Deon
Member
I totally understand you should process your film as soon as possible after exposure. But, Trish and I were embarking on a multi month road trip, so I experimented with various films to see how they would do when NOT process as soon as possible after exposure. Since my darkroom was put into storage until… I knew it would be some time before I got back into a darkroom. Over the years I found Ilford Pan-F 120 needed to be processed fast, within a month of exposure before visible degradation would occurred. But, Ilford FP-4 120 was fairly stable for 18 months according to my tests and Kodak Tri-X 120 was even better.
At the onset of a little road trip we had planed we thought we would be driving around for a few months, lolly-gagging around the Southwestern United States looking for a place to call home. But a couple of clients found out we were on the road, so we ended up documenting wind farms for a company’s ten year anniversary, taking us to 37 States and 4 Provinces over the course of a year. Then, another client had us doing casting and location scouting for a US Census ad campaign directed at Native Americans. This job took us to dozens of Reservations across the Northern United States for several more months. Then, as we were redirecting our attentions back to finding a home and studio, a pandemic had other ideas… We ended up living in our conversion van for exactly 40 months (1,200 days). This put my film way past its limits. I had shot over 300 rolls of 120 film and almost 200 rolls of 35mm. All of the 120 film (paper backed) was a total disaster (Put on a gigantic sad face here!) Half of the Ilford FP-4 120 film went through a Hasselblad and the other a Holga. Sadly, I have discarded all of the film from the Hasselblad and almost all of the film from the Holga. How the films issues showed up was intolerable with the Hasselblad, but since the Holga is not the best camera on the block, the messed up film in some cases isn’t that bad of a detriment. All of the 35mm film came out OK, only loosing some contrast due to the films base gaining density. I shot Kodak Tri-X trough Kodak “Fun Saver Panoramic” disposable cameras and Ilford FP-4 135-36 through a Leica M4. These all looked acceptable, just needing to up the contrast when printing. But, the paper backed film (120) had a variety of strange damage, assumably assisted by heat and time...
These are shots showing some of the worst issues with Ilford FP4-120 shot through a Holga 120n plastic camera.
"Visitor Info Center" Battle Mountain, Nevada July 18th 2018
"Wendover Will" Wendover, Nevada June 28th 2021
At the onset of a little road trip we had planed we thought we would be driving around for a few months, lolly-gagging around the Southwestern United States looking for a place to call home. But a couple of clients found out we were on the road, so we ended up documenting wind farms for a company’s ten year anniversary, taking us to 37 States and 4 Provinces over the course of a year. Then, another client had us doing casting and location scouting for a US Census ad campaign directed at Native Americans. This job took us to dozens of Reservations across the Northern United States for several more months. Then, as we were redirecting our attentions back to finding a home and studio, a pandemic had other ideas… We ended up living in our conversion van for exactly 40 months (1,200 days). This put my film way past its limits. I had shot over 300 rolls of 120 film and almost 200 rolls of 35mm. All of the 120 film (paper backed) was a total disaster (Put on a gigantic sad face here!) Half of the Ilford FP-4 120 film went through a Hasselblad and the other a Holga. Sadly, I have discarded all of the film from the Hasselblad and almost all of the film from the Holga. How the films issues showed up was intolerable with the Hasselblad, but since the Holga is not the best camera on the block, the messed up film in some cases isn’t that bad of a detriment. All of the 35mm film came out OK, only loosing some contrast due to the films base gaining density. I shot Kodak Tri-X trough Kodak “Fun Saver Panoramic” disposable cameras and Ilford FP-4 135-36 through a Leica M4. These all looked acceptable, just needing to up the contrast when printing. But, the paper backed film (120) had a variety of strange damage, assumably assisted by heat and time...
These are shots showing some of the worst issues with Ilford FP4-120 shot through a Holga 120n plastic camera.
"Visitor Info Center" Battle Mountain, Nevada July 18th 2018
"Wendover Will" Wendover, Nevada June 28th 2021