First Diafine/ Neopan/ Autocord results!

[dreilly]

Well, my dark room is up and running! Actually, it's the college's dark room, but it hasn't been used in ten years. So mine, all mine!

The diafine process is mucho easy. The hardest part was loading the bloody reels. The plastic reels were hard enough. I tried practicing on a stainless steel reel...yikes! I know there's a page with a tutorial on loading those things, I'll have to check it out.

Anway, here's Neopan 400, shot at 640 in a Rolleiflex Automat with Xenar lens.

I sold one of these recently, then quickly regretted it, and bought another for side-by-side trials with the Autocord Karl Bryan sent me. You can see the autocord in the photo there. I took a similar roll with that camera, but didn't have room in the tank. So I put in a drawer (on a reel) and then later needed the scissors. Doh! Fogged film! The tests go on.

These aren't really art, just technical tests, though I do like the self-timed self-portrait.

Thanks to everyone here who helped me get this darkroom up and running!

 

[Ash]

nice! You're lucky with that darkroom of yours!

 

[T_om]

Creamy tones, long tonal scale, lots of details held in the highlights... Yep, that's Diafine. 🙂

Tom

 

[Rich Silfver]

Love the photo of you and the Autocord

 

[dreilly]

Thanks everyone, I have to say that Medium format is my new best friend!

I may just give all that 35mm film to my wife...

 

[P C Headland]

Good results. I too quite like Neopan 400 in Diafine - I've run a couple of rolls through my Iskras.

 

[Solinar]

If you can, tie a string to a small pair of scissors and the enlarger in the darkroom. You may not find the scissors on the first reach, but you will find the enlarger and then follow the string.

I use Paterson plastic reels. I find that folding over the tape make for a nice rigid leader for insertion. Before loading, I also snip off the corners by a miniscule amount, which enables smooth sliding of the film into the reel, once it has been started and inserted past those ball bearing locks.

Let me say also, I still like the Autocord's ergonomics over the Rollei. I may be buying another Autocord.

 

[dreilly]

Andrew,
Thanks for the tips on loading the reels...I'll try that today. I had a lot of trouble with one of them...the edges curling off the track, so maybe trimming them will do the trick.

Today I'll develop the roll of Tri-X I shot this past weekend in the Flexaret.

cheers
doug

 

[KoNickon]

Really nice. I have got to learn how to develop film myself.

 

[sbug]

Very nice examples. I'm going to try a combo of Tri-X and Diafine soon so I look forward to your results. I'm thinking of shooting it at 800 or so.

 

[dreilly]

Thanks everyone! Solinar's advice on loading patterson reels was dead-on. I developed three more rolls today and it was much, much easier. I had a question in another thread but folks seem to like this one at the moment...does Tri-x have a darker base than Ilford Pan 100? One of the rolls was TX, the other two were the Pan, and the Pan in general had a clearer base and apparently better contrast. I'll know more later once I scan. Anyone have any experience with this?