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I just mixed up some D-23 after reading on Mr. O'Neil's experiences with it and Fuji HR-U and I was stunned at how easy it is to make. Never paid much attention to the formula before; only 3 ingredients, one being water?
I'm in love.
I have enough bulk chemicals to make thousands of gallons of this stuff. Hope it works as well for me as it does for Andrew.
651 pages of posts on shooting with xray film makes it really hard to find an easy simple entry point into the game...
Has anyone created a brief "Getting started with xray films" PDF?
Or should I just order a ton of fuji film and then start looking for chemicals and processing info?
On page #638, posting #6378, Tim Meisburger summarized a lot of information and wrote a "primer" for shooting with X-Ray film.Quote:
Originally Posted by TorontoBuilder
If you wish to stray beyond what he has summarized, then reading the entire thread and taking notes is about the best possible solution to see what others have done.
Thank you so much Kino!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kino
Irony of all irony, I think the Fuji HR-U I bought was fogged by... an X-ray machine!
There is a band of density across the middle of both of the sheets I shot just now and processed.
I expected crappy exposures, scratches and finger prints, but not a band of exposure.
I will update this post with images as soon as the negatives dry.
UPDATE: Images
Attachment 247246
For some reason I can't upload 2 images, so this second posting...
Attachment 247247
It could very well be from being xrayed. I had banding on IR sheet film, but it ran the width of the film, not the length, like yours. And there was more than one band.
Guess I should pull a sheet from the center of the pack and process that in total darkness to see if it's all hosed.
Andrew O'Neill, Thank you that's great to know. I'll continue happily buying as much as possible from my local ebay ��
I'd start with searching for whatever cheap film you can find locally. Search for that here. Then search for whatever developer you have on hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by TorontoBuilder
Give that a try.
If you don't like the look but want to go deeper down the rabbit hole then comeback to fine tune.
I only had Fuji's superprodol years ago and tried that and it worked well. I'm currently using hc110 but only because I was given a bottle from a friend.
Can it be pressure?
Well, I pulled a sheet from the middle and the back of the pack and I cannot see this defect.
I did, however, discover that the small, red AC safelights sold on Ebay are NOT safe with Fuji HR-U Xray film. I did a 1 through 10 minute wedge with the film on my enlarger baseboard, about 5 feet away with the light reflected. There is practically no difference between the steps, but the ruler I laid over one edge was perfectly clear.
I am not saying these don't work for other applications, but be aware of my experience if you are thinking of using them for X-ray film.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235241444895
I am beginning to suspect my film holders. Will be testing those.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugen Mezei
That's the problem trying to resurect a 100+ year old camera; everything is suspect...
=====Quote:
Originally Posted by Kino
I have great success with what is called a LED "Neon Rope strip".
I left a sheet of paper out for 30 minutes = Then developed it. It came out WHITE. I did the same with Fuji HR-U. It was the came = Nothing.
I have been using this safe lighting system for three years now.
Here is the Amazon link for what I use. (I do not know about the other LED lights = I Know this works.:
https://www.amazon.com/Maxlaxer-Wate...1zcF9tdGY&th=1Attachment 247384
Here is what I am using for the development of X-ray (Fuji HR-U) film.
It is my reformula of Ansco-30 = For TANK DEVELOPMENT.
--
Here is the Ansco-30-JK reformulated “Tank Developer Solution”.
Water - at 120 Degrees F. -------------------750ml.
Metol --------------------------------------------------------- 3.0 Grams. (Reduced)
Sodium Sulfite ----------------------------------------- 70.0 G. (Increased)
Hydroquinone ------------------------------------------- 4.0 G. (Reduced)
Sodium Carbonate ------------------------------------ 20.0 G. (Reduced)
Potassium Bromide ------------------------------------- 5.5 G. (Increased)
Cold water to make a Full 1 liter of Solution. (STOCK solution.)
For a working solution --
Take One Part of this Stock to 24 Parts of Water. That is a 1:25 Ratio. (i.e.= 1 Oz. stock to 24 Oz. Water)
The times will vary with the temperature of the working solution, anywhere from four to seven minutes.
(20 Degrees C. = 6 minutes)
----------Attachment 247392
Attachment 247393
Attachment 247395
Regarding pressure, how you store your film? On the boxes is imprinted, that no pressure should be applied to them. Now guess why I suspect your problem could be pressure: My mother always places things in the fridge onto my boxes of film, although I told her thousands of times not to.
What is meant by tank? Tanks for roll films or dip and dunk tanks?Quote:
Originally Posted by James R. Kyle
Is that not rather a 1+24 ratio?
Thanks James for the neon rope link; that looks ideal.
A bit scattered at the moment, but will pull it together soon.
Too many irons in the fire at the moment...
Upright on a shelf in the darkroom; not refrigerated yet. Just got the film last week and don't want to refrigerate the box I am working with at the moment. The other is most certainly not stacked under anything in the fridge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugen Mezei
Like I said before, I am under the growing conviction it is my ancient film holders leaking light.
These things take time to sort out, but thanks for the ongoing input.
------------Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugen Mezei
Ok... Whatever.
Has anyone determined around how long Fuji super hr-u lasts on average after expiration? Trying to determine if I should cut this film to size and put it in the fridge or just keep it out in my ~70-80F darkroom.
---------------------Quote:
Originally Posted by Kino
Here is what I use:
https://www.amazon.com/Maxlaxer-Wate...cx_mr_hp_atf_m
James, I purchased this red LED rope and agree; they work great with absolutely no fog for Fuji HR-U.Quote:
Originally Posted by James R. Kyle
Now if I can only get the scratching under control. Using a Pyrex caserole dish because 6.5 x 8.5 film hangers are rare to non-existent, but even then I get abrasions.
Exploring a way to 3D print these, but it will be a while so I will cut it down to a smaller format for the time being.
Attachment 247789 Attachment 247792
If you like sweets go into a supermarket and look for something like this: https://www.profipacking.ro/caserole...t-si-prajituriQuote:
Originally Posted by Kino
You have to find the packaging that is flat. Some are reinforced at the bottom and not in the lid. There you can get the lid. You also should experiment with the transparent and the black version and find out which is softer.
I got one type where the lid is transparent, not reinforced by profiles and of soft material.
You an buy than that and it practically comes free, after you eat the cookies.
First I bought different other foods, but no matter how good I cleaned them, grease did not go completly away. But the sugary residues clean up completly.
Important is, that what will become the bottom of your tray is not reinforced by a profile. Completly flat is best, but hard to find as they have somehow to give strenght to the flims foil these recipients are mad of. If the profile has no hard edges and the material is soft plastic, than it also will not scratch.
Cut some 1 year expired Fuji Super HR-U for my 120 camera.
Shot at 100iso 6x6 on my Yashica Mat 124G (lens has some haze)
Developed with 1:5 Dektol for 2 minutes at 20C
Attachment 247822Attachment 247823Attachment 247824Attachment 247825
I use polystyrene "trays" (the foam type) after i consume the food contained :) They are light to use and soft for the X-ray films.
https://www.chemicalsafetyfacts.org/...s/polystyrene/
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...6&d=1710926980
Fuji HR-U 80ISO D-23 1+2 9min
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...7&d=1710927096
Fuji HR-U 80ISO D-23 1+2 9min
Well done!Quote:
Originally Posted by kurik
Very nicely done!
I haven't read all 654 pages, so maybe I'm not the first one to try this, but I'm happy to announce my experiments with cutting X-ray film into 35mm and 120 film have been successful!
Fuji sells 36"x14" chest xray sheets the size of my torso, and I realized that 120 rolls of film are only about 32" long... 35mm rolls are longer, but you can get a 20 shot small roll out of 36".
Cutting Method:
(This is under red safelight) I made this guide form from wood and stuff I had lying around. The floating fence in the middle is just resting in the peg holes with bolts, not bolted down. This allows me to slide a gigantic sheet of xray film under it while holding its weight up. I haven't gotten any meaningful scratches yet, but I could but felt on the bottom of that if need be. The raised fence on the far side is glued down in just the right place to make it the width of a film roll versus the one that is aligned with the pegs. It was important to make sure the cutting happens BETWEEN a row of holes, or the blade etc will dip down into the peg holes all the time. I then slide the film sheet under the floating fence, butt it up against the straight one, and either use this cutting tool shown below, or (more accurate but more of a pain), a sharpie and then hold the sheet up to the safelight and cut with scissors. Conveniently, 35mm film is precisely 1" narrower than 120 film, so moving the floating fence over 1 peg switches between the two.
Attachment 248167Attachment 248168
To load and shoot 35mm film: I have cassettes from old commercial 35mm film I shot with 1" of leader still sticking out. I simply tape the xray strip to that on both sides, stick it into a spare camera body with manual rewind, and rewind it up. Then I stick a short section of leader on the front of normal film -- this helps takeup and also wastes minimum xray film on leaders, since the roll is already short. I can then shoot the roll of film in specifically a Canon 10QD SLR, which does not require perforated film (it uses a mechanical roller to keep track of how much film has passed by). AFAIK this and the NIkonos II are the only two modern SLRs to be able to use un-sprocketed film. Xray film seems to suffer from "light piping" or similar and gets bad leaks if loaded in daylight in 35mm specifically. I think the felt traps don't work well with it. 120 film actually works better (See below), but 35mm you should absolutely load and possibly unload it in the dark/safelight.
To load and shoot 120 film: I have old spools and backing paper from commercial rolls I already shot and developed. Before I begin, I roll out a bit of the paper and mark off the starting point of the film in white gel pen. it's roughly like 10 inches in or so, it depends how short you cut the roll and how many shots and your format etc. Sacrifice one roll to plan it all out in the daylight, then from then on you can just roll out a bit, mark the line, and roll it back up. In the darkroom, with safelight, I begin rolling the backing paper onto a new spool. When i get to the gel pen line, I take the cut strip of xray film (which I have hanging from a twine like drying sheet film would be) and add it into the roll and start rolling it up too. When I run out of film, I tape it to the backing paper (this must be the ONLY tape involved!), and then finish rolling the paper, and rubber band the roll off. It leaks like a *****, so i tend to load it in the darkroom. You can do it in daylight, but it's risky. The issue is that the xray film is thicker than normal so it baaaaarely is contained by the reel flanges at the ends, and if you don't wind it super tight, it will leak a bit on some frames. You can also just make do with a shorter roll instead to reduce bulk. The xray film is also stiffer and it will want to spring out and unspool on you. You must be diligent in maintaining pressure until it's loaded properly, then it's fine once in camera. The camera's Ive used have had no problem rolling it tight again on the other side (I have a Minolta Autocord hand cranked, and a Pentax 645 battery motor drive which happily uses this film).
The frame spacing on both 35mm and 120 has been totally fine in my experience, the cameras do not get meaningfully confused by the thicker film base. Occasionally but only maybe once every 10-15 frames and can be cloned out usually if digitized. I have also not seen hardly any scratching of the film on the backing paper or pressure plate side. YMMV.
35mm samples: The last one is out of focus and scratched, but I just wanted to show the crazy halation at 35mm scale you can see sometimes in scenes like this. All of these I think were shot with either a Canon 50mm 1.8 or a Tokina atx-pro 28-70 f/2.8
Attachment 248177Attachment 248178Attachment 248179Attachment 248180Attachment 248181Attachment 248182
120 medium format samples:
Attachment 248183Attachment 248184
(see next post for more 120 examples)
Stock is Fuji HR-U Green, rated at 100 ISO, and Development is ideally D-76 1:3, agitate 1 minute straight, then stand 30 minutes. Sometimes though if I'm processing it along with normal film, I use a compromise method to avoid bromide drag on the rolls with sprockets in the same tank, where I do D-76 1:3, 10 minutes, agitate, 10 minutes, agitate, 10 minutes, agitate, 5 minutes, end. it makes the xray contrastier and denser, but acceptable.
A few more xray HR-U home rolled 120 film samples (645 format) since it cut me off at 10 attachments from my immediately previous post above this one. All were shot on a pentax 645 with either a 45-85mm pentax zoom lens, or a 80mm Zeiss Jena Biometar 2.8:
Attachment 248185Attachment 248186Attachment 248187Attachment 248188Attachment 248189Attachment 248190Attachment 248191
Thanks for the detailed write up. The images look great. You must have the patience of a saint.
I greatly envy your lighter x-ray film set up. My RB 67 can be a pain in the ass to lug around all day.
A few shots from the past few weeks. Nothing special just roaming around town with my RB 67 and two grafmatic 23 backs loaded with Fujifilm PX 100NIF. Developed in HC-110.
Attachment 248194Attachment 248195Attachment 248196Attachment 248197
Photos from Ami 66 (Polish camera 6x6)
Attachment 248250
Attachment 248251
Xray HR-U / R09
FYI for anyone interested, I got a iso-luminant (same brightness all across) image of the color gamut in HSL space, and took a photo of it with Fuji HR-U green xray film
Then lined up the spectrum image with the photo (adjusted to control black and white card points I included as well) and graphed out the sensitivity of the film by sample points, using the lightness of the B&W HR-U scanned negative
Attachment 248636
So I believe this is pretty much the spectral curve of HR-U, unless you know something I did wrong. I ordered some RX-N, I will do that one too later.
thanks, that's very useful to know. looking forward to your future tests too!Quote:
Originally Posted by gavjenks
I was going to do the same thing with the curve I did above but for RX-N blue, but then I realized that unlike HR-U green, Fuji publishes a spectral chart for it:
Attachment 250322
Ummmm... has anyone ever tried RX-N ""blue"" film for infrared photography? It looks like it would be absolutely amazing at it if this is true?
Or am I completely misunderstanding, and the right side only shows the spectrum of an SLG-8U safe light? <--Yeah the more I look at it, the two Y axes have different labels. This is just the safelight.
ANYWAY, the left side of this is the spectral curve for blue xray film for you. I assume that in real life outdoor shooting, it gets some extra boost from UV beyond the left of this chart. If it can get through your lens.
Nice work!Quote:
Originally Posted by gavjenks
I’ve also been spooling x-ray, but in my case 6” spools for my home built Cirkut panorama. I get one 6”x36” image per spool. These are more like 220, a paper leader and follower, but no film backing.
I bought a x-large rotary cutter reasonably online - great for the precision needed to get the paper cut juuuust wider than the spool
Attachment 250323
Very good!
Glad to see another knows how to post Pano!
Quote:
Originally Posted by malexand
Years ago now I cut some 8x10 Xray down to 5x7's and a strip just big enough for a little more than the image height (landscape mode) of a 35mm camera. I loaded some into reusable 35mm cartridges and took some pictures. I did not like how hard it seemed to advance the film using an Olympus OM-1, some of the internal parts are plastic of a "certain" age, and at some point I ran out of 1x8 pieces. Along the way I did get a bunch of usable images. I enlarged one, developed in Tylenol made into Rodinal, I think. It made a very nice 5x7 and that was cropped a bit so I suspect it would withstand considerable enlarging beyond that. The taking lens was the kit lens for the camera an F1.8 50mm, probably at f8 or 11 and I used the self timer for the exposure, so very little shake. I think this was all done with Ektascan-BRA mammography film that has/had an antihalation layer to it so I don't have weirder highlights than normal. The detail possible reminds me of a couple of rolls of Tech Pan someone gave me.
the only "panoramic" stuff I've done with film was putting 3 sheets of 8x10 xray into a pinhole camera for a 24x10. It was way too curved a can for this and the distortion was not to my taste. I could live with the central sheet, but the "wings"? No thanks. Someday I may build a better setup for W-I-D-E photos, but not any time soon, likely, too much non-photo going on.
Still, I'm encouraged to see the panoramic and general "small" camera usage. I have a couple MF cameras and a few 35mm ones, besides the LF ones, some with lenses some as pinholes.
Thanks for a nice break, I'd better get back to work.
Tests...Fuji HRT, along with testing my new scanner. There was a big light leak along the bottom, so this is more from a 8x8" section of the negative.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/j0x0z...lsda9ptx&raw=1
Looks good to me!
Thanks, Randy. None of those....poplar?....... trees are there anymore. :(
"is intended for standard or rapid cycle processing using hardened developers such as KODAK X-OMAT EX II or KODAK RP X-OMAT
Developer and Replenisher." is what the technical paper of a Carestream X-ray film states.
No, I do not intend to use that developer (as I suppose it is a very fast and hard working one), but I am interested to know if there can be hardening in the developing stage. Until now I thought this can happen not before fixing.
So how do I prepare a developer that hardens the emulsion but still lets the developing agent diffuse into the gelatin? My hope is, attacking the problem in the earliest stage possible, to avoid scratches.
Just leaving a note here for a development routine that I doubt anyone else has tried: I've been getting excellent results with XTOL 1:7 (yes, 7) stand development at 2 hours. Anywhere from ISO 50-250 or so.
The highly dilute stand developing is very compensating, so a range of ISOs work, but you get more grain still higher up and more contrast. it's just that it remains acceptable in some cases in my opinion to 250, if the speed is needed. I try to stick to 125 if the speed isn't needed. 400 can work if you artistically are fine with or want a partially blown/blocked high or low key image. 25 is getting too dense and losing information. That's for HR-U.
For RX-N, the same development works for clear sunny days, for overcast I add 1 stop versus HR-U (there's less blue light compared to other colors)
I wanted to use XTOL due to environmental and low toxicity reasons. And then stand for compensation, and as a bonus it's incredibly cheap due to the dilution. And low effort as you are not standing there agitating it.
I use pyrocat developer because of its hardening qualities. I get fewer scratches with that developer.
I don't get scratches
Two things to consider, for those trying to solve the issue of scratching:
--
Do not cut your films to fit your holders.
It might sound weird, but in the long run it's cheaper and far less frustrating to buy a user camera and film holders to fit your chosen film stock, than cutting film to fit your existing camera and film holders…
This solution, besides the initial extra cost, restricts you to specific film formats...
--
Now, if you must cut xray film, *never* let two cut pieces contact each other, either before or during processing.
The cut edge is too sharp, and they will scratch and bruise each other, no matter how careful you might be…
Instead, load each cut piece into a film holder, right after cutting it, and only remove it from the holder to process it.
Processing should be done individually, either in flat bottomed trays, in Jobo expert drums, or in hangers (actually, I have never gotten good results with hangers, but others seem to have).
Also, even though all xray films are finicky in terms handling, some are worse than others.
For example, from the 7 makes and models which I tried before settling to Fuji mammographic films (first AD-M, and later UM-MA) the very worst was the Fuji RX-N.
--
Best of luck…