Take-A-View Weekend

Images from a photographic weekend, hosted by Charlie Waite, for the youths which succeeded the Take-A-View 2011 competition.

Flowers in the Garden

Film 26: Ilford FP4 and Caffenol

Last week at the Outer Circle Rd Industrial Estate in Lincoln, I loaded a roll of Ilford FP4 into the Konica C35v, which I finished yesterday in Sudbrooke (TF045763).

The Konica C35v is a zone focus 35mm viewfinder camera, though it looks similar to a rangefinder. It is fully automatic and features a 38mm f/2.8 lens. This camera, manufactured in 1974 should use mercury 1.35v cell batteries. With a modern 1.5v battery of equivalent size, the meter is ⅔ stop too high. This was easily corrected using the meter adjustment.

Caffenol is a homemade developer, usually made from instant coffee, washing soda and vitamin C. There are many different variations, some to individual films. For this film, I used 4 tsp of coffee, 2.5 tsp of washing soda and 3×500mg of ascorbic acid tablets before topping it up to 300ml with water. I then added 3 tsp of table salt as a reducing agent (to reduce background fog). After brewing for a couple of minutes, I poured it in and developed for 6:48 minutes at 27°.They were later scanned using a Plustek OpticFilm 7400 at 3600 dpi. Photoshop work was minimal, consisting of spot removal and curves.

XPRO 6: Kodak Elite Chrome 100

Cross processing (sometimes abbreviated to X-pro) is the procedure of deliberately processing film in a chemicals intended for a different type of film. The two main methods of cross processing involve developing a slide film in C41, or colour negative film in E6. The result is an unpredictable range of colours, and is often used by Lomographers.
During my last cross-processing (XPRO-5), I used a blue filter to replicate a tungsten balanced film. This also created a nice contrast between the blue filter and the red tone of the film. This time, I had used an orange filter, which is a complementry colour to the usual tint of cross-processed Kodak Elite Chrome.
However, it seems that the orange filter was too strong for my desired effect, resulting in images similar to red-scaled film. Canon EOS 600 loaded with Kodak Elite Chrome 100. 28-135mm with orange filter. Cross-processed in C41 at a nearby photo-lab. Scanned with a Plustek OpticFilm 7400 at 3600dpi. Photoshop work was minimal.