According to the experts, this photo could not exist.

[venchka]

If one believes all of the expert information offered on the internet, I could never have made this photograph.

1. Film: Arista-EDU Ultra 200. Expired: Early 21st century. Wretched film with myriad surface defects. Film should be used before the expiration date. After that date, the film is worthless.
2. Exposure: EI 100. Film should be exposed at box speed. Overexposure ruins a negative. The highlights will be blown out.
3. Camera: Linhof Technika V, circa 1964. Linhofs are too heavy, too expensive, the bellows always leak. The Technika lacks sufficient movements.
4. Lens: Fujinon-W 250mm/6.3. Age unknown. Japanese lenses can't compete with German lenses. German lenses are the best.
5. Developer: Xtol, dilution 1:3, 1 year old. Years ago Kodak told us that you can not use 1:2 or 1:3 dilution. The negatives will be ruined at these dilutions. Kodak does not allow these dilutions. It says so in the technical instructions. 1:1 is the only dilution allowed with Xtol. Furthermore, Xtol is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad developer. Xtol only lasts a few weeks at best. It dies without warning. Stay away from Xtol.
6. Development: Jobo Expert 3010 drum turning on a Beseler motor base, one way rotation. The drum rotation must be reversed. Reverse the direction of the drum on the Beseler base every 2 minutes to ensure even development. You must do this. The film will be ruined if you do not change the direction of rotation.
EDIT to ADD:
6a. One more fatal flaw: I prewash all of my film for 5 minutes. You can't do the that. The emusion will dissolve! The developer will be over diluted. Stop it!
7. No doubt I commited other fatal errors along the way. My scanner is 10 years old. It must be useless by now. Etc. Etc.

Fortunately I can't read. 😱 😀 😎

I have posted this photo here previously. In the last few days I realized that it could not possibly exist. If one believes everything one reads on the internet.

Click the photo for a larger view.

Critical piece of information omitted: The angel was photographed on the morming of 9-11-2010. About 9am CDT. Spooky? Maybe.

I also print with a Canon printer. Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!

I must be a witch!

 

[rover]

Never believe anything that you read on the internet.

 

[illuminati_02]

What photo??

(Nicely done.)

 

[Keith]

That pic is very nice ... tones, sharpness, shadows and highlights are perfect IMO.

You forgot to mention it was shot by Texan! (but not from the grassy knoll) :angel:

 

[tlitody]

You were lucky. 😀

 

[RFH]

That's the spirit! It's always nice to prove internet 'wisdom' wrong. I did it myself recently with the Fomapan 400 that someone claimed was 'impossible' to push to 1600. Well, it certainly looks fine at 3200.

 

[tlitody]

Never believe anything that you read on the internet.

But if he takes your advice and doesn't believe what you say then he will beleive everything on the internet 😕

 

[Instantclassic]

Armchair photographers takes the best pictures in nonexistence. You can not compete.

 

[rover]

But if he takes your advice and doesn't believe what you say then he will beleive everything on the internet 😕

I don't believe you doubt my wisdom.

 

[FrankS]

My signature is apropo here:

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I want to comment on the use of Xtol. Kodak removed the high dilutions from their directions for A VERY GOOD REASON. Here is why Venchka got great results with the highly diluted Xtol, and why it won't work for most of us here:

Xtol requires at least 125ml of the stock solution for every unit of film processed. That unit is equal to a 36 exposure roll of 35mm, a 120 roll, four 4x5 sheets, or one 8x10 sheet.

The problem here is that most people shoot roll film, 35mm or 120, and they process films in small tanks that don't hold much developer. A steel 2-reel tank holds 15oz of solution, which is 450ml. Dilute 1+1, you have 225ml of stock solution in there. That's more than enough to develop one 35mm roll or one 120 roll (and the tank only holds one 120 roll). For best, most repeatable and consistent results, you should only do one 35mm roll in this tank, filling the rest of the space with an empty reel. Most people will try and do 2 rolls; the tank holds two reels, so obviously you can do it, right? Well doing two rolls gives you 112.5ml per roll of stock solution per roll. That's not that much less than the 125ml Kodak says you need, and most of the time, you can get away with it.

What happens, though, at higher dilutions? At 1+2, you have 150ml of stock in the 15 oz tank. Fine for one roll, but with two rolls you have a mere 75ml of stock per roll. You are not going to get good results. I have tried it, it does not work. If you have, and got good results, then you were lucky, and luck has no place in your craft. Do it right, it really is easier that way.

1+3 is even worse! Here you have only 112.5ml of stock, not quite enough for one roll, though like I said, it is so close to the 125ml minimum Kodak gives that it'll probably work. Put two rolls in there, and you have a mere 56.25ml per roll.

But wait, you say! Venchka got great results at 1+3. He used 4x5 sheet film in a Jobo Expert drum. The 3010 drum holds 1000ml of developer and up to 10 sheets. Venchka didn't say how many sheets he developed together, but the drum actually has 5 slots (to do 10 sheets, you put two sheets side-by-side in one slot), so lets say he did 5 sheets. At 1+3 dilution, there was 250ml of stock solution for 5 sheets of film. 4 sheets requires only 125ml, so he had more than enough stock there to develop his sheets of film at the high dilution. The warnings about high Xtol dilutions were really aimed at roll film users with small tank developing.

As far as the developer being old, well he got lucky. Old developer works but does lose some power. The Xtol sudden death problem was a manufacturing issue that Kodak fixed LONG ago, it is no longer relevant. He exposed the film a stop over. I ave not tested Foma 200 in Xtol, so it may really only be a 100 film in Xtol 1+3, or he may have really overexposed. One stop is not going to ruin any film, and with potentially weak developer because of age, and because of the film being expired, the extra stop may have simply compensated for those problems.

Don't take Venchka's experience as evidence it'll work for you. You probably do not use large format film in Jobo drums, he did. Much different setup and different results.

 

[ItsReallyDarren]

venchka is a witch!

 

[FrankS]

Burn the witch!

😉

 

[Particular]

If it wasn't a picture of a glow-in-the-dark angel, it would be severely under-exposed.

 

[Jaans]

That photo is too flat for my liking. Perhaps that is something to do with the use of XTOL - I have always found that XTOL can produce flat images that replicate the look of the digital 'sheen. There is no perception of depth which is a shame.

 

[sepiareverb]

Xtol requires at least 125ml of the stock solution for every unit of film processed. That unit is equal to a 36 exposure roll of 35mm, a 120 roll, four 4x5 sheets, or one 8x10 sheet.

So since most people are not capable of reading instructions carefully enough 1:2 and 1:3 dilutions are something NOBODY should use?

 

[kdemas]

venchka is a witch!

LMAO.

**10 char annoying gratuitous text addition.

 

[dave lackey]

If one believes all of the expert information offered on the internet, I could never have made this photograph.

1. Film: Arista-EDU Ultra 200. Expired: Early 21st century. Wretched film with myriad surface defects. Film should be used before the expiration date. After that date, the film is worthless.
2. Exposure: EI 100. Film should be exposed at box speed. Overexposure ruins a negative. The highlights will be blown out.
3. Camera: Linhof Technika V, circa 1964. Linhofs are too heavy, too expensive, the bellows always leak. The Technika lacks sufficient movements.
4. Lens: Fujinon-W 250mm/6.3. Age unknown. Japanese lenses can't compete with German lenses. German lenses are the best.
5. Developer: Xtol, dilution 1:3, 1 year old. Years ago Kodak told us that you can not use 1:2 or 1:3 dilution. The negatives will be ruined at these dilutions. Kodak does not allow these dilutions. It says so in the technical instructions. 1:1 is the only dilution allowed with Xtol. Furthermore, Xtol is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad developer. Xtol only lasts a few weeks at best. It dies without warning. Stay away from Xtol.
6. Development: Jobo Expert 3010 drum turning on a Beseler motor base, one way rotation. The drum rotation must be reversed. Reverse the direction of the drum on the Beseler base every 2 minutes to ensure even development. You must do this. The film will be ruined if you do not change the direction of rotation.
7. No doubt I commited other fatal errors along the way. My scanner is 10 years old. It must be useless by now. Etc. Etc.

Fortunately I can't read. 😱 😀 😎

I have posted this photo here previously. In the last few days I realized that it could not possibly exist. If one believes everything one reads on the internet.

Click the photo for a larger view.

Very cool, Wayne! Great image and interesting thread!🙂

 

[Keith]

That photo is too flat for my liking. Perhaps that is something to do with the use of XTOL - I have always found that XTOL can produce flat images that replicate the look of the digital 'sheen. There is no perception of depth which is a shame.

I think you're hard to please regarding the OP's pic ... but I do agree partly with what you say about Xtol. I went back to Rodinal as my go to developer a while ago and immediately noticed more 'bite' in my images.

 

[Freakscene]

The main problem is that many things that are not absolute get expressed in terms of absolutes on the internet, and a lot of people take them on as absolutes.

When I comment I tend to frame things in terms of my photos being valuable, in that getting them costs money and having them can make me money. I am careful because of this and try to eliminate sources of uncertainty, risk and inconsistency. In terms of Thardy's mention of the swiss cheese failure model, this means that the holes are less likely to align and cause a problem.

Chris' comments about Xtol are right, but a bigger problem was that 125 mL of stock was not enough for some films at 1+2 and 1+3. TMX was the main one identified by Kodak, and TMZ and Delta 3200 were similar in my experience, but there may be others. I've also noticed that four rolls of 135-36 in a litre of Xtol 1+3 can show streaks even when development occurs properly and density-exposure curves are as expected.

Expiry of all film is dependent on storage and the effects are less visible the larger the format. Here where it is hot and dry and then cool and wet over a seasonal cycle, I have noticed that 135 format Foma films get much grainier with casual (i.e. not frozen or cold) storage and that at some point after expiry developed films start showing spots that are black on the prints - these are small areas that fail to develop (I've checked by sectioning the film and looking at it with a microscope and also doing chemical tests and they are not pinholes in the emulsion) - probably because it is the accelerants that are most susceptible to aging and Fomapan 200 is full of development accelerants.

Lots of maybes.

Marty