Help: Color developing thin/blank

[Nobady]

Wow I just found this site lol, would of been nice to know at the beginning of the semester, but oh well. Yes I am a photo student :) and this being my first advanced class, I am being forced to use this dreadful camera. It's been hell. My school doesn't have enough to go around for the class, so we all have to share a camera and my friend and I tend to shoot together and have experienced the same problems.

We've been through 2 cameras, 2 boxes of black and white and an entire box of color and maybe gotten half a box of decent negatives. That's a lot of money and time, mostly money..

Well I really want to rant right now lol, but maybe yall can help my friend and I with our color blues. We are using Kodak Portra 160 NC and getting it developed at E-Six. Shooting different days, inside, outside, cloudy weather, light rain, cold, warm, backwards, forwards, upside down and sideways. We've even had our teacher, who has been very understanding, watch us and found nothing wrong with our shooting process, but the result is the same.

Blank Negatives. Some of them have a hint of something, but the negative is soo thin, that it just scans black and/or is not salvageable.

I'll give some back story I guess, first camera first project b&w, went through most of a box and experienced the same issues (only we develop b&w at school). Got a new box and the issue we were having was to be blamed on the bellows not locking and staying locked, same camera/new bellows and managed to pull out some okay negatives. Second project, color with strobes, got blanks. Tried again with teacher present did a test run - blanks again. Skipped second project. Third project, new camera (assumed shutter was the failure with the first camera) with strobes, b&w, shoots okay. Fourth project, color, blanks/thin negatives (more blank then thin). We did shoot b&w for the fourth project, but haven't yet developed it.

Camera is a Cambo.

[Jan Pedersen]

Welcome to the Forum.
I hope you will get some help here to make your Semester more successful than it has been so far.
I understand that your B&W looks fine is that correct?
If your B&W negatives are good then we must assume that the shutter in your lenses are functioning at least close to what they should be.

B&W film will expose somewhat even with the backing facing the lens i don't think color film will so is there a chance that your film has been insert incorrectly in your film holders?

If you have a film holder laying flat in front of you with the dark slide on your left hand side and the opening of the film holder on your right hand side the film identification marks should be in the right hand side corner facing you.

Back to the lenses and the shutter, are you using the same shutter speed for your B&W exposures as you are with color film? Could be a problem with shutter speeds, in particular with older lenses.

[Nobady]

Cue feeling stupid.. We've been loading the film the entire semester with the notches in the upper right hand corner (ie away from you). I swear up and down everyone has been loading it this way and we double checked with other people in the class and they said they were doing it this way and the teacher made it sound like that was the right way. Hmm.. unless we've just been misunderstanding this whole time. Ha..

Um well as far as the B&W it's been a little thin sometimes and then perfect other times. I've not been happy with my B&W negatives, but my friend has been happy with hers. So I dunno, but I was happy with my negatives when not using the strobes and hate my negatives with the strobes, so I figured it was a strobe issue - ie not giving the camera enough time to get light as I've been using a faster shutter speed, 125 @ 11, with the strobes and well yeah. Another learning experience right there.

As for using the same shutter and speed, dominantly yes = 8, 11, 16 @ 30, 60, 125. I bolded the setting we use the most.

[Jan Pedersen]

My first foray into LF also went with film being exposed from the back, i did manage to get something useful but not ideal. I believe it is a very common mistake so move on and get some nice work from now on.
Color negative film is very forgiving but exposing through the backing proved to be to much to handle. Over exposure it handles much better than under exposure.

Good luck with the rest of the Semester.

[al olson]

. . .
So I dunno, but I was happy with my negatives when not using the strobes and hate my negatives with the strobes, so I figured it was a strobe issue - ie not giving the camera enough time to get light as I've been using a faster shutter speed, 125 @ 11, with the strobes and well yeah. Another learning experience right there.
. . .

It sounds to me that your shutter sync setting is not on X for synchronizing with the strobe. Have you been checking the sync setting? Sometimes it gets moved accidentally. It may also be why when you changed cameras that the second camera was correctly synced.



. . .
Well I really want to rant right now lol, but maybe yall can help my friend and I with our color blues. We are using Kodak Portra 160 NC and getting it developed at E-Six.
. . .

Are you saying here that you are having Portra, a negative film which requires C-41 chemicals, developed in E-6, a chemistry that is intended for transparency film? In this case you are cross-processing the film and the colors will not be correct.

[Nobady]

With this camera I tend to underexpose, which is funny because I always over exposed with the 35 & medium formats. Nice to know I'm not alone with this lol..

Thanks for your help!


Are you saying here that you are having Portra, a negative film which requires C-41 chemicals, developed in E-6, a chemistry that is intended for transparency film? In this case you are cross-processing the film and the colors will not be correct.

No, the lab is called E-Six, the development process we've been using is C-41. Sorry I didn't realize there was an E-6 process.

As for the strobe + camera, I don't know, it's possible. We did check the lights and camera with our teacher, or I should say he checked it, but that was with the first camera and not the second.

[al olson]

. . .
As for the strobe + camera, I don't know, it's possible. We did check the lights and camera with our teacher, or I should say he checked it, but that was with the first camera and not the second.

You don't seem to be very certain about the flash synchronization setting on the shutters. This is something that you need to check when you are using electronic flash, especially if you are using lenses in older shutters.

Most of the older shutters have sync settings for M Class bulbs, F Class bulbs, and X for electronic flash. Shutters made before the popularity of electronic flash might only have M or F settings. Shutters made from the mid-50s on added the X setting. Based on the wide-spread use of electronic flash, the later shutters often omit the M and F settings, so there is no switch, and they are usually labeled X-synchronization.

The reason for the M and the F settings was to delay the shutter until the flash bulb began to ignite. The delay for the F setting was around 5 milliseconds and the M setting was around 20 milliseconds. Needless to say, if you were to be using a strobe at either of these settings, the strobe will fire before the shutter begins to open.

When using strobes, particularly when the camera is being shared by a number of people, it is important to check that the sync is set to X (or in the case of older shutters, there may be no X sync, in which case the strobe would not be usable).