth is the point of using the wrong film for the sake of a £3 saving over a proper B/W film?
 
NickT said:
If you are going to go to the trouble of having a darkroom, buying an enlarger and paper etc, what on earth is the point of using the wrong film for the sake of a £3 saving over a proper B/W film?
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1. Because it's fun?

2. Because you have shot a roll of colour film and you later decide that you would prefer B&W prints. As I understand it (my enlarger is still waiting to be set up) making a B&W print off a colour negative isn't easy and doesn't produce great results.

3. Because you're completely skint after setting up all the other stuff in your darkroom ;-)
 


Taken on a car boot sale expired (2009) Boots disposable camera. Film cross processed as B/W in ID11. Photography doesn't get much cheaper. Even reached Flickr Explore. Camera cost me 20p.



Olympus Trip 35 and flash.
AgfaPhoto Vista Plus film from Poundland, home developed in Ilford ID-11.

I have a Flickr Album here, but I haven't tried much yet. I've only used ID11. I simply use bog standard b/w process, no frills. It's the digital scanner that makes it work. The negatives look horrible, which is why I haven't done more. I will most likely in the future though, and I want to try pushing some Poundland with R09 sometime - it is on my to-do list.

Why I do it? ECONOMY. Like a lot of people here, I have oodles of Poundland in the fridge freezer. I also keep picking up expired disposables at car boot sales for 50p or under. I don't like C-41 process, but I do like b/w process. The only put off is the ugly negative issue. Still, with Poundland film and b/w, you don't get much cheaper for film hybrid photography per image.
 
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Probably the answer is obvious but never thought about it:- If a 12 year old C41 colour film gives crap results being dev by C41, then is it going to be any better dev in B/W chemicals.
 
Poundland film and b/w home developing at around 4p per exposure inclusive of film cost and chems. Gives me my fix when I'm desperate. They do say that film photography is addictive don't they?
 
steveo_mcg said:
You wouldn't have to worry about colour shifts...
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Indeed...I have 3 rolls of 120 expired in 2002 that I've found, it's Superia but the quality is not very good although converting in PS to B/W looks better but still not good enough

 
excalibur2 said:
Indeed...I have 3 rolls of 120 expired in 2002 that I've found, it's Superia but the quality is not very good although converting in PS to B/W looks better but still not good enough

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You would struggle to even get the quality of the second in my experience cross processing.
 
steveo_mcg said:
You would struggle to even get the quality of the second in my experience cross processing.
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As we both know using old film (esp not stored correctly) usually gives a colour cast h'mm for me it seems to be magenta which is different to a normal colour cast on film as it seems to be embedded into the chemical structure in the film and very difficult to correct in PS as removing the magenta upsets the other colour\colours, and you correct for that and it upsets some other colour and you correct for that........ and it goes on:eek:. Well as it cost at least £3.50 to dev 120- C41, it's a lot cheaper to dev it in B/W and saves the hassle of juggling colours in PS.
 
Love the first one, Steve, it reminds me of a Box Brownie snap from me yoof!
 
Found some 2004 Jessops colour that has been in the loft for years. I wonder what mad colours will be produced?!
 
srichards said:
Found some 2004 Jessops colour that has been in the loft for years. I wonder what mad colours will be produced?!
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Well I've used quite a lot of old 35mm film, but logically I dunno why I use it when fresh Poundland film is available h'mm :rolleyes: .....old 120 is worth trying because it's more expensive, but avoid pro film that is meant to be used fresh at the time.
 
srichards said:
Found some 2004 Jessops colour that has been in the loft for years. I wonder what mad colours will be produced?!
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Could well be quite OK. I found a roll of kodak GC400 of similar vintage in my daughter's bedside drawer (her old room after she'd moved out). I suspect I shot it at 320, and the colours were fine; one shot was my January entry in POTY13, another I used in my 52!
 
srichards said:
Found some 2004 Jessops colour that has been in the loft for years. I wonder what mad colours will be produced?!
Click to expand...

I recently home processed a roll that had sat in a drawer for about 13 or 14 years and it came out okay. There was a slight magenta cast, but that could have been my wonky processing (was still practising) and the scanner. ColorPerfect fixed most of the colour issues in the raw scans.
 
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