So, I ran into two problems with this roll. First, I wanted to test something with my 75mm to 200mm zoom lens. I had some thin negatives when I was shooting with it zoomed in VA, so I bumped up the exposure a stop. I think that corrected some things, but the focus is… off.
I think I’m getting better density, even if only a little bit, but it is actually really hard to get a good focus on that lens. This is all the way zoomed in at 200mm and focused to infinity. It looked good through the lens, but it’s blurry on the film.
Also, the focus changes too quickly when you adjust it, and getting it spot on takes very fine movement. It’s very touchy.
The lens is like a straight tube, and does not open up at the end, unlike my 28mm to 85mm zoom lens. I think that greatly affects the clarity. It may be a bit fogged, too. I’ll have to try some more things in the future with that lens to see if there’s anything I can do with it.
This was the last roll of Fomapan 200 I had on hand. I decided to order some more just to have some to knock around in the future. Generally, I get really good results from it, and it’s cheap.
I don’t know what happened with this photo. I’ve been seeing this occasionally. It has some swirls on the top, and it happens on one of the lasts frames of the roll. I’ll have to think about it to see what I can come up with to mitigate or eliminate this.
This last one was heavily scratched. I didn’t notice it when I scanned it in and just fixed it as I edited the photo. Apparently, I didn’t fully fix my paper cutter that I use for cutting the film. Probably some fabric or felt on the cutting surface will take care of this.
I use the paper cutter because it’s actually difficult to cut in the exact place you want with the scissors. I’ve cut off the side of frames before. However, the cutter is not as sharp as a pair of scissors, and it doesn’t cut cleanly. If I could get the scratching taken care of, the unclean cuts isn’t as much of a problem. As long as I can get the cut between frames, that’s what matters.
Development Details
- Film: Fomapan 200
- Camera ISO setting: 100
- Developer: Kodak XTol
- Development Time: 6 Minutes
- Development Agitation: Kodak Style (5x inversions every 30 seconds)