Kodak HSIE

[Jac@stafford.net]

I have a lot of expired Kodak HSIE 4x5 in the freezer. I would use it to document views In my area, penetrating the perpetual haze across our Mississippi River valley, however my attempts yield terribly fogged negatives.

My question is: does HSIE degrade in time due to whatever circumstances? Is it a cosmic radiation issue? Perhaps my darkroom where I load is at fault, or the negative carriers are IR transparent. Net wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

This is an example using 120 near IR. I want to do more in high quality 4x5 with a longer lens.

"http://digoliardi.net/alma_good_1.jpg"

Jac

[Jim C.]

I haven't shot IR film in decades and that was only in 35mm, it could be all of the above with your fogging problem ( age of film and darkroom, film holders)
your film holders with plastic dark slides may be allowing IR radiation thru, do you have ones with metal dark slides ?
It might be worth trying some shots with metal dark slide holders.

[Jac@stafford.net]

I haven't shot IR film in decades and that was only in 35mm, it could be all of the above with your fogging problem ( age of film and darkroom, film holders)
your film holders with plastic dark slides may be allowing IR radiation thru, do you have ones with metal dark slides ?
It might be worth trying some shots with metal dark slide holders.

Jim, I must look into those issues.
Let me add that I am using an entirely metal camera with no fabric bellows.

[vinny]

Yes, it takes on fog more than other films. I have a bunch as well.
Your holders are not at fault.

[LabRat]

I have heard too that IR has a VERY short shelf life... (like months...)

Another issue that has come up with the sheet film also is that it seems to "expose" fingerprints from mere (barely) touching/handling probably from heat from the fingertips... Handling wearing latex gloves helped...

You can (somewhat) "fake" IR haze penetration effects by using a very deep red filter (#29) and a film with good extended red sensitivity (Tech Pan types)

Steve K

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] Another issue that has come up with the sheet film also is that it seems to "expose" fingerprints from mere (barely) touching/handling probably from heat from the fingertips[...]

I doubt that HSIE is sensitive into the thermal range.

[vinny]

I doubt that HSIE is sensitive into the thermal range.

HSI will show fingerprints just as other ir films. I always wear gloves when loading unloading.

[John Olsen]

I have heard too that IR has a VERY short shelf life... (like months...)
Steve K

I hope you're wrong because I just bought boxes that have been frozen for 10 and 20 years. I have previously shot HIE (35 mm) that was 7 years past expiration, some was good, some was not, who knows?
I'll heed the advice above about metal dark slides. Can't wait to give the 4x5 HIE a try!

[LabRat]

Been there, still have mental scars from shooting HSIE...

Years ago, I had seen a museum show of the work of Julius Shulman, and was VERY inspired to shoot LF IR for the dramatic effect on my commercial exteriors... I had to special order HSIE 4x5 (and wait about 8 months as it was only produced on occasion) and cost me a lot for the minimum order/larger amount...

When I finally got it, I quickly shot 2 sheets, and included it with a commercial lab processing run... The negs come back with more handprints developed into them than a jailhouse window... (I had loaded MANY 10's of thousands of sheets of film with no problems, so I assumed a bad day at the lab...)

So, I tried some more, (and processed it myself) but even with my VERY light 3 point touch on the edge of the film, I noticed my touchpoints had developed into the film!!! And one film had developed a slight swoosh in the image area where my finger must have BARELY skimmed the surface!!! I started wearing latex gloves while handling, and that helped a lot...

Shooting it was no fun, either, as I was shooting under the same light conditions over days, or that day, and lining up the negs on a lightbox, they could be thin or dense, probably due to changing IR levels... Rarely perfect density...

Unexpected issues were common, such as a white exterior wall might have a halation effect that resembled using a crappy, fogged lens... Often there was an uneven focus effect where something in the shot would look sharp, but something right next to it would not... And if there was a treeline in the shot, some leaves would be VERY underexposed, yet one tree might be bursting into a "burning bush" with that dense, grainy halation... (No fun for commercial shooting... I always wanted to ask Julius "how bad were your "bad days"...)

So I took the unexposed boxes of film, put them into x-ray bags, and hid them in the back of the freezer until the weather (and I) cooled down... So that winter, I tried some again, and noticed the negs had built up quite a base fog level during that time...

I'm not a "quitter" but I gave up on it... The stuff seemed cursed with evil gremlins... I went with deep red filters + extended red sensitivity films and got the effect I wanted without the problems... (Film IR is fun to play with, but.....)

If I had to do an extended IR project, (dare I say) I would skip the film step, and get one of those Sigma DSLR's with the removable IR filters and let the camera + it's meter do the heavy lifting, and me just look at the screen and figure out what I needed...


Steve K

[Jac@stafford.net]

Been there, still have mental scars from shooting HSIE... [...]

Shooting it was no fun, either, as I was shooting under the same light conditions over days, or that day, and lining up the negs on a lightbox, they could be thin or dense, probably due to changing IR levels... Rarely perfect density...

Steve K

I will look for an article I saved onto the archive disk. It shows how to use a Weston selenium meter to measure IR.
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