52@52 Week 9
For week 9 of my 52 week project, I made a second attempt to shoot on the boardwalk in Asbury Park with my Calumet 4×5 and New55 film. This time was more successful than the last time (although my first attempt this time failed when the QuickLoad sleeve pulled all the way out of the holder rather than stopping where it should, leaving me with still a 50% failure rate).
The print was better this time than the last successful shot I made. I cleaned the holder thoroughly before taking it out, and that seems to have had the desired effect. I had seen a post by the New55 guys where they said that if the rollers weren’t clean, they might be separated a little more than usual, leading to not enough pressure on the sandwich, resulting in the lack of focus in the print. So that worked.
The negative still has a problem with fogging. I originally thought this was the goop remaining on the negative, but I’m sure now that it’s not; it’s in the negative.
But weirdly, I’m also seeing the mottling they mention in that post. So maybe this one was too tight.
I know that different production runs are coming out with different recommended speeds. I’m starting to think that ISO 100 and developing for four minutes as recommended on the sheet that came with this pack is too long. I think for my next shot, I’m going to try EI 50 and developing for two minutes. I’ve seen some shots posted by New55’s Sam Hiser that used that combination that looked pretty good.
Posted at 4:31 AM