I've just had a very frustrating experience and I'm hoping somebody can shed some light on this. I've just been getting back into shooting film again - I used to shoot a lot of film in the 60s and 70s - in addition to digital work. I loaded a roll of 35mm Rollei IR 400 in my 6006 (N60) the other day. I have spent a lot of time on the web reading exposure advice and I figured I had it down. Not so. Shooting with an R72, every exposure was essentially blank. Three shots I made with the filter off came out okay, so I know it wasn't a processing error.
Bright sunny day. I metered at ISO 400 with R72: 1/60 f/4 (EV10); metered at ISO 6 with no filter : 1/60 f/4 (EV10). Shot brackets at 1/60 from 2.8 to 5.6 (EV 9, 10, 11). No images. For another scene, I metered at 400 without filter: 1/500 f/11 (EV 16) and with R72: 1/8 f/11 (ev 10). So by my camera meter, the R72 needs 6 stops compensation. Finally, I metered at ISO 6 with the R72: 1/2 f/2.8 (EV 4). I shot brackets at EV 3, 4, and 5 - no images. Processed the roll by presoaking for 2 minutes, then developing in D-76 stock 6.5 minutes @ 68deg, 5sec/30sec agitation.
Except for the three shots without filter (auto-metered by the camera at ISO 400), and the black leader, the roll was blank. I'm starting to think (1) my camera meter isn't sensitive enough to IR, or (2) I'm missing something in all the forum reading I've done. I know there was plenty of IR in the scene, because I shot a few dozen digital exposures thru the R72 with my D70 at the same time as the film exposures.
So I have no results at ISO 12, or 6 where other people have reported success. Does anybody have any ideas?
