proof that dundy can be a glamorous dog. 

olympus om10 shot with arista premium 400 @ 250, developed in adox adonal 1:50 for 11 minutes. film not spooled properly on the reel. 

more on my flickr.

kodak plus-x pan pro push test

(i'm not sure if i could pronounce the title of this post if i had to.)
a few months back i bought 3 rolls of this film for $5.00 from john's camera corner in blacksburg, va. not being one to shoot expired film that often (as especially not as expired as september 1983) i was somewhat skeptical of using it even though i was told it had been kept refrigerated.
a couple weeks ago we went out on a sunday to shoot and i brought a roll along in my bag, and once i finished the roll of portra or arista.edu 400 or whatever it was i decided on a whim to give this film a try.
i think immediately after i loaded it i had forgotten what i put in the camera, and i was metering and shooting as iso 400 when in fact this film is rated at iso 125.
i finished up the roll this past sunday when we were shooting in downtown roanoke, va. i was excited to see how some of my shots from there were going to turn out, especially since i have my tripod back in commission after a month-long hiatus. i finished the last shot, wound to the end of the roll and opened the back- eek! (that was not the film i thought i had been shooting...) so after cursing for a few minutes and throwing the roll in my bag, thinking all was lost as i usually do when i make a mistake, i loaded the roll of rollei retro 400s i had in my bag for quite a while. we finished up the day and ate dinner and went to bed, etc., etc.
yesterday morning i woke up and was thinking of the roll of pxp i thought i had ruined when suddenly it hit me- "HEY, all i did was basically push the film. no need for alarm/self loathing, everything will be okay, etc." (can you tell i have never intentionally pushed film before?)
i read around a bit online and found where a guy had pushed this film but developed using hc-110. all i had on hand was rodinal (no) and d-76. i went to the massive dev chart and found a recipe using d-76 stock for ei 500, and decided that was a no-go. thankfully there are guidelines for push processing on said site, so i went by kodak's data sheet using d-76 1:1 for normal development (7 minutes) multiplied by 2.25 mins. since i was approximately pushing 2 stops. (that equals 15.75, hooray for calculators)
i spooled my film, which of course was curly as hell but it didn't give me horrible problems.
when i started mixing up my chemicals i remembered that i had one kodak anti-fog no. 1 tablet on hand and thought this would be a good test case for it. i used half, which might've been overkill in hindsight but if the film was fogged it worked. i heated up 250 ml of distilled water in the microwave to 85 degrees, put in half the crushed tablet & mixed the 250 ml d-76 stock in.
in the background i had my film presoaking, and i probably soaked it for over 5 minutes... not intentionally, but i was trying to get my chemicals down close to 68. i gave up when it got to around 72 and the film had been soaking for nearly 10 minutes. surprisingly, the water from the presoak came out clear.
i only developed the film for a total of 13 minutes because the temperature was a little higher than it should be and i didn't want to run the risk of overdeveloping. it probably could've went the extra 2+ minutes, but the negatives turned out okay, albeit, thin.
this film has a very thin base and the emulsion side was more fragile when wet than most films i normally use. the film actually slipped right out of the clip as i was holding it up to the light to inspect, so i wouldn't hang something heavier than maybe a tiny binder clip on the end while drying.
i scanned a few from this roll today, although it was pretty tough considering how curved they are.

i had to adjust the curves in this one a bit- i find i've had to do that a lot lately.

nothing done in post here; this is pretty close to what the wall looked like at that time.

i thought this looked better scanned as a color negative. 

kodak bw400cn + adox adonal = a lot of work in post.

so i temporarily fixed the light leak in the nikon fg yesterday. to test it, i shot a roll of kodak bw400cn and developed it semi-stand in adox adonal 1:100 for an hour. if you do a straight scan all your highlights are completely blown out and it looks like straight crap. but with some level adjustments in photoshop it can be somewhat corrected, and you end up with a very grainy and high contrast image. 

this will be my second time using this film/developer combo, both times i shot the film at iso 320.

here's a few examples using a pentax me, without any work done in post:

here's a few from the nikon fg, that needed a lot of work done in post. however, the light leak is temporarily fixed.

yep, just like it says.

so yeah, not the best film/developer combination but it works in a pinch. (or if you're just too lazy to bring your color chemicals up to temperature.) i'm going to do further testing with the fg as i'm probably just going to sell it. though it does have a damn good lens on it, in my opinion. (tokina 35-70mm macro zoom) 

by the way, did i mention that 35mm isn't my forte?

well, that's enough of a me-centric post for now. if you somehow found our blog, thanks for looking!

prints now for sale/view at pulaski bikes, other stuff.

yesterday tim and i dropped off three prints at pulaski bikes (see previous post(s) of his photos taken with the mamiya m645. we only scanned 2 of the 3, pictured here:
norfolk southern engine
chrysler
we forgot to scan the other one. OOPS.
i've contacted the fine arts center of the new river valley in hopes of getting some of our work on display. maybe i'll get a response back.
i'm also trying to find some other outlets to show our work in blacksburg, but i haven't reached out to anyone yet.
yesterday we found a very interesting spot and shot a couple rolls, however, we both had a streak of bad luck. tim was able to salvage some of his negatives and made a few prints:

and

in my case, i was shooting the old nikon fg which has a terrible light leak at the bottom of the film door. i've posted some of the results on a flickr set, but nothing is noteworthy by any means.
after developing and scanning the negatives i decided to do a bit of lightproofing, and shot a roll of kodak bw400cn that i developed in rodinal 1:100 for an hour. the negatives are drying now. from looking at the negatives i think i fixed the light leak problem, but as with a previous experiment with this film and developer i'll end up with a lot of blown out highlights and loss of detail. if i end up with any decent results i'll post them here.

Old Chrysler

Old Chrysler, a photo by Dundemunde on Flickr.

One of Tim's prints, shot with the Mamiya M645 using Arista.edu Ultra 100, developed in Kodak TMAX 1:4. Print was developed in Adox Adonal.

upcoming prints for $sale$

if you are a local to the NRV (or new river valley, for those not in the know) look for some prints made by tim of some of our photos at pulaski bikes. the prints he has made thus far are 8" x 10"s in a matted frame, $30.00 / ea. they're made in our home darkroom, using a beseler 23c ii enlarger. most of the prints have been developed using rodinal. to view scans of some of the prints, see tim's flickr. he's pretty specific with all the developing/printing details. tim and i do a lot of our photography here in town travelling by bike and mike (the owner) is a superawesome guy and agreed to let us post up some of our framed prints for sale in his shop. the shop is located in the restored town depot, (which is picturesque in itself) and is right at the start of the new river trail in downtown pulaski, va. so come on by and take a ride, (or walk) or if you don't have a bike on your person you can always rent one... check their site for rates. we hope to have several framed and up for sale by the end of the week.

corvair

corvair, a photo by rabbit & squirrel on Flickr.

here's one of my pictures from our excursion this weekend. this was shot on kodak portra 400 in a rolleicord iii.