Odd/interesting output from accidentally exposed E6

fotoobscura · Feb 1, 2017

I had a roll of fairly expired transparency film (Provia 400F) in a camera and I dropped the camera mid-roll. The back opened in broad daylight and I then closed the door and decided to just keep shooting (this is not an uncommon thing to happen to me and sometimes done intentionally). I finished the roll and developed it in regular E6 chemistry.

Trying to understand if this would be reproducible or was this just "lucky"?

See attached. This is straight out of the film scanner, no adjustments.

Thanks

afriman · Feb 1, 2017

Looks like a "solarized" image - part negative, part positive. I remember it being quite a popular experimental darkroom technique in the 60s and 70s. But even under controlled conditions, it tended to be unpredictable.

Photo Engineer · Feb 1, 2017

This looks like exposure through the back of the film. That is what is facing you when you open the camera.

PE

fotoobscura · Feb 1, 2017

What I find curious is that the entire roll is "evenly" exposed like this....usually when this happens I get random results from light bouncing around..

Photo Engineer said:
This looks like exposure through the back of the film. That is what is facing you when you open the camera.

PE

bdial · Feb 1, 2017

If it's the entire roll, then you may have a light leak somewhere. Opening the back mid roll (assuming this is 35mm) would only expose what's between the cartridge and the take-up spool, plus a layer or two on the spool. Anything still in the cartridge would be unaffected.
Or else, a chemistry problem, I'd say.

It is an interesting result though, doesn't look like the usual fogging.

Photo Engineer · Feb 1, 2017

This can also result if the reversal step is not sufficient.

PE

fotoobscura · Feb 1, 2017

Interesting...........

Photo Engineer said:
This can also result if the reversal step is not sufficient.

PE

kevin klein · Feb 2, 2017

I like it. It's a prize winner! I wouldn't mind having a print of that.

Peter Schrager · Feb 2, 2017

Do a series!!

Kevin Caulfield · Feb 2, 2017

Good luck trying to reproduce it.

AgX · Feb 2, 2017

A direct-reversal effect by red light (backside exposure) on the least exposed grains.

fotoobscura · Feb 2, 2017

Interesting...But the entire roll exposed by sunlight similarly while inside a camera? to me PE's suggestion makes more (logical) sense..

AgX said:
A direct-reversal effect by red light (backside exposure) on the least exposed grains.

Photo Engineer · Feb 2, 2017

Kodak has published a set of photos of process errors and this is one of them. They are not available now except in out of print books AFAIK.

PE

AgX · Feb 2, 2017

fotoobscura said:
Interesting...But the entire roll exposed by sunlight similarly while inside a camera? to me PE's suggestion makes more (logical) sense..

Yes, but you did not say before that the whole film strip looks that way.

fotoobscura · Feb 2, 2017

Apologies. Yes the whole roll looks like this (for the most part). The images with flash are particularly bizarre.

AgX said:
Yes, but you did not say before that the whole film strip looks that way.

fotoobscura · Feb 2, 2017

PE not in a tech pub somewhere? I'd love to find this book or publication. This is my favorite right now:

https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/photomicrography/chromeprocerrors.html

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak has published a set of photos of process errors and this is one of them. They are not available now except in out of print books AFAIK.

PE

Photo Engineer · Feb 2, 2017

That FSU reference is pretty poor unless you are a photomicrographer. The book (or manual) I refer to is "Kodak Color Films" , Publication E-77. It has been updated many times, but an example of light reversal in the FD is on page 20 of my edition. Later editions show improper light reversal before the FD.

Each edition seemed to feature different faults as the process(es) changed.

PE

fotoobscura · Feb 3, 2017

PE- I can buy most of these on Ebay- any specific edition I should target? I'm very interested in the processing errors.

Photo Engineer said:
That FSU reference is pretty poor unless you are a photomicrographer. The book (or manual) I refer to is "Kodak Color Films" , Publication E-77. It has been updated many times, but an example of light reversal in the FD is on page 20 of my edition. Later editions show improper light reversal before the FD.

Each edition seemed to feature different faults as the process(es) changed.

PE

Photo Engineer · Feb 3, 2017

Sorry, I have no idea without going through a mountain of books. It is probably from the middle range of editions.

PE

fotoobscura · Feb 3, 2017

No problem, thanks for the initial info. Seems like a great resource would be a website that had all of this...Perhaps I'll buy several books and scan them, put them up, etc. I literally don't know of any websites that show detailed technical explanations of processing errors for anything except BW.

Photo Engineer said:
Sorry, I have no idea without going through a mountain of books. It is probably from the middle range of editions.

PE

Odd/interesting output from accidentally exposed E6

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