In writing my first 5 Frames With… for EMULSIVE I wanted to try and cover something different, looking through my folders of film scans there was something that stood out like a sore thumb.
Three years ago, when I picked up a Paterson tank from a jumble sale for 50p and subsequently was given some developer and a dark bag for Christmas. I had a problem. The only film I had ready for developing was one with potentially treasured photographs. I couldn’t trust such a film to my amateur chemistry lessons. In the back of my mind, I remembered an old disposable camera. A quick hunt under the bed and voila, a somewhat dusty Kodak disposable camera with 26 shots taken. Whilst it could potentially have treasured memories, I couldn’t honestly remember how old it was let alone what might be on it. I decided to give cross-processing a go.
I can’t honestly remember how I got the camera open, but inside was a film labelled as MAX 800. A bit of careful searching on the internet gave me a recipe to use with my developer, Ilfosol 3 (5 minutes at 20 degrees with a 1+9 dilution). I found developing quite stressful, despite writing myself out very clear instructions the alien nature of the whole task made me very nervous about making mistakes. I had tap water for my stop bath and washing steps, some ILFORD Rapid Fixer and water with a few drops of washing up liquid to do a final rinse.
I was absolutely thrilled when not only did the film develop into recognisable images, but with some digital camera scanning and a bit of photoshop I had some memorable images from a 2006 holiday to Tuscany.
The negatives had a serious orange tint to them, I was expecting this but also was surprised how much of the dynamic range of the film was destroyed by the cross processing.
~Dave
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One response to “5 Frames… Testing my new Paterson Tank with expired Kodak MAX 800 (EI 800 / 35mm format / Kodak HD Disposable)”
High please note that the opening picture represents Ponte Vecchio ( Old Bridge ) and the spire of Palazzo Vecchio ( Town Hall) in Florence. Shooted from the south side of the river Arno, camera pointed towards northeast. A remarkable romantic rendering. Tank you for sharing.