EdBray
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- Edward Bray
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This was a test shot with my latest aquisition a Fuji GX680 MkII using a 125mm lens (with full upward shift) and using Agfa's Rollei Retro 80S 120 film with this frame rated at ISO200. The exposure would have been 1/125 sec at f20. I had used the full upward shift available on the camera to negate the effect of my shooting 'uphill' and enabling me to keep the camera level. I was very pleased with this as the image exhibits no vignetting at all so can assume that the lens has an even greater coverage than that required to cover the full range of available movements on the camera.
The film was exposed at various ISO's from it's nominal ISO80 up to this ISO200 frame. This frame was the best of those exposed and still shows that when developed as this was using the Caffenol CL formula (500mls distilled water, 8g Sodium Carbonate, 5g Vitamin C, 0.6g Potassium Bromide and 20g of Tesco's Really Rich Roast Coffee) at 21 degrees C for 65 minutes using a semi-stand technique after a 5 minute water bath the developer was introduced with 30 secs continuous agitation initially, then 3 further inversions after a further 2 mins, 4 mins, 8 mins, 16 mins and a final stage of 34.5 mins before discarding the developer, this was followed by 3 water washes before a 5 minute fix in an Alkali fixer. The film was finally washed for 5 minutes with continuous agitation using fresh water changes every 30 seconds before being dried in my film dryer.
First impressions of the negatives were that they looked a 'bit heavy' and suspect that even with the ISO200 frame there is a little scope for going a bit higher. The negatives also look overdeveloped and the frame numbers back this up by being very 'black and fuzzy'. The biggest surprise for me though was the amount of curl that the film had, this was further brought to light as a definite disadvatage of this film as it was a real PITA to try to get to lay nicely in the film holder's of my Epson V750 scanner. Fortunately I have purchased the 'Better Scanning' MF film holder for my scanner with 2 pieces of AN glass which by inserting the film upside down in the holder and using the AN glass to flatten enabled a decent scan to take place. The image was flipped back to the correct orientation in PP. The very pleasing attributes of this film though do give hope for it's use when developed this way as it has excedingly fine grain and a beautiful tonal range.
The image was scanned at a resolution of 6400dpi using the latest Vuescan software (also my first time of using this as I usually use SilverFast AI Studio V8) and the image has only had some USM applied in PP, the image is other wise as 'shot and scanned'.
So where do I go from here, I am going to try some more Rollei Retro 80S (particularly as I have another 4 rolls in the fridge) but will rate it at ISO250, I will also reduce the dev time in Caffenol CL by 10% keeping everything else the same.
It is a pity that the film has this awful curl as It would make a really great 'day to day film, especially with it's bias towards Red (which has been well documented) giving an effect of having an Orange filter on your lens and bringing out the Blue tone of the sky in a very natural way. I am hoping the film curl will reduce after being flattened for a while under a pile of books.
New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
100% crops from image above
100% crop chimney 6400dpi from New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
100% crop 6400dpi from New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
The film was exposed at various ISO's from it's nominal ISO80 up to this ISO200 frame. This frame was the best of those exposed and still shows that when developed as this was using the Caffenol CL formula (500mls distilled water, 8g Sodium Carbonate, 5g Vitamin C, 0.6g Potassium Bromide and 20g of Tesco's Really Rich Roast Coffee) at 21 degrees C for 65 minutes using a semi-stand technique after a 5 minute water bath the developer was introduced with 30 secs continuous agitation initially, then 3 further inversions after a further 2 mins, 4 mins, 8 mins, 16 mins and a final stage of 34.5 mins before discarding the developer, this was followed by 3 water washes before a 5 minute fix in an Alkali fixer. The film was finally washed for 5 minutes with continuous agitation using fresh water changes every 30 seconds before being dried in my film dryer.
First impressions of the negatives were that they looked a 'bit heavy' and suspect that even with the ISO200 frame there is a little scope for going a bit higher. The negatives also look overdeveloped and the frame numbers back this up by being very 'black and fuzzy'. The biggest surprise for me though was the amount of curl that the film had, this was further brought to light as a definite disadvatage of this film as it was a real PITA to try to get to lay nicely in the film holder's of my Epson V750 scanner. Fortunately I have purchased the 'Better Scanning' MF film holder for my scanner with 2 pieces of AN glass which by inserting the film upside down in the holder and using the AN glass to flatten enabled a decent scan to take place. The image was flipped back to the correct orientation in PP. The very pleasing attributes of this film though do give hope for it's use when developed this way as it has excedingly fine grain and a beautiful tonal range.
The image was scanned at a resolution of 6400dpi using the latest Vuescan software (also my first time of using this as I usually use SilverFast AI Studio V8) and the image has only had some USM applied in PP, the image is other wise as 'shot and scanned'.
So where do I go from here, I am going to try some more Rollei Retro 80S (particularly as I have another 4 rolls in the fridge) but will rate it at ISO250, I will also reduce the dev time in Caffenol CL by 10% keeping everything else the same.
It is a pity that the film has this awful curl as It would make a really great 'day to day film, especially with it's bias towards Red (which has been well documented) giving an effect of having an Orange filter on your lens and bringing out the Blue tone of the sky in a very natural way. I am hoping the film curl will reduce after being flattened for a while under a pile of books.
New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
100% crops from image above
100% crop chimney 6400dpi from New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
100% crop 6400dpi from New Camera, New Film and a Coffee by Ed Bray, on Flickr
the only way is up from 6x7