priscimon blog

The results of my film development are still hit and miss.

Here are samples from yet another roll that was started in 2018 and finished just this month.

I set the camera to ISO 400 for the Agfa Vista 200 film. This mistake not only caused the pictures to come out dark but also revealed what I thought to be light leaks when I increased the exposure in Gimp. Comments in online film photography forums, however, suggest that they could also be caused by under- or over- development, too high or too low developer temperatures, too little or too much agitation… In other words, any thing that I did during development might have been wrong.

Still, I spent an hour yesterday evening to replace the light seals on the Nikon FM2. This simple maintenance job eliminates one possible source of future problems. My next adjustments are to pay more attention to the temperatures of chemicals and to twirl – “ yes, this is jargon – the right amount when agitating the contents of the development tank.

I make it sound like I am completely unaware, but I actually know what went wrong. It’s just easier to ascribe this failture to randomness. The truth is—

I am quite sure that the camera did not let light in. But the film was loaded in 2018, was expired, and is not known for quality. I mishandled it in the changing bag, touching it with my fingers many times. And the chemicals were poured into the tank when they were at 40°C instead of the prescribed 38°C. In other words, I screwed up. And those are mistakes that could be avoided with more care and patience.

To end this post, let’s look at the mobile phone version of that last picture from the series above. Why bother with film photography when the digital image can be made so conveniently and gives such quality? Film is just more fun.

The pictures from my photo walk to the local park aren’t great. But here they are anyway.

I developed the film with the Bellini Foto C-41 kit yesterday and scanned the negatives as soon as they were dry. The process was a little stressful, because I had to maintain the chemicals at a precise 38⁰C whilst keeping time and agitating the development tank the correct amount for each stage. But at least, the good pictures below (from 2018) tell me that the development was successful and is not the cause of the bad ones.

As I said, the FG-20 held an unfinished roll of film from around 2018. In addition, it was a film that expired in 2005. Its age is a factor in the poor quality of the pictures, but I am mostly at fault for not setting the correct exposure on the camera when taking the shots.

I finally visited the park that opened near my house in 2020 amidst COVID lockdown. It is a former golf course that has been rehabilitated as a green area. I carried a Nikon FG-20 camera with an unfinished roll of film on my walk and took pictures of the trees and wild grass that have grown all over.

Back at home, I pulled out old negatives that I had never bothered to scan until now. Going through the photos, I feel my interest in film photography being rekindled.

I don’t have pictures of the park because I am still waiting for delivery of new chemicals to develop the film. In the meantime, here are photos from over a decade ago that I scanned just today.