Ridiculous Grain

pokerplayer269

Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2008
Messages
17
Location
Needham, MA
Format
35mm
'Allo. I recently purchased 12 rolls of expired (5/2002) Fuji Sensia 200 slide film and shot a few rolls at a local show I went to. I got the film cross processed as C41 and then scanned at a local camera shop. The scans had a ridiculous amount of grain and at first I thought something was wrong with their scanner as the grain looked more like digital noise than film grain. I got a frame printed at Walgreens to check this but the print came out just as grainy as the scan from the camera store. I know that cross processing increases grain, but the grain in these photos is insane. In fact I think there is more grain in these photos than the grain in a roll of 800 speed film I shot a while ago. Does expired film increase grain? Is it possible something happened during development? Here is one of the scans from the roll: http://i39.tinypic.com/11158qp.jpg
 

nickandre

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
1,918
Location
Seattle WA
Format
Medium Format
That is horrid, whatever it is. I would try shooting a roll at box speed (or a bit more exposure; it's likely to have speed loss) and having regular E6 process (I'll do it for you if you want.) I would bet the grain would be slightly less horrid, but it is expired so you'll get speed loss, background fog, etc. The best would be to overexpose it and pull process to reduce the fog.
 

EASmithV

Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2008
Messages
1,984
Location
Virginia
Format
Large Format
Holy crap... That's horrible!

Take a look at it with a loupe, and see if you can see it on the negative.

Are your negs overly dense?
 

EASmithV

Member
Joined
Aug 22, 2008
Messages
1,984
Location
Virginia
Format
Large Format
To answer some of your questions, film does sometimes get weird over time. Color seems to be the worst. I've shot 50 year old b&w film and it came out fine. For storing color for a long time, you should keep it in the fridge.

"I would try shooting a roll at box speed..."

Box speed? Maybe I missed something, but I don't think he said he was pushing the speed. If he was, that would explain a lot.
 

Photo Engineer

Subscriber
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
29,018
Location
Rochester, NY
Format
Multi Format
That has the appearance of badly underbleached and underfixed film among other possible answers.

Underdoing both solutions can create pepper like white dots in the final positive image if taken to the extreme. Usually, you just see a tiny increase in granularity, but this is awful.

PE
 

nickandre

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
1,918
Location
Seattle WA
Format
Medium Format
EASmithV said:
"I would try shooting a roll at box speed..."

Box speed? Maybe I missed something, but I don't think he said he was pushing the speed. If he was, that would explain a lot.
Click to expand...

I was going for a standardized test with proper development, though the box speed would be too fast if it had speed loss. If you had something to compare that blob of a photo to that might help pinpoint the problem.
 

Tim Gray

Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2006
Messages
1,882
Location
OH
Format
35mm
I thought when you cross process slide film you have to give it extra exposure. I don't really know though I've never done it. It looks like underexposed film to me that the scanner tried to save.
 

Vaughn

Subscriber
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
10,085
Location
Humboldt Co.
Format
Large Format
Man, that is going to be hard to duplicate if you end up liking it!

Vaughn
 

mabman

Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2007
Messages
834
Location
Winnipeg, MB
Format
35mm
I had a roll of Provia 400X cross-processed a few months ago, and it came out grainy, but not like that.

If you're trying to see if you like the effect, I'd try a fresh roll and a different lab and see what happens.
 

bob100684

Member
Joined
May 8, 2006
Messages
510
Format
35mm
I'm going, poor scanning technique by the lab. If scanned on a frontier, have it rescanned with sharpness set at low 2
 

wogster

Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
1,272
Location
Bruce Penins
Format
35mm

Let me get this straight, you look film that expired 6½ years ago, and you processed it in chemistry it's not intended to be processed in, and your surprised that the results don't look good?
 

Ed Sukach

Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Messages
4,517
Location
Ipswich, Mas
Format
Medium Format
It would take a great deal more "grain" than shown in the samples for me to dismiss the film/ process as "unuseable". One has only to consider the works of Ralph Gibson, where he used Anscochrome 1000 pushed mercilessly two and three stops. The grain was (yeah, I know, from inefficient memory) more pronounced than here, and I think it "made" the tone and mood of the works (a wonderful, beautiful, series of nudes).

Grain - Simply another "tool in the box".
 

Domin

Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
204
Location
Warszawa, Po
Format
Med. Format RF
wogster said:
Let me get this straight, you look film that expired 6½ years ago, and you processed it in chemistry it's not intended to be processed in, and your surprised that the results don't look good?
Click to expand...

I've done a lot of that, and even more (more expired film + more unintended chemistry) and the results rarely looked that bad. For sure I've never seen such mess with cross processing slide in a good lab.

It clearly looks to me as badly processed (bad bleach?) and/or underexposed and/or badly fogged at the start.

About duplicating this effect - I have a exposed roll of EPP waiting for C41 with no bleach. It might or might not give similiar effect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…