Author: bt

Was looking at a roll that was developed individually this week, and the pictures when zoomed, had this leathery texture to it. First I thought it was ACDSee rendering JPEG so that it loads fast, but it showed up also in Photoshop. Looked at the other Neopan 400 developed in HC110 this week and it was not present.
So the explaination has to be with the way I develop the film. Its winter now in Shanghai, so the water coming out of the tap is somewhere around 5 degrees celcius probably. My developer is always at 20C since that’s an easy timing to remember. My stopbath is somewhere in between the two. The way I process now is I do a rinse cycle with the tap water after stopbath so wash away the yellow tint in the Kodak Indicator Stop Bath so that it doesn’t taint my Fixer which is colourless. My current theory is that I must have accidently gone from 15C in the stopbath to 5C in the rinse stage, shrinking the silver crystals till they crack and giving the leathery texture.

Here’s a 100% crop to explain the phenomenon. Scanned at 2700dpi as usual.

Managed to find some time on saturday and sunday on a cold winters day in Shanghai to shoot 2 rolls of Lucky. Rating it at EI100 there was no special problem loading nor rewinding it on the M6.
Development was done in a 2 reel tank with HC110b (since I have a lot of stock solution, well, in stock). Timing was 7 mins for 2 x 35mm rolls with inversions every minute. Temperature of course 20C. The negatives came out probably thicker than I would like to have. I’ll try and reduce by 15-30secs next time.

The negatives are thin like most forums stated… you can tell that its thinner than most other european films, but one thing strange is that the new Lucky SHD100 doesn’t seem to curl up too much. Surely not as much as Tri-X. I usually hang it up to dry, weighted down with heavier clips at the bottom, and still it managed to remain flat this morning as I cut the strips and loaded it into the Printfile negative holders. So far so good. Scanning is next and I’ll report any particularities, if any.

Just about to leave Tokyo after 5 days here, and the damage this trip is a Leica Summarit f1.5 M mount, and a nice Artisan & Artist ACAM3000 bag.
Summarit was just too pretty to pass up, especially when it comes with a XOONS hood. The grade at Fujiya was B but it looked better. A little battered cosmetically, but the glass looks alright to me. And did I mention about the hood?

And photography is nothing if you dont have a lot of bags. A&A bags are some of the best canvas bags on the market and Fujiya sell them for anything between 10-20% cheaper than more other shops in Tokyo. The ACAM3000 bag has zipped top instead of flaps, which I think is better when you move around quick. The zips are large enough that its smooth and easy to open and close. Padding is plenty enough for 2 Leica M bodies with <50mm lenses and a lightmeter in the main compartment. The front compartment is large enough to fit rolls of film, so its the perfect bag. No obvious brand name on the front, so it doesn’t shout “camera bag here”.

Processed a roll of Neopan SS in HC110B last night. There was lack of information at EI100 for this film in HC110B all over the internet, including the Massive Development Chart, which carries only 120 film at EI100. Even on the Neopan SS specification sheet they only have development times for EI200 (6 1/4 mins at 20C). Anyway, I souped it at 5 3/4 mins for EI100 for 135 film, and it looks like came out ok. The density looks perfect, and I will do some scanning tonight to verify it.

How can I not try it. Been hearing plenty about this dirt cheap chinese black and white film with the limited dynamic range and possible unpredictable performance that I’ve got to get some to muck around. It costs 7.5 rmb at Huan Loong dept store next to the train station and I’m pretty confident its the same elsewhere.
Was looking for Lucky 400 as well but it seems they do not make nor carry it anymore. Will keep looking for it.

So 4 rolls to fool around, portion 2 rolls for Rodinal and the other 2 for HC110B, which i still have some stock solution leftover.