Second Roll of Polyfilm Handmade 120 Film from Ukraine
After going back and forth with Ihor and getting recommendations on how to best develop this wacky film of his, I shot a second roll yesterday. I switched from the Kiev 88 to my Hasselblad 500cm, but made a mistake in loading the film that resulted in me getting only 10 frames and having some overlap between them. I gave the film a pre-wash that lasted seven minutes, cut development from 15 minutes to 12, used an acid stop bath as recommended (I usually stop with water), and rinsed after fixing for ten minutes, something I usually avoid because I use an alkaline fixer and hypo washes out of film much more quickly when you use an alkaline fixer.
The first three photos show that the lines I got on the first roll are dramatically less present. They're still there, but less noticeable. They are particularly visible in flat color areas, like the sky. This closeup shows the upper left portion of the third photo where they are visible both in the sky and on the metal of the sculpture.
There is, however, this odd mottling throughout the roll, and given the shapes, I think this may also be an artifact of the plasticizers.
As we get further into the roll, the lines so present on the first roll get harder to find and more localized. In the shot of the diner, they're present mostly to the left of the sign on the roof. In the shot of the Chinese restaurant, they're visible at the left of the frame, but not nearly as disruptive as the previous roll's examples.
The last three photos continue the pattern where the lines are visible primarily at the left of the frame, but less visible than previous. There is more evidence of the hand-coated nature of the film with some verticle lines running through the photos and an occasional black dot where there was probably a bubble or something.
All told, the revised development process improved the film, but I suspect there may be some changes needed in the formulation to lower the level of plasticizers. I don't see this kind of mottling that I got on every shot in the examples I've seen posted elsewhere from other batches by people like Ari Jaaksi and Vitalii Kovalyshyn.
Posted at 1:16 PM