I received my package from J and C today (talk about fast!) and wanted to share my thoughts on the new film.
My order was for five rolls of 120 and one pack each of the 4x5 and 8x10 film. As always when dealing with J and C, the film arrived well packed. It took me a few moments to find all five rolls of the 120 amongst the packing peanuts, but at least my cat got some fun new toys out of the deal. (Does anyone else cringe when their pets put packing peanuts in their mouths?)
I was disappointed to see that the sheet film did not come in boxes. It's in the type of envelopes that I sometimes find inkjet paper packed in. The envelopes are of a reasonable thickness cardboard and the flap is glued over. There's a "tear strip" on the flap to open the package. I haven't opened either of the packs yet, as I don't know what's inside and don't have time to fiddle around with finding a light-tight container for the film if it turns out the envelopes and whatever packaging is inside aren't up to my "standards". (I'm pretty casual with many things, but keeping light off of my film until I trip the shutter is one of my obsessions. Since I do all of my work in a changing bag, I want to make sure I dig up a box to put the film in before I open the packages.)
The 120 film comes sealed in foil packets (a very vibrant red, in this case). I opened one up and loaded it into my trusty Bessa I. The roll was sealed with what appears to be masking tape. The paper backing on the film is flat black with "white" printing. (White is in quotes because there's really not enough ink on the paper to make the printing appear more than medium gray.)
The film loaded into my camera easily, although it looks like the roll I opened was missing the line/dot/arrow/whatever to indicate the start point. The word "START" was very obvious, but I just guessed as to where the actual start point was. Luckily, my experience with the camera indicates that I guessed well.
I shot off the roll pretty quickly around my yard and garage. After I was done, I unloaded the film, dumped everything into the changing bag and loaded the roll up onto a stainless steel reel. (One disappointment here: the tape for sealing the roll when it's finished didn't have any glue on it. None. It's just a piece of thin paper with some printing on it. This is not a good thing. Either quality control screwed up, or someone out there has a very bad idea of how 120 film should be stored once it's been shot. I'll definately take some tape with me when I use this film, just in case.) Unrolling the film was easy, and the tape on the end of the roll wasn't too much trouble. The film base felt good to me (somewhere between T-max and FP4+ in thickness would be my guess); it was certainly easier to load up than a roll of Ilford film.
After I got everything loaded, I went through my standard procedures for 120 film, with a wild guess at the development time. Step by step, here's what I did (all temperatures were 20C, and all volumes were 400 ml):
Pre-soak - agitate for 15 seconds, rap the tank, stand for 1 minute, agitate for 15 seconds, stand for 30 seconds, drain. Repeat. (The water from the first pre-soak was a pretty wild color...somewhere between turquoise and blue. Very pretty!)
Developer: I used D-76 1:1, semi-stand, for 17 minutes. Why 17 minutes? Why not? (Actually, the note from JandC that 10 minutes seems "about right" with D-76 gave me a reasonable place to start my guesswork.) I agitated for 15 seconds, let stand for 5 minutes, repeated 2 more cycles, and drained at 17 minutes.
Stop: Three water rinses, 15 seconds agitation, 15 seconds stand, repeat twice each.
Fix: Fresh TF-4 at film strength. Agitate for 30 seconds, stand for 30 seconds, repeat four cycles, dump after five minutes.
Rinse: One bath, 30 seconds agitation and 30 seconds stand.
Fix again: For whatever reason, I decided to do two more minutes of fixing with more fresh TF-4. Same as above for two cycles.
Rinse: One bath, 30 seconds agitation and 30 seconds stand.
Hypo Clear: Nacco Rapid Wash for 60 seconds.
Rinse: Ten minutes in running water, including fully draining the tank every two minutes.
Wetting Agent: Photo Flo 200
These are pretty much my standard procedures for 120 film developing. I don't always fix twice, but with some of the older style films (like J and C Classic) I find that the 2nd fix helps clear the film a bit. (Before anyone mentions it, yes, I know I rinse a lot. It works for me.)
When I was done, I had a roll of well developed negatives. My initial examination (it is _so_ hard to use a loupe when you don't want to touch the film!) shows great range. It is impossible for me to judge the grain characteristics of the film (or even the latitude) until the negatives have fully dried, but they look pretty darned good to me at this point.
One odd thing: The negatives definately have a blue-green tint at this point. Darned if I can figure out why. I've seen a pinkish-purple tint on J and C Classic in the past when I either rushed the pre-soak or the fix, but I definately didn't do that this time. I'm not really concerned about the color, but it does surprise me a bit. We'll see how it looks when the negs are dry.
I will scan a few of the negatives and post them when I can. My guess is that this will have to wait until tomorrow, but if by chance the negatives dry tonight I'll throw some up here. (Please note: The pictures are _crap_. I made no attempt at anything more than getting exposures onto film, so don't hold the lousy nature of the composition against the film.)
All in all, I have to say that I'm well pleased so far. I wish the sheet film came in boxes (Any chance J and C would provide boxes for an extra buck or two?), and I hope the issue with non-glued tape at the end of the roll of 120 is a fluke, but to my eye it looks like the film performs very well. I saw no indication of emulsion problems or ragged edges. Given the price, if the images are half decent I'm going to be spending a lot of time with this film.
