Shooting a Bronica ETRS in -14F Temps

-14°F Sunrise at Boyson Trail, Marion, Iowa

I won’t say that it sucks, just gets very hard.

I lasted a half hour outside all bundled up and got incredibly frustrated as every time I exhaled, my glasses fogged over. Will need to remedy that with ski googles, an idea from Eric’s blog about his adventure to Boyson Park the day before I went. He would have called me, but he was really sick when he went out there.

The hike marked the first time I’ve accidentally pressed the shutter button while trying to focus the camera. The focus ring was sticking due to the cold and I had to move the camera to a better angle to be able to focus. I did it again last night, but it was 35°F warmer and for this time, I’m blaming the gloves. I think the rapid focus lever would be a lifesaver in situations like this, but you’d need one for each lens; not a problem for me since I only rock the 75mm f/2.8 MC.

The battery in the camera was brand new so I didn’t worry about it losing power due to the temperature, but I could tell my shutter wasn’t running at the right speeds 20 minutes into the adventure. I don’t think that is an issue isolated to leaf shutters, just cameras that aren’t properly weather sealed. I wasn’t worried about the shutter speeds as I was shooting expired Kodak Portra 400NC and C-41 films have good exposure latitude.

I love taking pictures in the winter, it’s a lot of fun and there can be some great photographs made. I’m hoping the rest of this season works out well, we’re in a slight warm-up here in Iowa and the snow is slowly melting which sucks.

Non-Scientific Experiments with Caffenol-C

A Most Epic Yawn – Kodak Max 400 in Caffenol-C 16min @ 22C

I’m calling this non-scientific because the times used for developing were randomly picked and I have no actual data to prove their validity.

My adventures, so far, with Caffenol-C started with a roll 120 (Ilford XP2) and 220 (Kodak PMC400) film I shot at Boyson Trail in Marion, IA. All 30 frames on the 220 roll were overexposed about 10 stops because of a dead battery in the Bronica; half of the 120 roll was in the same sorry state. I finished off the 120 roll after Dean and I got our cars unstuck at the attempted Bald Eagle Photo Shoot. Since I have a bunch of crappy Kodak Max 400 lying around that was free, I decided to load 2 rolls into my newly acquired Pentax ME Super SE to test out the camera and to solely test development in this developer.

The Experiments (spread out over multiple days):

1. Ilford XP2 (120) in Caffenol-C Mix 1 for 30min @ ~50C
2. 2x Kodak Max 400 (135) in Caffenol-C Mix 2 for 16min @ 22C
3. Kodak PMC400 (220) in Caffenol-C Mix 3 for 16min @ 25C

There are different mixes because I made them differently.

Mix 1:
 - 8tsp Instant Coffee
 - 5tsp Washing Soda
 - 1/2tsp Vitamin C powder
 - 16oz Hot Water (~50C)
Mixed washing soda with the water, let sit for 10min to dissolved
Poured in the Instant Coffee, mixed for approximately two minutes
Added Vitamin C powder, mixed, and let sit for 10 minutes to let micro bubbles clear

Mix 2:
 - 8tsp Instant Coffee
 - 5tsp Washing Soda
 - 1/2tsp Vitamin C powder
 - 16oz Hot Water (~50C)
Mixed washing soda with 8oz water
Mixed Instant Coffee with 8oz water
Added Vitamin C powder to Instant Coffee, mixed
Combined mixtures, stirred for 2min, let sit for 1min
Chilled developer in cold water in sink for 8min to cool to 35C
Let sit in -18C ambient for 10min to cool to 22C

Mix 3:
Same as Mix 2 but with 3/4tsp Vitamin C powder
Removed the cold water in sink step
Let chill in -5C ambient for 17min to cool to approximately 25C

Results:

1. Failure – Developer too hot, entire roll is dark with no edge markings
2. Results can be seen here
3. Partial Failure – film developed but confirmed the over-exposure

Issues:

1. I suck at loading steel reels, but this is the first time I’ve developed film on my own
2. Measurements aren’t exact, but very close to recorded values

Further Experiments:

1. Actually using it to develop traditional black and white film
2. Developing E-6 film in Caffenol-C
3. Using mint and baking soda mixture to develop film

This was a fun use of my time and I quite enjoyed it considering I lost some frames of film due to loading issues. Am I going to use this process again? Totally! I have little money and I figure if I can get the results I want of developing C-41 in Caffenol-C, then I’m going to keep progressing the technique.

Stephen Schaub has a whole series of posts about developing traditional black and white in Caffenol and Caffenol-C. He is also working on a book dedicated to alternative process and hybrid workflow using films developed in this developer; I’m excited for this book, I think it’ll be a great resource for the community.

Adventures in Film Developing

 
 
 
 
Supposed to be a cool photograph developed in Caffenol-C = FAIL
 
 
 

Trail at Palisades-Kepler State Park – Ilford HP5+ developed in ID-11 for 4.5min

I got the ID-11 made to develop two rolls of 35mm film that I had shot a while back. I will say that 36 exposure rolls of 35mm film are a pain in the ass to load onto stainless reels. There was an issue with the camera while I was shooting the roll of HP5 so I only got 3 usable frames from that 36 exposure roll. I got all but 2 frames from the roll of TMAX 400 24 exposure roll. Today I got ballsy and decided to try developing some 120 C-41 film (Ilford XP2) in Caffenol-C. I must have done something wrong as I got nothing on the film. I had 6 frames on that roll way over-exposed, so it’s ok, but I did loose some shots I took after Dean and I got our cars unstuck from being slightly dumb and parking next to the river. Needless to say, we never did get any pictures of bald eagles and stood outside in the cold temps for 3.5 hours digging into snow and ice trying to free two cars.

I am now excited to try the developing again with the Acros 100 in both the ID-11 and Caffenol.

Now back to editing portraits of my brother and his fiance’ that my mom wanted us to take. We were definitely sort of rushed and I wanted to sort of experiment and let Erica figure stuff out on her own, but she didn’t like that. I’m kind of glad we don’t have the pressure of shooting their wedding since they sort of didn’t seem to care about having their picture taken. We were taking it a little overboard, but that happens.