Use of X-ray film: technical discussion with example images

[gavjenks]

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:

[shuji]

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.

[shuji]

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.

[fotna]

Photos from Ami 66 (Polish camera 6x6)


Xray HR-U / R09

[gavjenks]

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



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.

[shuji]

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



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!

[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:



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.

[malexand]

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:

Nice work!
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

[Tin Can]

Very good!

Glad to see another knows how to post Pano!

Nice work!
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

[Fr. Mark]

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.