I said in an earlier post that if my goal was to burn through 120 film at an unprecedented pace the GA645 has been a roaring success.
But this last roll did not go to plan and may have raised an issue not having to do with the camera or film.
To make things a bit more interesting I was coping with the aftermath of a procedure that will not be named that those of us of a certain age are familiar with. The one where you cannot eat for the day before and requires ingesting an alarming volume of a toxic punch. Yeah… For those that know. That one. And if you have no idea what I am talking about… that is great. Good for you. Enjoy your youth, my friend. Anyhoo, I chose what I thought would be a sure bet. But things did not go to plan.
While I have written off Fomapan 400 as incompatible with Cintestill df96,…
…and Fomapan 100 as perfectly serviceable,…
…Fomapan 200 has been the star of the Fomapan family for me with exceptional results.
Some of the best black and white images I have taken and developed at home. Great sharpness and contrast. Very consistent.
Until now.
After the procedure my wife, and chauffer/carer for the day, took me to a favorite diner. After that my plan was to meander about the parking lot of the diner, which includes an abandoned hotel and hotel pool with a hilarious sign, and get a bit of analog therapy in.
Thought all was well. Finished the roll. Developed the film. And even marveled at how good the negatives looked. But all was not well when I scanned the images. There is good news and bad news. Bad news first.
Bad news.
- Sub-optimal images. A bit blotchy and an odd haze making for inconsistent images.
- Confusion/frustration as to why this film seems to have let me down.
On the surface, this does not seem to be all that therapeutic. In fact it irked me to the point that I thought for a moment to just delete the images. But instead I decided to wait until the anesthesia fog from earlier in the day cleared. If I cannot be trusted to operate a vehicle I probably should not be hasty to delete images. Perhaps by the time 24 hours has passed a cooler head will have prevailed.
And it did.
I am still not that crazy about the images, but I decided to keep them. While not ideal it does mark a successful procedure as intended. On the good news.
Good news.
- Had a great result from the procedure.
- There were images created. It could have been worse.
- If I focus on what matters this is no big deal at all.
- Some I was able to make halfway presentable as long as you do not look at them too closely.
- I think I know the failure point.
I figure it must be the developer with perhaps a bit of user error. I went back and looked at all the images developed with this last batch of df96 and they all look a bit off. A bit… “blotchy” for lack of a better technical term.
But I had written these off as possibly isolated events. But now after using a favorite high performing film I have tp look at the developer. But it still may be me. This was df96 powder that I had to mix. While I believe I mixed it properly perhaps I did something wrong. Or perhaps, I came across a bad batch. Regardless the fix was easy.
I ordered a bottle of Cinestill df96.
Please note I said bottle. Paid a couple more dollars for the liquid rather than the powder. I have never had an issue with premixed df96. It is odd because I have used nothing but powder Cinestill CS41 and I have never had an issue developing color.
So now that I have documented how I have gotten over myself, onto the images. As I always say noting Earth shattering. And not much new. I have captured this scene before. Given the provenance I will grade these images on a curve. The curve is driven by them marking a successful result earlier in the day.
In the end, a good result. While the images are far from ideal I am glad I waited a day before making a rash decision.
Happy capturing.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 