Washi W Development

[Jake Mongey]

Hey,
I recently purchased a roll of washi W to try out and understand that it should be developed under safe light in trays however, It recommends using Ilford PQ or Eukobrom. I do not have these developers and I am wondering if anyone has tried using Ilford Multi-grade or classic film developers such as rodinol or ilfosol 3?

 

[Godfrey]

I acquired a ten roll block of Washi-W. I don't have those developers either ... I'm going to experiment with HC-110 at my usual dilution and time/temp to see what I get. I also have no way to do the open tray development recommended either; I bought a Kodak apron-style tank to process it in because I don't believe it can handle the stresses of a reel-type tank.

First roll I shoot will be all experimentation with exposure and processing. Once I get a feel for it, I'll have enough rolls left to work with and make some photographs. 🙂

G

 

[Jake Mongey]

I acquired a ten roll block of Washi-W. I don't have those developers either ... I'm going to experiment with HC-110 at my usual dilution and time/temp to see what I get. I also have no way to do the open tray development recommended either; I bought a Kodak apron-style tank to process it in because I don't believe it can handle the stresses of a reel-type tank.

First roll I shoot will be all experimentation with exposure and processing. Once I get a feel for it, I'll have enough rolls left to work with and make some photographs. 🙂

G

Share any results with me - Unfortunately I only have one roll but will bracket one at 25, 12 and 8 and see which is best exposed

 

[Godfrey]

Share any results with me - Unfortunately I only have one roll but will bracket one at 25, 12 and 8 and see which is best exposed

Will do. I'm shooting 6x6 format so *have* to have more than one roll to get the exposure and process stabilized in my understanding. 🙂

G

 

[Godfrey]

I ran my first roll of Washi 120 in a RealitySoSubtle 6x6 pinhole camera over the weekend. I used a ISO setting of 10 to meter for it and used my usual soup of HC-110 1:50 dilution, 70°F for 8 minutes. It's drying at present.

Since I don't have any facilities for open tray development, I used a Kodacraft Roll-Film Tank for 120-620-127 film with the processing apron. That seems to have worked well. The 'film' is definitely too thin and fragile to be used in a standard reel-type processing tank. (Frankly, after using it, I really really like the old Kodacraft apron style tank ... much nicer to load and use than the spiral tanks. 🙂 )

Can't tell 'til it's completely dry, but I can see that shadow densities are too thin by at least one to two stops. I'll compensate for this with the next roll by going to ISO 5 on the meter and stepping up the developer concentration a little ... probably 1:30 instead of 1:50. Alternatively, stick with 1:50 and ISO 10 while doubling development time to 16 minutes, see what that does.

I'll scan negs this afternoon when the film is completely dry.

G

 

[Jake Mongey]

I devved mine in ilford multi grade after contacting the maker and getting times and shot at an ISO of 6, I would go to ISO 3 as shadows were a tad thin on mine too.

However I shot 35mm and the effect is unusably strong and it looks like the result of someone taking an early kodak DCS then using a 4 million ISO. I think it will shine in 6x6 so I look forward to seeing your shots

 

[Godfrey]

Here are four images out of the 11 exposures I made:

​

I am pleased that I managed to get four such images out of the playing around I did... 😀

enjoy!
G

 

[571514m3]

Godfrey, I really like 053. It definitely unique characteristics. Looks like it could produce some very interesting frame filling portraits.

 

[Godfrey]

Godfrey, I really like 053. It definitely unique characteristics. Looks like it could produce some very interesting frame filling portraits.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun this weekend playing around ... Although portraits with an effective 20mm focal length lens on 6x6 seems a little extreme! 🙂

!n all honesty, I should have approached both the camera and the Washi film a little more conservatively. I ran with a new, unknown camera using a new, unknown film. I knew nothing of the specific characteristics of either.

Now I'm going to back up a bit: I'll load the camera with a known film and explore its capabilities so I can scope it. I'll load the Washi into a known camera to explore its characteristics and proper development. Then I'll recombine the two again... 😀

G

 

[robert blu]

I have a couple of 120 rolls I would like to try in my Rolleiflex which unfortunately is in a fixing stage! When I'll have it back I'll give a try...thanks for sharing your experiences
robert

 

[kiss-o-matic]

Looks like the stuff of nightmares. nice!

 

[Godfrey]

I just processed a second roll of Washi 120. This time, I exposed it with the Hasselblad using ISO 10 (mostly natural light) and processed it in Ilford Multigrade paper developer, 1:9 dilution, for 3 minutes using my Kodacraft tank again.

The results have a more continuous tone to them ... a few frames are pretty robust, but most are still underexposed. I did two test exposures at 0 and +1 exposures, the +1 came out much better. So the next roll will be done with Ilford Multigrade again but at ISO 3.

Negatives are drying now. Tomorrow I'll find time to set up my scanning jig and see what I have. 😀

G

--- added:
Dried down, the negatives look encouraging; I'll scan them a bit later on.
There are useful negatives to work with, but I still think ISO 3 or 5 is a better film speed for this material with this processing.

 

[Godfrey]

Second roll of Washi 120 ...

Second roll of Washi 120 ...

Second roll of Washi 120 ... Much better results and I've learned a bit.

All of these exposures were made with the Hasselblad 500CM using either the Makro-Planar 120/4 or Distagon 50/4 lens. I metered using ISO 10 as a baseline except for the first two images, which were overexposed 1 stop as a test. Looking at the results, I'd say the right ISO setting for this film is between 3 and 5.

I processed this time in a paper developer, Ilford Multigrade Developer, for 3 minutes at 68°F, fixed for 5 minutes, and washed for a full 15 minutes.

















The negatives were scanned by shooting through them on a flat panel light box, capturing the images with the Leica SL and a Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm f/2.8 lens. I used a BEOON copy stand to support the camera and lens, racked out pretty much as far as it will go for maximum elevation to capture the full frame. The SL (with fw v3) has a full time electronic shutter for no vibration and I controlled it from my iPad for the capture sequence.

Because the Washi 120 film is paper and tend to be wavy/curly after processing and drying, I made a thick paper channel under a glass plate to pull the film through using a couple of bits of 300gsm paper. I used Art Tape to secure everything in position for the capture, which takes a few minutes but allows me to make the captures themselves in about 1/10 the time: just pull the film through the channel and snap a photo of each frame.

The capture setup is shown below.

To process the copy captures, I created a special camera calibration profile matched to the Washi 120 film that does the image inversion and gamma curve correction with DNG Profile Editor and added it to Lightroom's profiles. Processing then means importing the images, applying the special profile, making whatever minor tweaks are necessary to bring all the images into approximate rendering range, then exporting to 16bit TIFF (auto-importing the export back into LR). Finish rendering is applied to the TIFF files, which are then processed for frame and other details.

Fun stuff. I think I know how to work the film now, the next roll should have some more interesting photos...

onwards!
G