With an excuse to test out both my new Mamiya RZ67 and my 4 year old film developer I set out to do a test shoot to help me compare my old Ilfotec HC to a fresh one, as well as to check on the condition of both film backs. I set up a still life shoot and loaded both backs with Ilford Delta 100. I lit the scene with a single 500w Profoto strobe light with a reflector and a grid attached, firing behind a large sheet of diffusion. I also used a white card to fill in some of the shadows. I took duplicate images and proceeded to develop one roll with the expired chemistry and one with the fresh developer. After comparing the images I piled up a few tips and best practices to help you preserve your chemistry for longer as well as examples on how you can test your chemicals.

Using the two rolls of Kodak Vision3 500T motion picture film that I shot in the previous video, I went ahead and made a few RA4 darkroom handprints to further compare how the chemistry affects the end result.

With quotes claiming that the ECN-2 process yields far better results when developing cinema film and that C41 degrades the colour and contrast rendition, it got me interested to do a direct comparison of the two processes using Kodak Vision3 500T, developed in ECN-2 and C41 chemistry.

How do I cut a 400ft roll down to 100ft to use it with my bulk loader? The main focus of this article is the respooling of 400ft rolls of 35mm film to 100ft.

…utilising three easy to find items. A flange, a pipe and a piece of plywood. I thought it was brilliant. A cheap and sturdy solution that can be assembled in a couple of minutes.