Redscale results ...

[dmr]

Well, I finally had the test redscale roll processed yesterday, here are some examples, ranging from the curious, to the surreal, to the totally bizarre.

For those who don't recognize the term, redscale is where you intentionally expose the film "wrong side out" meaning the acetate base layer is toward the lens and the emulsion layer is to the rear, contacting the pressure plate. This gives you a well-exposed red-sensitive layer (most people say to overexpose a stop), an underexposed green-sensitive layer, and theoretically a very underexposed blue-sensitive layer.

I tried it using a roll of Kroger/Ferrania 200 film, shot at ISO 100 in the Canon GIII.

My results, at least the preliminary ones from the lab scans, are not as "nice" as some I've seen on the web. I am going to re-scan some of these and others from the roll to see if I can get better results.

As you would expect, the colors shift to red ...

Notice the horizontal scratch. There were several of these in the roll, and I'm guessing that they were caused by the softer more fragile emulsion rubbing against the pressure plate in the camera.

What I didn't expect was the bowling ball size grain! Also the noise in the green channel in the shadows!

The blood red sky (/me puts on an old U2 album and cranks it) in this next one is one of the better ones in the set, if I can get the green-blue noise in the shadows under control.

This one is totally bizarre! Uber-grain and cyan bridge and trees.

I tried playing around with the channel mixer a bit, and a B&W using only the red channel is quite reminiscent of some urban scenes I did way back in the 1970s with Tri-X, with quite a bit more grain, that is.

Oh well -- it was interesting to try this once. 🙂

 

[.ken]

lomography.com sells a "redscale" film. I tried it and it definitely had interesting results.

 

[capitalK]

I did a roll yesterday, it was an expired Kodak Gold 800 that I put in a 400 tin and shot at 400. I thought I had read that you should overexpose by a stop but everything came out washed-out. I like your results a lot, wish I could have gotten the same but I think that will be my first and only roll.

 

[dmr]

I thought I had read that you should overexpose by a stop but everything came out washed-out. I like your results a lot, wish I could have gotten the same

Thanks. 🙂 I really wasn't that impressed with the results, actually.

Looking at things more closely having re-scanned a few of these, some are definitely underexposed.

I'm reposting a couple of them, from my re-scans, which came out much better. That lab scanner has obviously tried to correct for levels and brought the noise of the green and blue channels up quite a bit. The image of the bridge above is almost all artifact, for example. The over-correction also seems to have increased the grain by quite a bit.

but I think that will be my first and only roll.

I really don't see any practical application for this. It's something I'm glad I tried once, but I can't see using it as an effective tool for anything, really.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

This is interesting stuff.

 

[clayne]

I disagree to the no practical application part. I've seen some wonderful examples of redscale, both double and single exposure. One traditional route is to shoot normal, then flip and reshoot. The OP's results appear as if the scanner overexposed creating digitally noisy scans.

I have a few in my flickr favorites from a couple of people that turned out quite nice:

 

[dmr]

One traditional route is to shoot normal, then flip and reshoot.

Hmmmm ... if it works for you, all the better. In my not so humble opinion, this is a technique which probably will not work for me. I don't have a camera where flipping is really an option, other than rewinding and reshooting an already-shot roll.

If you can make these work, I do admire you! 🙂

The OP's results appear as if the scanner overexposed creating digitally noisy scans.

These were mini-lab scans. I just turned in the roll for a regular DO-CD. This was with a Fuji Frontier 450. It tried to adjust for the lack of exposure in the green and blue channels. As you see, the results were not very good.

Even though I left the K-M on auto-exposure for the re-scans, it captured what was there, with histograms of green and blue weak and skrunched up to the left. I'm working over these and going to do a blog entry on this, but I think this is probably a "try it once to experience it once" thing for me. 🙂