That vertical streak running parallel to the utility pole in the upper right of the frame is a flaw in the surface of the emulsion. It isn’t a scratch. It’s more like a ridge. I’m assuming it’s a manufacturing flaw of some kind. It runs across 4 frames on this roll. So far, this is the only quality control issue I’ve seen in the 8 rolls of Adox that I’ve developed. I’ve been impressed enough with CHS 100 that I’ve ordered 10 rolls of CHS 50. More on this subject later.

Hexar RF, 50 Hex, Adox 100, Xtol 1+1, 70F, 8 minutes

This is from my first batch of Adox CHS 100 Art. More to come.

Nature’s histogram?

A couple of weeks a ago I bought a copy of ColorNeg. Colin has written extensively about using ColorNeg with VueScan’s raw scans, so I thought I’d give it a shot. The trial version of the plugin is pretty much worthless as it obscures the results with a heavy grid of noise, but I plumped down my sixty bucks anyway. I was quickly disappointed. Although ColorNeg worked wonders with some scans, with others it turned out flat, muddy junk. ColorNeg’s manual suggest that non-linear scans are to blame for poor results. I’d been scanning in 16 bit linear mode on my Scan Dual IV, but I thought it was possible that the scans weren’t truly linear. That ‘linear’ scans using the negative and positive settings didn’t look exactly the same lent some credence to this hypothesis. In hopes of getting truly linear scans, I plunked down another $80 for VueScan Pro. Ah, now that works.

Has Kate seen the light too?

Call me a convert. After years of dismissing VueScan as irrelevant at best, I’ve discovered what many already knew; VueScan’s raw scanning feature is the bomb for B&W. If you let VueScan do the inversions, it’s no better than any other scanner software, but the raw scans are something else entirely. The raw Tiffs are all bunched up in the highlights, but they expand nicely, much more so than simple positive scans. I suspect that this means I will no longer have to result to underdevelopment to protect the highlights in my negs, which should help shadow detail, something that suffered with my previous technique. A little extra PS work is required, and there is room for error here, but in the end, the raw scans make scanning much more predictable. In some ways, it’s more like working in a darkroom; I can tell by looking at the negative how I should work it in PS, something which wasn’t always possible before.

After a night of celebrating the glories of VueScan

I should note at this point that I still haven’t had much luck with ColorNeg. It does work, but not significantly better than doing the inversions and adjustments on my own. It does seem to work better with TriX and HP5 than with Delta 400, which makes me suspect that its gamma is geared towards working with films with a more traditional curve than the straight line T grain films. I haven’t played around with it enough to be sure.

Filed under Doh!

Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, Delta 400, Xtol 1+1 (straight Xtol seems to give more shadow detail)

• A funny Pentax commercial.
• Everything you need to know about scanning B&W: this saves me from having to write up my own notes on B&W scanning.
• Apparently the ‘G’ in G9 stands for gateway drug.
• A neat photo. I sometimes wish I understood color better.
• Steve Williams’ 3 Prints Project makes me want to go back to wet printing, but rigging up an enlarger and developing trays in a 750 square foot apartment is a bit tough. I wonder if the landlord would let me curtain off a section of the basement? See Steve’s latest here.

Unrelated Photo of Cold Weather #1

One of the joys of analogue photography is that you rarely know what you’ve done wrong until long after the picture has been taken. No matter how rigorous your procedures, analogue always remains a bit dodgy. Film gets loaded wrong. Developer goes bad. Negatives get scratched. Etc. Etc. Etc. Of all the things that can go wrong, few of them are detectable at the moment you take the picture, leaving you free to enjoy the act of snapping the shutter.

Unrelated Photo of Cold Weather #2

This thought came to me yesterday while I was walking around in 30 MPH winds with freezing fingers and ears, practically giggling to myself as I snapped pictures of the freezing rain blowing across the fields. Work had taken me out to the far edge of campus, where all mid-western colleges turn into farm stations. The weather had turned from a sticky, foggy 60 F to a windy, nasty 30 F in just a few hours. The fog was freezing. Visibility was low. And the dirt road lined with telephones polls was suddenly a thing of beauty. So too the frosty fields and the wind itself. I couldn’t help borrowing a few minutes from the State of Illinois to quickly shoot half a roll (I’ll come in early some morning later this week to make it up to them).

Unrelated Photo of Cold Weather #3

I have no idea if the pictures are any good, and I won’t know until I get a chance to develop the roll this weekend. Until then, I’m content to believe they turned out gorgeous. Who says photography is just about results?

Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, HP5@800, Ilfosol S 1+14


Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, HP5@200, Tmax Dev 1+9


Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, HP5@400, Ilfosol S 1+14

HP5 is plastic in the best sense of that word. If the digital camera manufacturers release some rogue virus that destroys every emulsion except for HP5, I could happily continue shooting B&W, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

BTW, you shouldn’t interpret that as meaning HP5 will be the only thing I’m shooting. I’ve souped my last roll of it for a while, and a pile of Delta 400 and TriX is waiting in the wings.

HP5 @ 200 in Ilfosol S for 5.5 minutes at 68 degrees looks something like Efke 400 with slightly better shadow detail. These took a bit more PS work to get here than HP5@200 in Tmax. The contrast was higher and the shadows fell apart easier. Hmm, interesting, but perhaps not a winning combination.

Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, Delta 3200 @ 800, Ilfosol S

All forums and other fonts of internet wisdom indicate that this should be a terrible combination. Ifosol S is reportedly not suited for high speed films, but the local art shop had a bottle, and I couldn’t resist. Two rolls is too small a sample size to tell, but I think this looks kind of cool. Grainy, definitely, but there’s a nice gradation in the midtones, contrast is well under control for ISO 800 and shadow detail is not bad. Overall, this was a fun experiment, and a productive enough one that I’ll probably order some more Delta 3200 and maybe some Neopan 1600 with my next film order. Marginal light photography can be interesting as long as you keep your expectations in line. And grain is good for winter.

For all those that have been wondering about the one lens, one film experiment, it’s still under way, although the parameters have changed. The real purpose of the experiment was to learn something more about scanning and post-processing. Once I wrapped my head around a couple of post processing techniques, varying the film seemed like a good idea, and then the enforced asceticism of one lens just started to seem silly when I only use two lenses anyway. In any event, a follow up post will follow, eventually.

Processing Notes: I used the Massive Dev Chart’s suggested time of 8 minutes at 68 degrees. I agitated for 10 seconds every 1 minute. Either my developer was a bit cold, a bit dilute or the suggested time is a bit too short as these negs were a bit on the thin side. 9 minutes might be closer to the correct time.

City Hall, Columbus, IN | Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, HP5@320, Tmax Dev

Last week I wrote that I’m standardizing on one lens, one film, and one process until I learn something. The something to be learned is scanning and post-processing. I’ve always approached scanning like it was that part of the imaging chain represented by a cloud labeled magic. This approached demanded a processing regime geared towards producing low contrast negatives with well controlled highlights. For the most part it works, but I’m looking for improvements. I chose HP5@320 in Tmax Dev at 68F for 6 mins because it’s produced some great photos for me, but it’s also resulted in some scans that were miserable failures. I’m hoping to trying to get the percentage of miserable failures downs and maybe make the great photos even better. Sticking to one lens is just for the sake on wanton asceticism.

With the film stock and process set, that leaves me free to experiment with various scanning and post processing techniques. I’ll be giving VueScan another look, and I’ll be investigating Colin’s work with ColorNeg. I’ll also be looking at improving my Photoshop skills (Did you know that the curves tool can be used to draw something other than an S curve; who’d have guessed?). Lightzone will also get another look, as I’m not sure that I approached it the right way initially. And if my old ScanDual IV happens to die anytime soon, I guess I’ll be looking at other scanners as well.

Garden Walkway, Columbus, IN | Hexar RF, ZM Biogon 35, HP5@320, Tmax Dev

When I’m done with all this, I might well go back to what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years, but I’m hoping I’ll have learned enough to deal with some of the problematic scans that come up on every roll. Along the way, it’s fairly likely that some of the images may not look quite right. I’m not quite starting over again, but it’s something near to that, so there’s likely to be some false starts. You’ve been warned.