Use of X-ray film: technical discussion with example images

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Amazing, the portraits are so nice. Is there a place that sells xray film that is precut in 4x5 sizes? I do not have a darkroom (or access to one) so cutting at home will be difficult.

No pre cut that I'm aware of. Just find a dark room and put a red safe light and cut it down. You can see what you are doing but you have to be very careful not to scratch the emulsion. I'd probably find the single sided film if I was going to cut it down.

[bigguy88]

1903 Eastman View No. 1 8x10 Camera
Konica Hexanon GRII 210mm
Kokak B/RA X-Ray Film
Caffenol C/M

very nice. i like this too.

[dupont07]

How did you meter and exposure it, Holdenrichards?

1903 Eastman View No. 1 8x10 Camera
Konica Hexanon GRII 210mm
Kokak B/RA X-Ray Film
Caffenol C/M

[Kirk Gittings]

FWIW, I've been following this thread since the beginning. At first I was somewhat unimpressed with what I saw. I thought most of it looked kind of flat and a bit lifeless (not talking about subject matter)-which I pinned on the color response of the film. But of late it seems like there is more and more really rich looking scans and prints. Well done guys-this is really looking great.

[Michael Batchelor]

FWIW, I've been following this thread since the beginning. At first I was somewhat unimpressed with what I saw. I thought most of it looked kind of flat and a bit lifeless (not talking about subject matter)-which I pinned on the color response of the film. But of late it seems like there is more and more really rich looking scans and prints. Well done guys-this is really looking great.

I think what is happening is that the community is discovering the techniques used by our forefathers who had only ortho film.

[Randy]

Well, I am a tad perplexed at the...orthocromatic-ness...of the CSX green latitude film that I am using. For one thing, this tracter is red-ish, sort of a rust color. Honestly, the neg and resulting scan look just like I would expect it to look from panchromatic film (though this neg is slightly over exposed and the scene was low contrast).
Also, I processed in trays with a small 10-12 watt red bulb about 2 meters away, covered by a white hanky, and no direct light from the bulb could reach the negs (I was leaning over a bath tub to process). The only light was reflected light from the ceeling. I did get obvious fogging as I could see a faint outline of the curved film corner on several of the images. Probably happening as the film was resting in the water pre-soak for a minute. So, is my film red sensitive?

[Ralph Weimer]

The Kodak Wratten 1A will fog ortho x-ray film. You need a GBX filter.

Ralph

[Will Frostmill]

If you'd like to be more confident of your safe light, I'd suggest some red LEDs: they are very cheap (e.g. christmas lights!) an almost all the spec sheets I've seen show that the true red (not amber) have a very narrow frequency response far away from the spectral response of green and blue sensitive film. Maybe someone with more experience would like to comment on whether they've been able to fog green-sensitive film with LEDs?

Will

[Holdenrichards]

How did you meter and exposure it, Holdenrichards?

I expose this film at 25 ASA...

[Holdenrichards]

Some more Kodak X-Ray

Eastman View No. 1 8x10 camera
Konica Hexanon GRII 210mm
Kodak B/RA Single Emulsion X-Ray
Caffenol C/M