Bullet Proof Negatives!

Andrew O'Neill

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Spent the morning wandering around the Pitt River...more like trudging through the mud to get to a stump at river's edge that I've photographed a few times over the years. Had with me the RB and a couple rolls of Acros I. Shot only one roll. Went home and commenced processing it. Was going to develop it in Pyrocat-HD, as I usual do, but the 100ml I had remaining of solution A had finally gone bad (mixed it up back June)... If I didn't process the film now, I know I wouldn't be able to until well after Christmas... so.... Ilfosol will have to do. Now for some strange reason, I set my clock for the Pyrocat-HD time of 16 min. (EI 64). I should have set it for 8 (1+14)! I didn't realise my error until it was in the fix! I pulled the roll off of the reel and sure enough, bullet proof negatives! I have never made this mistake in the 30 years that I've been doing this, so I felt really bummed out. The only other time I ended up with bullet proof negative was when I was out with the 8x10 in deep powdery snow, and forgot my light metre. My guess at exposure was way off! But... I was able to still print it. Once these Acros negs have dried, I'll proof them tonight. We'll see...
 

Sirius Glass

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I do not own a gun so I cannot test a negative to see if it is bullet proof. So what is a bullet proof negative and how is it made?
 

ProfessorC1983

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Not to derail the conversation (hopefully) but lately I've been wondering: what is the working definition of "bulletproof"? Does it apply to any neg with a higher than normal (or higher than typically printable on standard paper) Dmax that otherwise isn't crushed? Or does it imply that there's not enough tonality in the high values to produce a pleasing image?
 

pentaxuser

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My commiserations Andrew. It only takes a moment for this to happen, unfortunately. My theory is that this kind of momentary aberration happens more frequently than we realise but thankfully when it does we are not at a critical moment in whatever it is we are doing and that moment of aberration can pass in many cases unnoticed. However when you have been involved in photography long enough then unfortunately the odds favour that once in every so many years it will occur at a critical moment

However as michael _r has said there may still be ways to recover the negs Let's hope so

pentaxuser
 

Juan Valdenebro

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I hope the scenes were not of high contrast... It's happened to me a few times... When well exposed under soft light, as Michael and pentaxuser said, negatives can sometimes end up being used...
My worst bulletproof negatives came from one theater scene with HP5+ @ 3200: I had no meter that day, no plans of using my camera, and under artificial light I guessed exposure, and when I was about to develop, I imagined I had possibly underexposed... So I decided to overdevelop... Finally, the truth was I had overexposed...
Those negatives can't be wet printed... I hope you're luckier this time, Andrew.
 

MattKing

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Sounds great Andrew for jewel like carbon prints!
 

Bill Burk

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I consider bulletproof any negative where I don’t have to put the 0.6 ND filter in the light path. It can be normal scale but about 4 stops overexposed.
 

wyofilm

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When I started reading this thread I was thinking 'Great bullet proof negatives' as in wow! Andrew has a way to produce negatives that never fails (i.e. bullet proof). Sorry that the story headed the other direction.
 

Sirius Glass

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wyofilm said:
When I started reading this thread I was thinking 'Great bullet proof negatives' as in wow! Andrew has a way to produce negatives that never fails (i.e. bullet proof). Sorry that the story headed the other direction.
Click to expand...

I had exactly had the same reaction. Definitely a misuse of a term. Reference post #3.
 
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Andrew O'Neill

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Whenever someone refers to a negative as bullet proof, it means cannot see through it... at least in my experience. Either from gross over exposure, over development, or both. In my case, from over development.
I proofed them, and they look like crap. So... I'll head out there tomorrow morning and do it right.
 

Anon Ymous

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@Andrew O'Neill Wait, you mixed Pyrocat HD in June and six months later it's dead? Really? I have some I mixed back in the March of 2016 and still seems to work ok. I was a bit worried it might be dead, but I checked a clip test against one I did with a one year old batch I made in propylene glycol and can't see a difference by eyeballing them. Is this the usual shelf life you get?
 

Mesabound

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Definitely interested to see a picture of the negs, if possible
 

Pat Erson

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Overdeveloped negs? Happens to me all the time (warm dev, vigorous agitation). Do I lose sleep over it? NO!
 
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removed account4

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Andrew

LOVE negatives like that. I'd make contact prints, you might like what you see ... Mortenson would be extremely happy
some of my best 4x5 sheets are ones that are so bulletproof you only know what is on them after you make the prints !

THATS what I call a fun xmas present
John
 

Raghu Kuvempunagar

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[QUOTE="Andrew O'Neill, post: 2358845, member: 1310" Was going to develop it in Pyrocat-HD, as I usual do, but the 100ml I had remaining of solution A had finally gone bad (mixed it up back June)..[/QUOTE]

@Andrew O'Neill: Was Part A mixed in June 2020? Shelf life turned out to be less than six months?! That's an interesting data point on Pyrocat-HD.
 

Rick A

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Bullet proof, maybe. Light proof, let's hope not.
 
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Andrew O'Neill

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Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
[QUOTE="Andrew O'Neill, post: 2358845, member: 1310" Was going to develop it in Pyrocat-HD, as I usual do, but the 100ml I had remaining of solution A had finally gone bad (mixed it up back June)..
Click to expand...

@Andrew O'Neill: Was Part A mixed in June 2020? Shelf life turned out to be less than six months?! That's an interesting data point on Pyrocat-HD.[/QUOTE]

Usually my stock solution A lasts a year...if the bottle is sealed and air expelled. Sadly, the bottle lost its seal and had been sitting with about 200ml since I last used it, late October.
 
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Andrew O'Neill

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Sadly they are meant to be scanned. The high lights have brutal artifacts. I'll contact print them in the darkroom and see if I can scan those. But first, I'll try a reshoot later this morning.
 

grat

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Sirius Glass said:
I do not own a gun so I cannot test a negative to see if it is bullet proof. So what is a bullet proof negative and how is it made?
Click to expand...

I suppose you could contact Jason Lane, and get him to create an emulsion on a piece of bullet-proof glass.

I guess that would be for prints of the highest caliber.
 
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