Tag: Rodinal

“Can You Still Get Film For That Camera?”

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When I tell people I still shoot film, and show them a film camera (normally a medium format or 35 mm camera) I often get the question “Can you still get film for that?” and people are surprised when I tell them that getting film is no problem. A case in point is two films I tried out this past weekend, Fomapan 100 Classic, and Ilford SFX Extended red sensitivity film.

The image below was taken using Fomapan 100 Classic. This is a Czech film, medium speed, with a classic tonality and grain structure. I developed the roll using the classic Rodinal developer for extra sharpness and definition. I’ll becoming back to this combination a lot!

Trestles in Riverdale Park, Toronto

The second film I tried for the first time this past weekend was Ilford SFX film; not quite an infrared film, but with an extended red sensitivity, which when coupled with a red filter gave a lovely almost porcelain look in the skin of the model in this image (NSFW). No post-processing was required for this tonality, and this is another combination I’ll be going back to in the future!

Travel Textures

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I am continuing to work through the images I took in the British Virgin Islands, and while many of the photos are colour-centric (to be expected in a place where the ocean is a melange of breathtaking shades of blue), I do like the black and whites images I took. I’ve only had time to develop one roll so far, which contains images taken at “The Baths”, a famous beach on Virgin Gorda.

The Baths, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

Virgin Gorda is not only a place of amazing colours, it is also a place of  amazing textures and shapes, and I am looking forward to developing the other black and white rolls I shot during my week in paradise.

From Beyond the Grave …

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I wonder how many rolls of undeveloped Kodachrome are still out there? Of course they cannot be conventionally developed, but they can still be processed as black and white, since Kodachrome is basically black and white film to which dyes are added in development. (This process of adding dyes in development is what made the process so complicated). I had a couple of exposed rolls that I just never got around to sending to Dwaynes in Kansas City for processing, so after reading about how some other people had done it, I gave it a shot last night.

I used a developer called Rodinal, (dating from 1893!) at a dilution of 100+1, and was thrilled to get usable results, such as the image below. I still have a couple of unexposed rolls of Kodachrome that I can now use; I just won’t get “nice bright colours.”

Kodachrome Processed As B & W