@analogfusion I have to give them a big thumbs up with the half frame for doing something different! (probably more miss than hit, but close, and I reckon it'll find an audience).

More prints from the darkroom! These were printed on Fomatone fibre-based paper and selenium-toned. I do like fibre-based paper!

Some of you may have noticed that these prints are flat. Indeed, they are. I have a fix for curling prints... see the next post...

#photography #darkroom #darkroomprint #believeinfilm #analogphotography

F is for Future

🧻 Bromexpress-2 18x24cm in Kodak D9
🎞️ Kodak Tri-X 400 in HC-110 1+63
📷 Minolta X-700 | MD 35-70mm f3.5

#BelieveInFillm
#FilmPhotography
#LithPrint
#DarkRoomPrint
#35mm
#Lviv

@mandaarrr definitely, and hopefully it'll keep picking up as mobile phones and cameras shove ever more "AI" down our throats.
The thing I hold on to is that Instax is absolutely *massive*, as in, instax outsells Fuji's digital cameras.
Pentax 17 put ricoh in the odd position of having to admit that the 17 sold very well, but somehow they don't want to do it again.
Analogue got close to total collapse, but I'm hopeful that it can recover. If numbers go up, prices should drift down.

Thomas Heaton has a dog.
Thomas Heaton has a dog we never get to see.
Thomas Heaton is a monster.

#photography

@mandaarrr if you've never see the Smarter Every Day video on the kodak factory (most film production lines are similar), it's worth a look. Then think that 30 years ago they had 100s of millions of customers funding that factory. They likely have less than 1% of that now. The scary thing is that it feels to me like they are one critical part failing away from never being able to afford to repair that line.
Agreed though, it sucks.

@coldkennels re the "accidental push", AIUI, when we talk about pushing film, shadow density isn't usually increased (the shadows end up developed out, I guess grain can grow a bit, but it doesn't hugely impact density), the increase is really just in the highlights. My guess is that Pyro/staining devs behave a bit differently, possible by increasing the staining activity more than the silver developement, but that's just a guess).
I'l try the minimal agitation again at some point.

It's sad how happy this makes me.

#darkroom

@coldkennels close up lens on my Pentax Spot V. Using a blue filter (recommended for pyro). All over my scanning light. Far from perfect but good enough to judge .1 over base.
I'm tempted by the printalyzer. I've got a step wedge I could contact print to film. Probably taking it all a bit seriously though.

@coldkennels I did some second "test strips" with FP4 and k200. Using normal agitation, at 8:15, k200 gave me .1 above base fog at 3 stops under, which would be about a stop of speed lost. my +4 exposure came out 3 stops above that, which is OK for printing, but means dev could go longer. I really need to test it under the enlarger though.

@analogfusion 9 times out of 10 Daisy (and all her pals), will get up and sniff the camera before I get to the shot. One day I'm just going to leave my 4x5 setup pointing at one of her favourite spots (100% she'll get freaked out and avoid it).

@troublewithwords not a bad metaphor, but the Michelin star bit makes it sound as if its all about presentation. The grey goo isn't even a BLT or your grannies soup, but it also contains the bleach, cat ,ittet, and the hair products.
Over time that goo is going to poison you.

Anyone got the reveni labs spot MK2? I'm thinking of getting one. I have a Minolta flash 4, and a Pentax Spot 5. Both are relatively chunky. I have pretty crap eyes though (very astigmatic, different prescriptions) and am not sure if I'll get on with it it'd be good to hear from people using it, or that tried it.

#FilmPhotography

@benjojo I ran one for a while but it kept falling over and seemed to need reflashing. It'd be nice ot contribute, but turned out to be a real hassle

@coldkennels the article is by Sandy King (the inventor of Pyrocat HD and co.). Now, on one hand, that makes me think he should know what he's talking about, but, on the other hand, he always says Pyrocat gives box speed or a boost, yet almost everyone else suggest it loses about a stop.
Honestly i do think a lot of these dev creators can get a bit evangelical and markety.
I'm kind of resigned to not believing a word of anything and just testing the hell out of everything myself.

Spent a bit of time today working on reducing my #darkroom setup time. Made a new stencil for my easel, and these matching template cards. Because I mount my intrepid enlarger on a tripod, it has taken me ages to get the height right for a given print. I made these cards so thar, for a given lens, I can set the correct height for a given print size. Have also decided that, with a set strategy, the crappy bubble level is good enough (seems my table is mostly level)

@jbaty wonderful is subjective though, and more specifically, subjective on the wrong end. Why do i care what font the writer likes? What if people need a dyslexia friendly font, or a braille font, or I just happen to like neutral chunky fonts? We let the designers take over

@jbaty from an accessibility point of view, it's a shame the Web moved to allowing the tyranny of fesigners, rather than encouraging people to live with user selected fonts.
Why are we optimising for marketing instead of usability?

New #darkroom gear! Ebay photos, but the grain focuser is already here. Much less back aching than the small Patterson. The lens is the 80mm schneider to replace bpmy durst one. The aperture control on the schneiders are so nice, and now my 3 main enlarger lenses are all schneider, and all the same filter thread.

@coldkennels it's mentioned in the unblinking eye on staining devs (see Minimal Agitation in the linked article). The reduced agitation is supposed to increase adjacency effects, give a bit of compensation, and a speed boost. That said, I think I'm supposed to reduce the dilution too. It's not mentioned here, but elsewhere.
I'll go back to regular agitation until I've had a bit more success with the testing procedure

https://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/PCat/PCat2/pcat2.html