Hole-y Film Wholly Developed at Home

GW690II_Delta400_002

 

Finally got around to developing some film at home! Had a roll of 35mm film from this summer that I jury rigged to run in my Fuji GW690II (a 6×9 medium format rangefinder, colloquially called the “Texas Leica” due to it’s size), to get the exposed sprocket holes (hence the title). Since the camera normally expects a larger size film, I had to run a strip of paper in there so that the camera would cock the shutter. Unfortunately, the paper strip tore, so I only ended up with a couple of usable frames before the camera stopped cocking the shutter. Also, another downside… Since the film takes up a smaller portion of the frame, it’s really hard to compose (sorry about that eye patch in the photo below, Ashley).

 

GW690II delta400 001

 

Stand development with Rodinal was pretty easy. I used a dilution ratio of about 1:100, agitated at the beginning, and let it sit for an hour, while agitating halfway through. Rinsed, fixed, rinsed again, and hung to dry. While temperature doesn’t matter, try not to let it shift too much. I used water that was a little too warm to start (about 100 degrees f), and by the end, it dropped about 20 degrees. Which I think gave me some gradation in development (you can see some the bottom of the film is lighter). In any case, I’d say it was an overall success for my first time developing my own film in 20 years (and even then, had only done a couple rolls in high school)!

 

Ilford Delta 400. Scanned with Epson 4490.

Chicago by Film…

I took these photos back in August/September of 2012. I had just picked up my first medium format SLR, the Bronica ETRSi, with a few lenses. I was excited to try it out, and because I had a few friends in town, I had some willing subjects.  I really liked how they turned out; the quality turned out pretty nice. These were shot on Kodak Portra 400, 220 film, and photos were developed and scanned by a lab. I made some adjustments in lightroom, but nothing too drastic (one I converted to B&W, because I screwed up the exposure so badly). The Bronica doesn’t have a built in light meter (although, you can buy a prism viewfinder with it built in), but, not to worry, there’s an app for that! I used the light meter app on my iphone to get a good approximation of exposure settings, and it worked really well!

8000NEG0003 8000NEG0006 8000NEG0011 8000NEG0013 8000NEG0014 8000NEG0016 8000NEG0019 8000NEG0026 8000NEG0027 8000NEG0028 8000NEG0001 8000NEG0002