Plain Caffenol for Litho film may be just the cheap, low-impact developer I am looking for!
Expect test shots soon 🙂
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It ain’t easy
I have a hard time shooting color landscapes in the summer. Everything seems like an undifferentiated mass of green to me. But maybe throw in a lake and a blue sky and white clouds?
These were shot with my Kodak Duoflex IV (faux TLR) on Ektar 100. I developed them at home using the FPP’s C41 kit.
Oh Diana!
As much as I am enjoying shooting large format with the Crown/Speed Graphics, I really love my plastic Diana clone. I shot these last week while on vacation in Goshen, MA using Ilford Delta 100. Stand developed for 1 hour in HC-110 1:119.
Nothing better
There is nothing like the feeling of spending an afternoon mixing up a developer from scratch and then developing film with it and pulling negatives out of the tank to see actual images. It’s magic.
Today I mixed up a recipe from Peter Svensson (see this thread) based on Patrick Gainer’s PC-Tea:
…heat about 120 ml of TEA in pyrex container. I think about 200F is a good temperature. Then mix in 35g of Vitamin C-1000 and 6g of metol and stir to dissolve. Add TEA to make 150ml total.
To use as a one-shot:
- MC-Tea 1:100 + 1/2 tsp sodium sulfate per ~250 ml water
Just mix the MC-Tea with water and sodium sulfate.
For Fomapan 200 (box speed) I develop for 13:30 minutes at 25° C. Agitation is 5 times every minute.
South Street Stroll
Taking time to catch up with some of my other cameras. I had some Kodak Ektar 100 loaded in a Kodak Duoflex IV sitting on my desk, which seemed perfect for a sunny day stroll down the street.
Stick a fork in it
I am done with the One Project! I’ve gone through 2 boxes of Arista Ortho Litho 3.0–that’s 100 sheets of film. It was really interesting project and I’ve learned a lot about large format and this film. I still feel like the exposure is kind of hit or miss for me, though in general I know it always seems to need more time.
I’m excited to keep working with the film. But I am also really itching to shoot some normal film stocks and my Diana :). Going forward I will reserve then Ortho Litho for some landscapes, for making lith prints, and for portraits.
Delaware river redux
I spent a day down on the Delaware River Walk again with some of my last sheets of the Arista Ortho Litho 3.0. It was an overcast day, which means I probably should have added a few stops to my exposures.
I mostly shot wide open (F4.7) at 1/10 of a second based on the iPhone app. But I should know by now that on a cloudy day that is off.
Time heals
As a follow up to my previous post, I tried another test shot, this time adding a stop of time.
An EI of 0.8 had the expected result and delivered a negative that was significantly denser. There is still some loss in the shadows, but not nearly as much as with the EI 1.6 negative. I don’t understand how people are shooting this stuff at ISO 3 or 6!
Haven’t had time to test print, but here is a scan that I didn’t do anything to in LightRoom. Looks pretty good.
I don’t mind the loss of speed too much as I won’t be shooting this stuff handheld anyway. I’m glad to have the HC-110 developing option since I won’t have to buy more Dektol if I just want to shoot this occasionally.
Dektol versus HC-110 for Ortho Litho
At the beginning of my One Project, I decided to use Dektol as my developer because most of what I read suggested it was the best choice. I feel like I’ve gotten to a point where I am comfortable with Dektol. And as I come to the end of this project, I think it’s time to explore other options. I noticed on the Massive Development Chart a recipe for HC-110 at 1:200 dilution for 14 minutes. HC-110 appeals to me since I happen to have a bottle. So, I decided to run a little test to see if this recipe could get me similar results to the Dektol.
I set up a quick scene in my backyard with some blacks and whites and midtones to test. Here is a screen grab from my iPhone.
I took 2 shots of this at f4.5, 2 seconds. The first I developed in my usual Dektol 1:30 for 2:07 minutes @24°C. The second in HC-110 1:200 for 10:07 minutes@24°C.
As you can see from the negatives, the Dektol version had more detail in the shadows, though both were pretty thin. I think I should have added more time for reciprocity, but I can’t find anything online about reciprocity failure with this film.
Just to be complete, I did contact prints of both negatives. Both printed at 10 seconds at F32 (they were thin!) with a number 2 filter on Ilford Multigrade Fiber, glossy. As expected, the Dektol negative gave good shadow detail but also blown highlights
The HC-110 negative had much less shadow detail, but I did like the blacks better. Of course, a higher filter on the Dektol negative would probably get the blacks right.
While I was doing this experiment, Load Film in Subdued Light was also dipping his toe into Ortho Litho using HC-110. His recipe is 1+200 for 18 minutes. I am going to try that to see if the extra time helps with the shadow detail. If not, I will stick to Dektol.
Saturday morning in the neighborhood
Took a walk yesterday up Bainbridge and 12th streets.
Ed Keer 