Hi everyone, I can't stop shooting this stuff, never have i been so into a single film stock ( well maybe the expired Tasma that Wayne gave me but there were only 3 rolls of that)! Buy some now before i burn through the lot, all 4000ft of it!
Further experimentation, different ways to shoot:
Firstly a pull, a few shots of my sons garage punk band fooling around in the field behind my house. Shot at iso 32 and developed in rodinal 1+50 for 12 minutes the film rewarded me with softer more delicate tones, lower contrast and a lovely vintage vibe. As is quite often the case recently i managed to scratch the negatives in a monumental changing bag battle, time i bought some new spirals methinks! I used my olympus pen half frame camera, a constant companion to me these days for these shots, a full frame SLR would have rendered more detail but for me the more i shoot film the more i couldn't care less about detail. It was a bright sunny day, the boys were in great spirits and a fine time was had bashing out a few of their tunes. Strictly electric, loud and grungy normally, it made a lovely change to hear them stripped down, the highlight being hearing and seeing that lovely 50s arch top in action, shit I could make a whole album about that guitar!
Next for me i found my personal sweetspot. A push at iso200 and a long 2 hour stand development in rodinal 1+100, some street shots in one of the less salubrious areas of my hometown of Newquay and a churchyard scene from a little village called Cubert are the subjects. Here the film took on an altogether more gritty persona, helped no doubt by the dull overcast conditions and the diminutive oly pen again. I saw a marked increase in contrast and tone and texture in abundance similar to the look you would get if push processing fresh HP5 at iso 1600. Which got me thinking a bit. The problem for me with pushing film up to high iso numbers is that in daylight situations where you are pushing the film to get 'the look' the photographer is limited to 1 or 2 shutter speeds and apertures. With the film rated at iso200 i can now use a whole load more settings on my camera. Where i might normally be limited to f11 1/1000 sec on a sunny day ( we rarely get a true sunny 16 scenario where i live lol)..! i can now open up my aperture to f5.6 1/1000 sec or f8 1/500 if using the pen and have a much greater control over my depth of field or that infamous bokeh stuff that i keep reading about and if i use a red filter i can nearly open the lens up wide. More creative control, more fun, more surprises.
I've now shot this film at everything from iso32 up to 400, each roll giving me a different look, so far only developed in rodinal, i feel that i can maybe push it to iso800 which would be remarkable for a 23 year film, after that I'm going to try it in some other developers, maybe Jakob would like to try some in his wild caffenol concoction and Wayne i know is currently putting it through its paces in his own inimitable style, I'm expecting something radical from him! We have nearly 4000ft of this stuff so there's plenty to go round, why not give it a try, if you make some shots you are proud of send them in to Agitate, we'd love to see them.
Simon.
