Red Velvia: Help!!

[DaveF]

I just got some film back from processing yesterday, and some 5x4 sheets of the Velvia 50 all came back dark red - a couple of sheets were fine (from a previous box of film) but the freshly loaded sheets all have this cast and are unusable.
The film was imported from Japan, is in date, and has been correctly stored.
This scene is of a greenhouse window detail, and shoot be white/light blue in colour.

Any suggestions??? Obviously I'd like very much to avoid this happening again...

160091

[koraks]

It looks like it may have inadvertently been processed in c41 chemistry. What kind of lighting was this shot under and did you tend towards underexposure?

[DaveF]

I had that thought too - I did a quick search online and that was the only thing that looked anything close. All shots have exactly this same red cast. Sheets were used with a variety of lenses and subjects on different days, and while I'm still getting my exposures with Velvia totally correct, I'm not normally way off unless the error is obvious to me (e.g. forgetting about bellows, or a polarizer, for instance).

[DaveF]

Is it (also?) possible that I may have had an aberration and loaded some sheets back to front?? What effect would that have had?

[koraks]

Yes, that's also a possibility. The effect would be very much like this, assuming the red layer is the lowest layer in the emulsion, which I suppose makes sense.
The image would have to be mirrored as well, so it's easy to check if this was the problem.

[DaveF]

Thanks: I will check the remaining loaded holders later. I have too many detail shots to be able to confirm orientation...

While this is annoying (and expensive) the shots were, with a couple of exceptions, test shots for a newly purchased lens, and I can tell that it's fine from what I've got! And user-error is slightly less troubling than bad processing by a trusted business.

Any other thoughts most welcome!
Cheers,
D

[DaveF]

Many thanks! My own error confirmed: the remaining sheets were back to front, so I've rectified the mistake before exposing more sheets...

[Mrportr8]

It looks like it was cross-processed in C41 chemistry

[Keith Fleming]

Whatever the problem turns out to be, the result shown in the example is still a superb abstraction. Print that image.

Keith

[stawastawa]

Whatever the problem turns out to be, the result shown in the example is still a superb abstraction. Print that image.

Keith

Agreed!

curious that reversing the sheet causes this. I'll have to keep that in mind.

[DaveF]

Whatever the problem turns out to be, the result shown in the example is still a superb abstraction. Print that image.

Keith

Thanks! I was able to rescue it to B&W, but only because the original scene was so bright. The other sheets are virtually indecipherable.

[DaveF]

PS Here is the original shot!

160144

[koraks]

Agreed!

curious that reversing the sheet causes this. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Look up redscale photography. Lomo makes money by rolling film the wrong way round into canisters and selling it as a specialty product. Any color film can be exposed from the wrong way to produce these results. You need to overexpose by 1-2 stops for red colors, 3-4 for the addition of brown-yellow and green-blue is added when you expose at about 5 stops below box speed. At least that's the ballpark for negative film.

[sdzsdz]

Yes, you redscaled it. By the way the result Looks fantastic. Wouldn't wonder to see it in MoMA or Tate modern

[DaveF]

Thanks, as you can tell I'm relatively new to this ballgame, so really don't know what I'm doing! Fascinating result all the same. I'll try to get out again to take some more 5x4s again soon, loaded correctly this time...