simon_rodan

<p>In the US it's <a href="http://www.adorama.com/KKX5L.html?gclid=CM-M1r6z6LMCFYN_QgodpCwAhQ">available from Adorama</a>. I bought 2 packets a couple of weeks ago. </p>

<p>@Larry: I did a search for news about BW400CN and found nothing suggesting Kodak has discontinued this film. It's still listed on Kodak's website and still available from Adorama and B&H. </p>

<p>Confirming the last two posts (Barney Smith and David M), I just heard from our local WalMart (Sonora, CA) that Fuji Labs, to whom WalMart contracted 120 film processing, has changed its policy and will no longer return negatives. It will instead provide prints (useless for my purposes) or a CD. The price for a roll of B&W 120 which was $2.33 will now be $4.83 ($2.50 for the scanning and the CD)... </p>

<p>Walmart has been sending film to FujiLabs, at least since I started doing medium format in January. The results were fine and they were very inexpensive ($2.33 for a roll of B&W, 3.22 for color neg).</p>

<p>However, I was told today that Fuji has stopped offering its develop only service. It will develop 120 films and scan them (I'm trying to find out at what resolution) but they won't return the negs.</p>

<p>According to Norma at my local Walmart, the cost of the CD will be an additional $2.50. </p>

I would like to thank everyone who posted an answer for their great

thoughts and advice. I now have a variety of tests to carry out this

weekend. Thanks again.

Simon

Here's my problem: After making a number of test strips, I finalised the exposure for the print I am working on (20 secsonds @ f11). Then I take a sheet of 8x10 and without altering anything (enlarger height, aperture, focus), I make the exposeure and develop the print EXACTLY as I have the test strip, (2 minutes constant agitation, 4 times the image appearance time). However, the shadows which were a nice rich Zone I on the test strip appear as Zone II or III on the 8x10. <p>I then make a repeat test strip to cehck that I have not done something silly and again the blacks fall on Zone I - then I make another 8x10 and again they rise to Zone III. <P>This, as you might imagine, is rather frutating. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what is going on.

<p>Many thanks<p>Simon

I hope to do a portrait on 4x5 early next week and the longest lens I have is 180mm. I would ideally like to use a 300mm but I can't afford to buy one and would prefer not to have to hire one unless I have to.<p>

I discovered after a little experimenting that removing the front cell of my 180 Symmar-S (i.e. using only the rear cell) extends the focal length of the lens considerably (perhaps to around 300 though I have not measured it).<p> Does anyone have any thoughts on the viability of this 'improvisation'?

Thank you very much for all your advice.

I am beginning to experiment with a water bath development process as described by Ansel Adams in "The Negative" (p232). Adams recommends 30 seconds in the developer (Ildord Delta 100, Kodak HC110, 1+19, [F]) with constant agitation and then 1 minute in the waterbath with no agitation. <p> To get an appropriate contrast range in the neg for my condenser enlarger I have found I need to repeat this cycle 6 times (Adams suggestes 10 but this produces negs that are too contrasty for my darkroom setup).<p>I have encountered two probelms:<p>

1). In areas on the neg that are relatively flat, I am getting some streaking. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I might do to avoid this? <p>

2) The shadow areas while retaing detail are very flat. The overall effect has been to compress the entire negative rather than simply holding back debelopment of the highlights. On another BB, Ellis Vernon, suggested (and I'm sure this is right) that modern emulsions are too thin to hold the developer in the way they did for Adams 30 years ago (Indeed Adams does mantion this in "The Negative").

Does anyone have any advice/thoughts on the topic of a modern day alternative to the water bath process Adams described?

<p> (Ellis Vernon suggested trying a method devised by John Sexton using highly T-max developer to achieve the same results. When I find some more details I will try this. <p>

Many thanks (and apologies for the long-winded posting).

I have just bought an Omega D2V and am trying to make my first prints from 4x5 negs. I have exposed the neg placing the shadows on Zone II and the main element of interest on Zone V. Highlights fell on Zone IX. This would seem to call for normal development. <p>However, when I develop the negs (Ilford Delta 100) in both HC111 (dilution B, 6 minutes) and D76 (stock, 9 minutes) which according to Ilford is the recommended times for normal development at 68F, I get negs that are so contrasty I cannot print them on Ilfospeed grade 2. <p>I don't want to move to grade 1 as I am trying to get the development times sorted for grade 2 paper. With D76 I have tried cutting development time to 3 1/2 minutes which helps but I am worried that in doing so, I am loosing shadow detail.

<p>Any thoughts or suggestions?

Like Carey Bird, I use a 135mm lens on an Olympus body. I have an

older (and cheaper) OM2-S which according to the specs meters in spot

mode on 2% of the film area. With a 135mm lens this works out to a 1

degree circle, comparable to the a stand-alone spot meter. (With a

50mm lens the meter reads from a 2.7 degree circle). Since I already

had the OM system, I saved several hundred $. Also the LF equipment

is already pretty heavy the addition of a 35mm SLR seemed to add

relatively little weight..