imsphotos

I'm just adding a few more shots, using the same template as the previous set except these were from a cassette of about 20 year OOD Kodak Gold. You can see how the image quality has degraded and shows a lot more grain compared to the In Date Agfa Vista submitted above, but still quite usable for my camera testing purposes. This time shot on a vintage Pentax MV … so fully automatic aperture priority exposure.

I understood from the original post that the photographer had in fact been paid. The unhappy client appears to be threatening a civil law suit to obtain a full refund. Threats are easy to make, but not so easy to carry out, especially without a 'good case'. In the circumstances, as described in the post I personally, in the UK, would sit tight.

Sit tight and await developments. OK ... I am in UK so lawa different but it sounds like so is complaining about the quality of a print she has had made from one of your digital images. In my world she is a very long way from describing the basis of even a complaint let alone a law suit. So, stay silent and wait would be my approach.

Interesting! I sometimes see that, but not so strong, in some of my scans - Epson V700 with Silverfast. You can just see it here in the sky area above the Spitfire. Agfa Vista, Semi stand processed in Adox F39, these are only quick scans

The mark preceding 'Biotar' is significant. It is reserved for First Quality work (it's a combination of 1 and Q). I've had it in a couple of 'special' Prakticas

Yes, the company concerned did not want to risk their reputation. In addition, an alternative I outlined to them was my willingness to undertake the uk 'small claim' civil court procedure what would almost certainly have found in my favour ... that would have been the trigger for naming and shaming. Plus, as a news outlet they would have had to report their own misconduct.

Stand Developing is worth considering but your results would interesting yet not 'conventional'. You did say this was an experiment, right?

After the above 'second test' I was quite happy to move to using this process, with my 'surplus' c41 film with cameras I was testing for real. Not withstanding some reservations about absolute image quality the process is clearly fine for what I require. I did however make another modest increase in the developer concentration which resulted in the two shots below, taken on Nikomat with 500 f1.4 Nikkor. These were taken in dimly lit interior (one with very strong backlight) of Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre (Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre). I will stick with this procedure for now. Summary of now established process for Agfa Vista C41 'Semi Stand' developed in Ado F39II: 8cc developer to 492 cc water at room temp (18deg) , 1 min agitation then stand for 35 min then agitate for 1 min, then second stand for 35min. Tap water rinse to STOP. Normal Fix, Wash and Rinse

A few years back a national TV company (in UK) used one of my copyright images (it was a client portrait) on a broadcast (my client had done something newsworthy). They had 'lifted' the image from his Facebook page without either of us giving permission. After some exchange of correspondence I sent them a couple of options and they settled by paying a bill I had estimated based on what they would have had to pay my agency (Alamy) to use that shot on national TV. We both knew that they were in the wrong and my request for payment was based on fair industry standard. Had they not paid then I would have 'named and shamed'

The OM 10, without the optional manual adapter, is Aperture Priority Auto. Therefore if the photographer chooses a small aperture the shutter speed will go down unnoticed ... I suspect this is the most likely explanation.

Thanks Marcus, here is another one of the 24 shots as described above. Crab claw and Rope.

That's the second test roll just done. I used the same process as before except added 1 cc more of developer (up from 5 cc to 6) and extended both stand sessions by 5 minutes (i.e. 35 min > Agitate >35). I also shot at ISO 160 rather than box speed of 200. The negatives were easy to see/cut this time. The histograms appeared to show that increasing shooting exposure was not required but that the extra developer / time helped significantly. All 24 shots were quite acceptable for my testing purposes to will keep the processing the same but revert to shooting at box speed. Here is the first shot from the film, taken on bright but overcast day at Stonehaven Harbour

I would assume that the authentic prints would be retouched in the traditional way and that the prints would be for sale.

Not me. The developer I was using was fresh bottled and fresh 'brewed' .... one shot of 5cc. Adox F39 is a tradition formula that can be stored for a long time and is relatively non toxic. Here is some basic information on it from my uk supplier. Note that this 0.5 litre bottle is sufficient to process 100 films by the method I used : ADOX Paterson FX39 500ml This is NOT the method recommended by the manufacturer but I did it this way (stand process) as an experiment, particularly in respect by applying it to c41 colour film.

For me it's about 'the hunt' not 'the kill'. By that I mean like fly fishing for Salmon .... not so great to eat but great fun to try and catch. If you really don't like the process there is little point. I agree with your comment about the 'puddle jump' shot but it was novel than and with the tools available at the time, quite an achievement.

Hi Arthur, thanks for posting these. Like you, in the past, I have played around with old, stale and variable film and got mixed results. In this case I used a reliable camera and reliable, though basic, c41 film. It was ISO 200 Agfa Vista shot at box speed but deliberately exposed to be low key. I can see some granulation in mine but not excessive.

Hi Joe, thanks for the chemistry lesson. I'm sure you are absolutely correct in your calculations. However I am more interested in practice over theory and my post was merely to outline the physical outcome of my little experiment. The B&W images posted are representative of the entire film shot. I only see it as a starting point that others might like to explore further. I know that few people would be interested in degrading colour film to B&W, and to do so using just a spoonful of basic developer. But it is what it is and it appears to fill a gap, in my experience at least.

Hi Joe, very interesting but, relative to the purpose of this post, what point are you making?

Hi Joe, no endorsement was intended. This was simply an experiment to see that happens when B&W stand processing is applied to c41 colour films. Yes the negatives were thin and the orange mask was hard to penetrate. Despite that the usual weak developer solution used for the stand methodology, over the extended time allowed, gives reasonable prospects to scan acceptable images. The images posted are a good representation of what I was seeing. Most of the references I came across agreed that 4cc of Rodinal ( the most commonly used stand developer) is sufficient to develop a single 36 exp. film. My first experiment appears to confirm that my 5cc was about enough. I will stick with that next time but will extend the time slightly to see what happens.

What I learned from this experiment was that 'normal' stand development times and dilution ratios apply to c41 as well as to B&W films. Next time round I will seek out more high contrast scenes and increase exposure by half a stop. What did surprise me was the low contrast shot of the game bag. The Adox F39 was just what I had to hand. Most of the 'stand' reports I read are from Rodinal users but there are no local suppliers of that here so part of the experiment was to see if the F39 would work. I'm very happy to stick with it for now. Another relevant point is that I now feel less guilty at pouring highly concentrated one shot developers down the drain. F39 is claimed by Adox to be low in toxicity and at 5cc per film the stand process is much kinder to the environment.

I have a 148 if anyone is interested .... lovely little thing .... last 'prewar' model made.

Its a fairly well documented technique for B&W film. There is a lot of on line debate about the quality of negatives you can get but there is no doubt that you can be 'lazy' about time and temperature and that it reduces the cost of developer. Normally you would dilute F39 to 1/9 or 1/14 but here it is diluted 1/99. I had picked up the odd reference to using it on C41 film and became curious, especially as little information was available. I had processed C41 in B&W, using the normal methodology, previously but that was just for a rescue situation on a film (and that was a well out of date film) that had got chewed up in a faulty camera. The images were usable but not great (the camera was also misbehaving). My reasons for doing it was to see just how well it could work if exposed properly and with the added challenge of using stand (more accurately 'semi stand' as I gave it some agitation half way). I could not find any reliable information on how to modify the stand process for c41. I want to try another roll soon and would make a couple of small adjustments but as you can see it is possible to pull reasonable images from the scanning process. I can't imagine wet printing the negatives but I don't have a print darkroom anyway. Its not something I would do for quality but for film tests, where I have cheap c41 X24 exp film that costs a lot to get posted and processed, it is a good method. Anyway I thought it would be good to get this information out as I could not find anything that made it clear. here are another couple of my shots … I was deliberately exposing for low key shots.

I'm just posting this for information. I did look for some online guidance regarding doing this but found little that gelled with my curiosity. Why bother wasting colour film by developing it as B&W, especially using stand developing? Well, I have a bit of a surplus of just in date C41 film but my local processing shop has closed so I have to mail films off to national lab. costs of developing are higher but the postage is as much as processing AND my surplus films are all 24 exp. I do a fair amount of testing of old film cameras so image quality is second priority to ensuring that the camera will operate correctly or any limitations are discovered. So, my question, to myself was '"Can stand processing C41 in B&W chemistry yield an acceptable image to check a camera's functions?" I had processed some C41s as B&W in 'emergency' situations but I had never used stand processing at all, not even with B&W film. My initial reaction on hanging up the negatives was ' nothing to see, oh, yes … very faint image there … but VERY tricky making out the frames to cut the negative strips.' However, although it took a bit of time getting the scanning set up right I got a fine set of images from my scanner. I was using my personal camera which operates and exposes correctly. The film was exposed for low key shots in dark, old Tack Room of local riding stables using a close focusing 24mm lens, mainly at f2.8. So my own answer to my question is 'Yes', for my first time at stand processing, B&W chemistry works just time. Yashica FX3 / 24mm ML / Agfa Vista 200X24 / Adox F39 II / 5 cm to 495 cm at room temp (18C) / Agitate, 30 min Agitate, 30 min STOP / Epson V700 + Silverfast SE