Someone has used this film?
How can the sensitivity?
Tolerate the red light?
Attachment 122451
Printable View
Someone has used this film?
How can the sensitivity?
Tolerate the red light?
Attachment 122451
Jonathan, What developer are you using with this Kodak (Carestream) Ektascan B/RA?
Have you any sample images convenient to share?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcoldslabs
Yep, I'm working my way through the two X-ray film threads; already got the Ektascan B/RA noted and ZZ Medical bookmarked (along with CXS, haven't checked yet if they have the Ektascan). Doesn't look like there's any actual 5x7 available (though I do see 13x18 cm in spots), but I'll probably just make the jump directly to 8x10, given the cost (seeing old Calumets on eBay for $500 or so BIN, too; that militates against building one). I can scan a full 8x10 negative, have experience with various printing-out processes for contact prints (and of course there's contact printing on enlarging paper) and if I ever have a need to enlarge from that size I can make up a projection back for the camera or build a box enlarger (no movements needed for conventional enlarging). Too bad I can't use a split dark slide to shoot 5x8 on 8x10 film (maybe I can make up a pair, one short, one with a window, but I can see the window one hanging on the velvet when trying to remove it, causing light leaks at the very best outcome). I could do 4x10 with a split dark slide, but that's a little wider than my comfort zone on format...Quote:
Originally Posted by jcoldslabs
You need a split/sliding back. They show up on Ebay regularly.
For instance: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Burke-James-...-/271492161496
If you get an older wood camera, many of them come with spring-loaded slots for sliding strips of wood to block off half the film, optionally in either direction. Often the slats themselves are missing, but they're easy to make. Agfa-Ansco 8x10 views are good, folding tailboard cameras, often not too expensive.
Just make one...Quote:
Originally Posted by mdarnton
You just need some clamps and a ruler and cloth cutter.
Attachment 122452
That's exactly what I need. Do you know, are they likely to fit another brand of camera (for instance, would a Burke & James fit a Calumet)? Alternately, that wouldn't be a hard item to fabricate; I just need a spring back without latch pins for reversing (easily removed from a spare back) and make up a mask and pair of slide rails for the back to move in. A couple spring-loaded detents to give repeatable positions, and it's good to go with standard film holders.Quote:
Originally Posted by mdarnton
I'm looking for something with at least basic movements -- rise, shift, tilt and swing -- at one end, like common flatbed types. Then, if I buy instead of building, it'll be a matter of what's on eBay when I have money. If I build a camera, it'd be simple to incorporate slots to accept a cut down dark slide for that job, though a sliding back would be better to avoid having to use movements to get the same framing (an issue if the frame is horizontal, putting the film holder vertical so just moving the entire camera could cause unwanted perspective changes).Quote:
If you get an older wood camera, many of them come with spring-loaded slots for sliding strips of wood to block off half the film, optionally in either direction. Often the slats themselves are missing, but they're easy to make. Agfa-Ansco 8x10 views are good, folding tailboard cameras, often not too expensive.
For 4x10, it's that simple (at least for the film holder side of things). For 5x8 on 8x10, not so much.Quote:
Originally Posted by StoneNYC
It's not as simple but it's doable you just have to carry 2 dark slides and be very careful inserting the framed one...Quote:
Originally Posted by Donald Qualls
Keeping in mind that this is a xray film thread and considering how inexpensive xray film is why not just expose the entire sheet and crop later.Quote:
Originally Posted by mdarnton
You could buy over 300 sheets of xray film for what it would cost to buy the split sliding back
That's a very good point. The sliding back would be mainly a hedge against xray film dropping out of production while 8x10 conventional film is still available (but expensive -- Ilford from Freestyle is already about six times the price of the relatively expensive Ektascan B/RA, though rebranded Foma is only about half again the price). For immediate purposes, though, it'd be cheaper to shoot 8x10 double-emulsion than even similar material in 5x7 (even if you get some of the 5x7 autoradiographic film I eventually found on my fourth search), and if the economy bug grows bigger jaws, about half the semi-affordable (i.e. under $600) 8x10 cameras I saw on eBay today had rotating 4x5 reducing backs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Light Guru
Looks like $500 or so for the camera, $250 to $500 for a common type lens in shutter (I can make lens boards myself; I've done several for my Speed Graphic and Graphic View), and $40 to $70 each for 8x10 film holders (and, of course, I'd have to buy film holders and at least one lens if I build a camera, too). If my bonuses from work get into the range my boss is dangling, even for three or four months, I can do that, and by the time I'm too old and frail to tote an 8x10 around, I'll have saved money vs. shooting even 4x5 .EDU Ultra for that time...
OTOH, I could almost certainly build the slider so I don't have to modify the reversing back off the camera to use it, meaning it would only cost the materials and work to make the sliding back -- and a sliding back could also be built to shoot four 4x5 frames on an 8x10, which frames could be separated and fit in my existing enlarger...
Okay, here's another potentially silly question relative to x-ray films (specifically the green-sensitive versions): after spending days wading through the image sharing thread for x-ray, I saw dozens of comments on how the film speed changes with changes in lighting (especially the color of the light), and had to almost physically restrain myself from posting replies to posts two or three years old, because this seems so simple. Presuming, of course, that your meter cell has a reasonably flat response curve across visible light (seems to me they're made to have this, and silicon meters often include an IR block filter to avoid over-metering on IR-heavy subjects), all you should need to do is meter through a strong minus-red filter to have little or no "speed change" with changes in the light color -- open shade, with heavy blue from sky scatter, dimmed tungsten light (which gets redder as you turn down the brightness), sunrise, noon, sunset, or night, a minus-red would make the meter's response very nearly match that of the film (for blue-only film, it'd be even easier: meter through a blue tri-color filter, or combine minus-red and minus-green). Looking at Wikipedia, it appears a 44 or 44A filter would be what's wanted.
Is there some completely obvious reason everyone is guessing about how much to compensate their exposure depending on what light condition they have? Based on the budgets of LF photographers, I doubt the cost of a single filter is it...
Essentially unrelated, I discovered I've had a box of x-ray film behind me all the time I've been reading about this stuff. It's Kodak X-omat XLS, which seems to be a pretty slow duplicating film, but with emulsion on both sides and green sensitive (it's probably similar speed to the ortho lith Freestyle sells). What I have is 35x43 cm, which is apparently just a little too narrow to fit 14x17 film holders, but ought to cut nicely to fit 4x5 or 9x12 cm (I've got cameras and film holders in both sizes), once I can get back into my darkroom (and test my safelight; it's a red color incandescent bulb that's many years old).