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

[Thodoris Tzalavras]

30 seconds exposure on x-ray film.
Rittreck view with 18x24cm back.
Fujinon W 250 at f32
Scan from negative, finished in PS.

[Thodoris Tzalavras]

For anyone interested. Foma have a Mamo single side notched emulsion film.

I'd be very interested to see your results.
It doesn't say anything about anti-halation on the pdf though (one of the main attractions of the Ektascan BR/A).

[Fr. Mark]

Premortho asserted that Ektascan BR/A is the only Ortho film on the market that has an anti halation backing. No idea if this is true, but I've not heard of another.

[stiganas]

I have no idea from where I got this antihalation info but it doesn't matter because I have the film in my hands

It has antihalation, it is a deep blue dye that come off very easy and the film is safe under a red led. I can't say anything else from the short test I've done except that I didn't like the look of the negative, it reminds me of lithofilm.


but this means nothing - it is just one test sheet.

[Thodoris Tzalavras]

I have no idea from where I got this antihalation info but it doesn't matter because I have the film in my hands

It has antihalation, it is a deep blue dye that come off very easy and the film is safe under a red led. I can't say anything else from the short test I've done except that I didn't like the look of the negative, it reminds me of lithofilm.


but this means nothing - it is just one test sheet.

It seems to be a little under exposed and a lot over developed (at least for what I'm shooting for, for silver printing and scanning.)
I would suggest to dilute your developer quite a bit, to get some control over the density of the highlights.

[stiganas]

It seems to be a little under exposed and a lot over developed (at least for what I'm shooting for, for silver printing and scanning.)
I would suggest to dilute your developer quite a bit, to get some control over the density of the highlights.

True at both counts - I just want to show the notches on the film. It goes perfect in the 18x24 holder (same size as the normal 8x10 holder just the internal mask smaller)

[premortho]

If I didn't say that Ektascan BR/A is the only Orthchromatic film on the market with an anti-halation backing that I know of - - I should have.

[mdarnton]

I have no idea from where I got this antihalation info but it doesn't matter because I have the film in my hands

It has antihalation, it is a deep blue dye that come off very easy and the film is safe under a red led. I can't say anything else from the short test I've done except that I didn't like the look of the negative, it reminds me of lithofilm.


but this means nothing - it is just one test sheet.

Yes, that does look like lith film. My xray negs (Fuji double sided) don't look anything like that. A bit high contrast sometimes, but not like that. The developer I use was suggested in one of the first posts here, and that's D23, 1:6 or 1:7 or something. It's very gentle, and if I do it right I can get negs that are really beautiful. I've been saving it and reusing it, but have noticed that it works even better as it gets old and weak, so I'm thinking of doubling the dilution and using it as a one shot, since the cost is really negligible. Developing by inspection means I don't have to let it go past when the development is good, which your neg certainly has, so I certainly recommend you get yourself one of those red LED bulbs people are using so successfully, if you don't already have one:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/more.../attributes/13

[Will Frostmill]

Yes, that does look like lith film. My xray negs (Fuji double sided) don't look anything like that. A bit high contrast sometimes, but not like that. The developer I use was suggested in one of the first posts here, and that's D23, 1:6 or 1:7 or something. It's very gentle, and if I do it right I can get negs that are really beautiful. I've been saving it and reusing it, but have noticed that it works even better as it gets old and weak, so I'm thinking of doubling the dilution and using it as a one shot, since the cost is really negligible. Developing by inspection means I don't have to let it go past when the development is good, which your neg certainly has, so I certainly recommend you get yourself one of those red LED bulbs people are using so successfully, if you don't already have one:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/more.../attributes/13

I was just looking at Ansel's The Negative today, at his discussion of D23, and I'm wondering if the reason your D23 gets better and better is because it's picked up some bromide from interacting with the film.

I was also looking at your examples of green x-ray in D23. Very nice. I really liked the violin portrait. Do you still rate it at 80, and run it at 1:6 for 8 minutes? How much agitation do you use? Can you tell me what kind of max density you get with your usual dev time?

[mdarnton]

I don't have a time v temp feel for it, now that I develop by inspection. Now that it's winter and I'm developing by inspection my temps have gone down, and my times up.

Current times run around 10 minutes. Agitation is very little, every two minutes. Hangers in tanks, I bump them back and forth a couple of times, then gently lift them out once, drop them back in gently, and bump them back and forth a couple of times. That takes about 15 seconds. I don't believe that much if any is really necessary. Traditionally, xray films are developed by hanging them in the dev, walking away for a while and then coming back and pulling them out---no agitation at all. This does work, but it makes me feel guilty.

I don't have any concrete figures on density. If I were printing them on Polycontrast, I think they would want about a (non-existent) 00 filter at their contrastiest, and would print with a 2 at the flattest. Because I'm scanning, not printing, I develop until I like how the shadows have built up, and let the highlights go where they will. With scanning this attitude works just fine. However, with the first batch the highlights go up quite a bit, and by the last batch, when the shadows are good the highlights look sort of normal. The exhaustion is rapid and obvious, and I would never do this with Tri-X, for instance. The results would be too unpredictable, and the film wouldn't stand for it. The interesting thing to me about the xray film is that it doesn't block up at all. No matter how badly I mess up, you can't see it in the final results, and scanning and printing are just as easy. It must have a straight line curve that reaches to the moon, the way it acts.

I guess it would be easy enough to run some faux-densitometer tests with my lightmeter; I just am not much into that kind of thinking. If you are into the zone system mindset, well. . . . I'm a 35mm, meterless, hip-shooting retro-Leica, don't-need-no-stinkin'-zones barbarian and all of that stuff doesn't mean much to me. I hadn't even owned a meter for the last 30 years until I started using strobes in the studio two years ago, and bought a meter for testing lighting ratios. Now it's back not being used again.

What I would really like to do is get consistently flatter negs, which is why I'm considering more dilution. The current effects could be bromide build-up, but it could easily be exhaustion. I say this because once I pushed too far, and nothing was coming out at all---I mixed a new batch of D23 right there in the dark and continued on. So obviously the previous run was right at the end of its life.

I can be very controlled in my processes if I want to, but I'm doing this for fun, experimentally, and having a lot of fun seeing how far I can push the materials. The one thing that isn't varying at all in this is my exposures which have settled down to EI 50.