Experimentation: Color in B&W

Stephanie Brim · Feb 13, 2006

Done this once before with some Fuji 100 dunked in D76, but this time I wanted to try something different. This is Fujicolor True Definition dunked in Diafine. Results are here.

Blew the whites and there's lots of grain. Other than that...they seem to be okay. Kinda nifty. I've had really good luck with this.

Also note that these were scanned in as black and white negatives. I may scan some in as color to see what happens.

Mick Fagan · Feb 13, 2006

Stephanie, very interesting. Have you printed anything like this before? Does the large grain look good on B&W paper?

The shot of the backlit reels is interesting as it appears you still have some high light detail.

I may try something like this for fun as well.

Mick.

PhotoPete · Feb 13, 2006

Has anyone tried this with slide film? What were the results?

Stephanie Brim · Feb 13, 2006

PhotoPete said:
Has anyone tried this with slide film? What were the results?

Slide film would most likely not work. Either that or you'd get some really, really strange results.

glbeas · Feb 13, 2006

Oh, I'd think the slide film would work, but don't expect a positive unless you use a reversal kit. Might work better actually since theres no masking dyes involved.

As for your highlights being blown, cut back on the developing time or dilute the developer some. Same rules apply to color emulsions souped B&W as B&W emulsions souped the same way. It's still just film at this point.

kwmullet · Feb 13, 2006

My mother's been toting around a plastic bag of unprocessed 126 cartridges of Kodacolor-X, Kodacolor-II and Kodacolor-VR from house to house forever. Some date back to 1966, some back to 1973. I finally talked her out of them, and ran them all in Diafine. About a third came back with useable images. (b&w, of course) Pretty good, considering they went through a hurricane in the 80s and sat in a very humid, sweltering heat, and then numerous moves in Texas in unconditioned vehicles.

The ones I've scanned so far are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/circlesofconfusion/sets/72057594058493951/

I'm pretty convinced that if I put a slab of bacon in a shoebox pinhole camera, Diafine would yield a useable image on it.

-KwM-

Kino · Feb 13, 2006

kwmullet said:
My mother's been toting around a plastic bag of unprocessed 126 cartridges of Kodacolor-X, Kodacolor-II and Kodacolor-VR from house to house forever. Some date back to 1966, some back to 1973. I finally talked her out of them, and ran them all in Diafine. About a third came back with useable images. (b&w, of course) Pretty good, considering they went through a hurricane in the 80s and sat in a very humid, sweltering heat, and then numerous moves in Texas in unconditioned vehicles.
-KwM-

Oh my God! We MUST be related! I still have that bag of 126 cartridges of EXACTLY the same types of film and almost EXACTLY the same age range (with a few rolls of b&w thrown in) in my garage freezer; like that would help after being in 100+ degree, Southern Oklahoma weather for 40 years. I was given this box about 5 years ago by my mother and asked, "do you think anything will come out of these?" My mom's near Ardmore, Oklahoma, so ti *MIGHT* be a regional thing instead! ;-)

You inspire me to actually try to process them, other than look guiltily at the box and return it to my freezer; any tips on dilutions, processing times, etc?

Weird.

(Edit; Doh, Should have gone to link before posting, but would like to hear any additional words of wisdom you might have anyway)

Stephanie Brim · Feb 13, 2006

I wouldn't use Diafine...use D76. D76 seems to produce less grain. Diafine may be easier, though. And also, scanning in color negative mode results are here.

Kino · Feb 13, 2006

Stephanie Brim said:
I wouldn't use Diafine...use D76. D76 seems to produce less grain. Diafine may be easier, though. And also, scanning in color negative mode results are here.

Thanks for the tip, Stephanie. You just processing to "normal" specs on the D76?

I think I will try a few different kinds; I don't think *quality* of images is a major factor here, just getting an image would be superb...

Stephanie Brim · Feb 13, 2006

The Fuji 100 that I did the first time was developed for the same amount of time as some TMAX 100. It was an accident; I thought the Fuji *was* a roll of TMAX. Turned out nicely (http://www.pleasewipeyourfeet.com/photowhore/?p=image/redwhiteblue/).

Donald Qualls · Feb 14, 2006

The one time I've done color in B&W, it was an older C-41 stock in HC-110. I gave it the same treatment I'd give Tri-X: Dilution G for 21 minutes, agitation every 3rd minute. Results were everything one could expect for 30 year old color film processed as B&W -- which is to say, they weren't much worse than I'd expect from B&W film the same age.

Stephanie Brim · Feb 17, 2006

I just bought some Rodinal so I'm going to try some Fuji 100 in that as well. I'm also going to do yet another experiment with Rodinal: pushing Tri-X to 12,800. And perhaps beyond. Trying to find a reference for shutter speeds, though.

gnashings · Feb 17, 2006

Well, one thing is for certain - you are not afraid to experiment! And good for you. I might try this, for the hell of it! I wonder what kind of "grain" Rodinal will give you!

Stephanie Brim · Feb 17, 2006

See this thread for Tri-X at 12,800. I highly doubt I'll start at that, though.

Soeren · Feb 17, 2006

Wauv And I was on of those who said that it could not be done.
Can I have the salt please
Gotta try it
Regards Søren

glbeas · Feb 17, 2006

Hmm, when pushing Tri-x to ridiculous EIs I always started with something like Ethol or Acufine and then pushed that. I got pretty decent results at 6400 and higher, of course you have to deal with the blank shadow areas when you push really hard.

Now Rodinal being the king of grain, you may look for subjects where the grain accents the imagery, low contrast lit flowers and people come to mind. I've had some very nice shots done with 2475 recording film (very grainy stuff naturally) of some gardenias that looked like a delicate sand painting!

Donald Qualls · Feb 17, 2006

I've shot Tri-X at EI 5000, but haven't tried taking it further than that. Might have to try a few sheets with even more extreme development...

egdinger · Feb 18, 2006

For those that scaned in the color negatives, how did you remove the color cast caused by the base?

Mike Kennedy · Feb 18, 2006

Wicked idea!!! I have a bag of outdated color print film in my freezer that I didn,t want to toss but was hesitant to shoot/pay for processing.My camera shop just put a bunch of outdated slide film in their clearance bin.
Question: I reuse my fix & stop bath til near exhaustion. Would the chemical residue from processing color as B&W mess up my fix & stop?

Mike

Stephanie Brim · Feb 18, 2006

I reuse my fix with no problems, but I don't use a stop bath with Diafine and when I use a stop bath with other developers it's just water. I don't think it would hurt anything.

And BTW: What kind of slide film? Is there Sensia in there?

Mike Kennedy · Feb 18, 2006

Stephanie, I will check that out when I go down.
Sort of waiting for it to warm up a bit. Its -32c with the wind chill factor.
BURRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Mike

Stephanie Brim · Feb 18, 2006

Negative here, too. Bites.

Mike Kennedy · Feb 18, 2006

Hi Stephanie. No Fuji products...........Kodachrome and Elite-Chrome.Picked up a roll of Kodachrome and my pal tossed in a roll of B&W 400 that is processed in C-41. I am thinking of souping it like Tri-X in HC-110.

Thoughts?

Mike

srs5694 · Feb 18, 2006

egdinger said:
For those that scaned in the color negatives, how did you remove the color cast caused by the base?

There are two ways to do this:

Scan as B&W. In VueScan, and probably in other scanning software, there's an option to tell the software what type of film you're scanning. Select B&W and the orange base is no problem; everything's converted to grayscale. (At worst, it'll look like base+fog, for which the software can compensate automatically or manually.)
Scan as color and adjust the color balance to neutral. If you scan cross-processed or Kodak chromogenic B&W film as color negative film, the orange base will automatically be neutralized, but the software might not get the color balance quite right. You should be able to adjust the color balance manually to compensate, though. In VueScan, I do this by tweaking the film base color settings using the histogram view; I adjust the values until the curves overlap one another. The result is something very close to a B&W scan, but the tones are usually a bit smoother.

My experience is almost exclusively with VueScan, which I run under Linux. Although I've got other scanning programs, I seldom use them for scanning negatives.

Stephanie Brim · Feb 19, 2006

I scan as B&W if I want the color cast removed and color if I want to keep it. Sometimes I find it interesting to keep the little bit of base color left over.

Also note that this may not work with Kodachrome. Wasting a good, hard to find film isn't exactly what I had in mind with this.

Experimentation: Color in B&W

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency