Damaged Film

[themoleman342]

I haven't developed anything myself in about 2-3 years because I moved and lost my dedicated darkroom. I had a roll of exposed color 120 film sitting around for over a year. It was lomography 100iso which I've pretty good results with before: http://forum.mflenses.com/lomography-100-120-film-various-lenses-cameras-subjects-t68048.html I wanted to get the ball rolling on self-developing some color film again so I bought the Unicolor set from freestyle.

I was able to seal off a bathroom from light pretty well. I loaded up the roll on a reel. It seemed to be a tad rough going on but it advanced the whole way so I didn't give it much thought. My experience has always been if it's not on right, it'll just jam or basically fall out. When I opened the tank though it looked bad. Severely crinkled on the edges, some areas touching (so uneven development).

I've never done anything like that before, not even my first time in the darkroom. Too bad, it would have been a decent set of pictures. I'm not too discouraged. Shot a roll yesterday that I'll hopefully develop and get right this week.

This is one of the few that were salvageable:

Pentacon Six and a MC Biometar 120mm.

Only re-sized. It's got a interesting quality to it, no?

Be well,
~Marc

[iangreenhalgh1]

Looks like a cheap, nasty 80s machine develop and print with bad colours. Either the film was deteriorated due to age, the development was faulty or, quite likely, it was just crap film, which is typical of lomography films - they have been known to pull some rotten tricks like selling out of date film under a new name at a hiked price and advertise it as having unigue colours etc.

If you need to keep a shot but undeveloped film for a period of time, it needs to be refrigerated, as they do deteriorate.

[themoleman342]

Ok, I can only assume you read "lomography" and immediately went to write something scathing.

It doesn't seem like you read what I wrote or followed the link? It's actually a pretty decent film and a lot of that "cheap, nasty" quality is because I screwed up with loading it. Scanning damaged film isn't going to yield the best results. It's also the least expensive 120 color negative film for sale on adorama and b&h. Price hike? Where? Is it worth paying the extra 1$ per roll of Ektar? Yeah, probably. Does that make the Lomography film bad?

It was more just a story that I was returning to DIY color development and that I should have a roll on the way...

Here is the shot literally right before it on the roll. I spent a little extra time scanning/flattening and I played with the color for 2 minutes. Any better (and yes, it's not focused correctly)?

[themoleman342]

The more I look at that first picture, the more I'm bothered with your comment.
The picture has low contrast (which I already said I didn't do anything to fix) but bad colors? To me they actually look pretty natural.
Can I get someone else's opinion on this please?

[tb_a]

I can't really contribute to the process of developing the film as I only did B&W film myself up to now.
I never liked the stress with the temperature control of color film, so I didn't try it myself till date.

However, the second picture looks quite good to me in terms of colors and contrast. So the film itself is most probably more than fine. At least I can't see any failure from that point of view. So it's most probably only a matter of practicing to improve the results even further. The tiny black spots are rather annoying; where do they come from? Dust is normally delivering white spots from scanning.

I definitely like more to shoot with positive slide films on medium format cameras. The Fujifilm Velvia is my most favorite one. Time to shoot something as well as I have still many rolls at home. Still waiting for the right model.

[themoleman342]

The black spots are emulsion damage. They're *damaged* negatives. I'm not presenting these as gallery photos or work I'm proud of, only the ones that came out without getting spotty/uneven development.

I very much appreciate your response.

[miran]

Personally I think the first photo looks great! Sure, it's not technically perfect but on the whole it's a beautiful photograph, end of story. The colours, the soft contrast, the light, the pose, the model by far outweigh any artefacts from mishandling the film.

Also I completely sympathize with you. 120 film is just a pain in the ass to get on the reel. One time it took me literally 45 minutes. And it wasn't exactly my first roll. It just wouldn't go on.

[mo]

Have you been able to tweak it like the second shot just for a comparison between the two?

I do like the first shot,the framing of your subject, especially the light on the hair and the details of the hair.I can see why you would be annoyed at "losing" this roll.

[Tedat]

[themoleman342]

That's a really good edit Tedat! I'm glad a few of you liked it. Model pictures like this are a dime-a-dozen but I felt some of the elements of it worked. My girlfriend (the model) liked her "look" and I agreed so I just decided to post it. Thanks!

[Tedat]

thank you... but I still don't think this edit is needed. It's a great photo with a own character.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I see, you only accept praise and any other comments are unacceptable.

I didn't criticise you I criticised the film.

You clearly have an ego issue.

[themoleman342]