wuduwald
29-Jul-2021, 05:19
First of all apologies if this is the wrong sub-forum, it seems most fitting but I'm not certain.
I am currently living in Costa Rica, where there isn't a single film lab that can work with 4x5, I don't have any of my developing equipment here, and there are no dark rooms to use; so after reaching out on Facebook I found another photographer that shoots 4x5, and I pay him to develop my photos for me. The problem is, I'm consistently unhappy with the results, only I don't know if I'm to blame, if the humidity is to blame, or whether he is to blame. The negatives come back with so many marks on them, but I've never seen him have any of the same damage on his own negatives (everything is either fomapan 400 or hp5+) Here are a bunch of examples:
218032
Here the negative has a mark that looks like something from a roll of 35mm all down the side of it? I don't shoot 35mm and he assures me that it was developed in a special 4x5 tank.
218033
It's hard to see but there are 2 circles inside a large rectangle in the top corner of an image.
218035
Random area of negative is considerably darker than the rest
218034
Consistently get what looks like splatter marks in the emulsion like this, sorry they're a bit faint.
I can only upload 4 photos so here I've included a folder on imgur with just a selection of some of the defects I've had, some of them are even more extreme than the examples in the post.
https://imgur.com/a/IK9QeYA
Sorry there are quite a lot of photos, but yeah, for all I know they could all be my fault. If it's got a tiny fingerprint on the edge, or it's fomapan and comes out a little scratched I feel like fair enough, I know why it's happened etc. but with most of these I'm just clueless as to what is going on.. what is causing consistently damaged film.
The other question is how many of these things are repairable? If I were to use pec-12 or something, could I bring any of these back to life, or do they seem to be permanently damaged?
If anyone can help I'll be incredibly grateful, and of course, if you need any more details for the circumstances of each photo I'm happy to elaborate.
Thanks,
Henry
I am currently living in Costa Rica, where there isn't a single film lab that can work with 4x5, I don't have any of my developing equipment here, and there are no dark rooms to use; so after reaching out on Facebook I found another photographer that shoots 4x5, and I pay him to develop my photos for me. The problem is, I'm consistently unhappy with the results, only I don't know if I'm to blame, if the humidity is to blame, or whether he is to blame. The negatives come back with so many marks on them, but I've never seen him have any of the same damage on his own negatives (everything is either fomapan 400 or hp5+) Here are a bunch of examples:
218032
Here the negative has a mark that looks like something from a roll of 35mm all down the side of it? I don't shoot 35mm and he assures me that it was developed in a special 4x5 tank.
218033
It's hard to see but there are 2 circles inside a large rectangle in the top corner of an image.
218035
Random area of negative is considerably darker than the rest
218034
Consistently get what looks like splatter marks in the emulsion like this, sorry they're a bit faint.
I can only upload 4 photos so here I've included a folder on imgur with just a selection of some of the defects I've had, some of them are even more extreme than the examples in the post.
https://imgur.com/a/IK9QeYA
Sorry there are quite a lot of photos, but yeah, for all I know they could all be my fault. If it's got a tiny fingerprint on the edge, or it's fomapan and comes out a little scratched I feel like fair enough, I know why it's happened etc. but with most of these I'm just clueless as to what is going on.. what is causing consistently damaged film.
The other question is how many of these things are repairable? If I were to use pec-12 or something, could I bring any of these back to life, or do they seem to be permanently damaged?
If anyone can help I'll be incredibly grateful, and of course, if you need any more details for the circumstances of each photo I'm happy to elaborate.
Thanks,
Henry