Man that was fast - Kodak UltraTec + HC110

[kb244]

Ok so I got this big bulk roll of Kodak UltraTec (ISO 10) film and I figured I wonder what its like and how theres no times on line and such, except if you had the special 'ultratec' developer.

So I figured what if I could just do it with what I have, such as Kodak HC-110. I figured since its ortho film I could just tray develop it under a safelight. So figured idle sunday afternoon, take out my Canon FTb, release cable, my minolta digital ambient meter, a tripod, and a cartridge loaded with approximatly 8 frames worth of film. Shot 3 shots of each subject in the back yard. Metered the light falling on the subject, adjusted the lightmeter til it gave me a shutter speed where f/8 was correct exposure, shot 1 at correct, one stop over, and one stop under (ie: f/8, f/5.6, f/11).

Well at first I miscalculated the length of film that might actually fit in the tray, so I kinda just had to develop it diangonal accross the tray with the ends hanging over ( the parts I knew wouldnt have shots on em ).

So mixed up about 400ml of HC-110 Dil.B (390ml water + 10ml concentrate), blacked out the blathroom put in the safelight above, poured the solution into the tray, cut off the strip, and put it in diagonally as I hit the start button on the timer. Shooke the edge of the tray a lil bit every few seconds as well as moving the strip back and forth. to my surprise one of the sets came in pretty fast (the ones below) where as I couldnt see any of the other sets just yet. Decided to pull the film when one of the sets appeared very dark black.

Washed the strip by hand under the running water, hung the strip up for a quick moment as I poured out the developer, rinsed and poured in 500ml of the fixer, and then tray agitated the film (I only had one white tray avail, I couldnt find my other two), then rinsed under the sink and hung the strip upto dry.

The 'black' parts of the strip (ie: the edges, section between the frames, or what would be the 'black point' inside the picture) were 100% clear, you could litterally just see right thru.

So I'm thinking the ISO base needs to be changed to something slower, to allow for more exposure time, such as ISO 6 instead of ISO 10 for the specific film+ developer combination. not to mention if f/8 @ 1/30th was the correct exposure time for ISO 10, I need to extend the development time possibly by another 30 seconds or so. As I may have pulled the strip prematurly, its not the easiest viewing under a 15 watt safelight.

So I'm thinking I can either meter for ISO 6, and extend development time to about 1:30 / 2:00, or I can try it again but with a much higher dilution than Dil.B.

 

[kb244]

Btw the "other set" , you could see faint dots of what the bushes were, which goes to show that yes, I just needed to extend the time more and the whole strip woulda shown up.

 

[kb244]

Second test cuz I was bored.

Canon FTb - Shutter 1/60 (flash sync) for all below
Sunpak PZ5000 Flash , set in manual mode, 1/4th power
Distance to subject(s) - approx 2.30 ft

Developed in Kodak HC-110 Dil.B for 1:30 @ 68F

I took five shots, with the following apertures 5.6, 4, 8, 2.8, 11.




*click to enlarge.

 

[kb244]

Third test for the night.




*Click to Enlarge

 

[Gerald Koch]

From your samples this appears to be a high contrast emulsion. Unless you are after that look you might do better using the same developers as are used for Tech Pan. There are quite a few which are designed to tame the inherent contrast of copy films such as POTA.

 

[kb244]

From your samples this appears to be a high contrast emulsion. Unless you are after that look you might do better using the same developers as are used for Tech Pan. There are quite a few which are designed to tame the inherent contrast of copy films such as POTA.

The paperwork inside from kodak does stay "Extremely high contrast orthochromatic film" , the guy who gave me the roll said it wasnt much for photographic in general use, but rather for use in a graphics arts department, perhaps as movie film. From what I am told, using the special "Ultratec Tray Developer" specifically for this film is supposed to yeild an even higher contrast, almost half-tone.

 

[Donald Qualls]

My usual trick for high contrast emulsions (last used on either Kodak Imagelink HQ or Agfa Copex Rapid microfilms, 16 mm) in HC-110 was to develop in Dilution G, which accomodates the extremely low levels of development needed to get pictorial contrast from a high contrast film. As I recall, Imagelink HQ exposed at EI 50 (at least a one stop push) required about 12 minutes in Dilution G, with agitation every 3rd minute -- that'd be equivalent to about 2 minutes in Dilution B with standard agitation.

What I've been doing more recently is to use Caffenol LC+C, an easy homebrew developer that gives slight imagewise staining, exceptional acutance, and around one stop true speed increase over high dilution HC-110. I use the same agitation and most microfilms require between 12 and 20 minutes (films ranging from ADOX CMS 20 to Copex Rapid, which pretty well cover the range of microfilm development requirements, as far as I can tell) -- that'd be a good start for your high contrast ortho film, too, I'd guess.

 

[Claire Senft]

One way to help reduce the high contrast of litho products is to bleach the latent image in a dilute ferricyanide bleach prior to processing. Try 20 grams of potassium ferricyanide in a liter of water as a 4 minute presoak prior to developing. I have no experience with this film. However, it should respond fairly strongly. Try a HC110b time that would be ok with a film like 100tmax to start. If there is not a sufficient reduction of contrast then try bleaching the latent image in 100 grams per liter for 4 minutes. Extending the time is not nearly as effective a greatly increasing the bleach concentration. You may find that with 20 grams per liter bleach that your negatives are actually a bit flat, but as I say I have not used this film. This technique is also very useful but usually at 2 grams /liter of PF to water for very high contrast scenes with normal films.