Saturday, July 26, 2003
Several lessons learned in my first time wrestling with the gum bichromate process.
1. Recap all bottles immediately after use.
2. Do *not* use the computer desk as an alt-process work table.
3. Gum arabic and keyboards do not play well together.
It didn't get much better after that. My test strips, despite variations in pigment/gum mixture, exhibited little if any evidence of success. I'm thinking I may have coated the paper too thickly, thus not allowing the base of the gum to be exposed and harden properly. This would certainly explain why the gum layer seemed to just wash away rather quickly during the development stage.
I'm calling it quits for the day. I'll be back to try again but right now I am hot, tired and a little discouraged at so much energy expended with so little to show for it. The weather's looking bleak for a quick bounce back, with clouds all next week. Might be an incentive to pry the wallet open and finally build that fluorescent UV light source. I looked at some ready-built ones but at close to a kilobuck for the smallest model building my own looks more reasonable right now.
Posted by coldmarble @ 05:04 PM ET [Link] [blab]
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
I'll never learn. Way too long in the darkroom last night, skipping dinner and parking sanity at the door once I got in the grip of playing with the negatives from Sunday's shoot at Kilgore Falls. I think a little exhaustion is a small price to pay for so much fun.
and 
one to make Lisa spew her morning coffee through her nose.
Posted by coldmarble @ 09:46 AM ET [Link] [5 blabs]
Monday, July 21, 2003
It was a long day in some ways and too short in others. Yesterday's trip to the falls for some pinhole fun wasn't my most productive in terms of number of shots but I may finally be on the right track with using Maco 820c IR in a pinhole camera. I'm still underexposing them by a good bit and will have to increase the allowance for reciprocity failure but I am getting much closer to an acceptable development method. My exposure times yesterday ranged from 5 minutes up to 20 minutes, which meant a good part of my time was spent standing around and waiting for the image to slowly build. Since I had so few shots, I took a gamble and developed them along with my Arista 125 in Rodinal at 1:100 for about 21 minutes. It seems to have worked out okay but I'll know more when I hit the darkroom tomorrow and try to print a few.
I still have to develop a roll of Ilford Delta 100 in 120 which I ran through my pinHolga v3.0. The bellows on an old folder camera scored from eBay was anything but light-tight, so I salvaged the shutter, removed the lens and installed a pinhole. The shutter has both a "B" and a "T" setting, making it almost perfect for pinhole exposures with slow film. If it had a cable release, life would be sweet. The pinClack has one, so I guess I am in good shape in the camera arsenal, with more toys than I can play with in one day.
The slow speed of the Maco 820c IR film has me a little frustrated. You know how I love IR, you know I love pinhole, so it seems logical that I'd want to combine them. I had one of those "forehead thwacking" moments this morning which may provide a partial solution.
Problem: Kodak's HIE is only available in 35mm, Maco's 820 is available in 120 but is too slow. I have several 120 roll film cameras converted to pinhole.
Solution: Use the 35mm Kodak in the pinHolga. There are a couple of ways to do it, both simple and complex. The wide frame panoramic results could be quite interesting. I'm thinking it might be wise to wrap the pinHolga in aluminum foil, just because I don't trust the plastic body to be IR proof. Wouldn't need to worry about that with the metal bodied ArgopinFlex and the pinClack could be even more interesting with a 9 cm wide frame.
Stand by for more photo insanity.
Posted by coldmarble @ 09:00 AM ET [Link] [blab]
