Fifth Roll of Polyfilm Handmade Film from Ukraine
As I mentioned in my previous post, I got a couple of rolls of film from a batch, 160626, that is supposed to address the issues I found in my previous four rolls from batch 260526. I did indeed take it out into the inferno of New Jersey this afternoon, temperatures in the low 100s Fahrenheit, pushing 40 Celsius (I did see temps go above 40C/104F today, but not while or where I was shooting). I loaded a roll in my Pentax 67 and took it to Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook, figuring that photos of its defensive fortifications would be an appropriate thing to shoot on Ukrainian film. I also hoped it would be slightly less hot, which it was, but only by a degree or two.
The first four photos show mottling. It's not clear to me if this is interaction with the paper, or a more subtle instance of the plasticizers showing their presence. It's really obvious in the skies of these photos.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh photos show evidence of another fault, with collections of black dots present in mostly the sky. Seven has the most incidence of this.
I got another blank shot on this roll. The Pentax 67 does something weird when the speed dial is moved accidentally to a place between two settings where it kind of implies that it opened the shutter, definitely brings the mirror up, but doesn't expose anything. It's interesting to compare this with the blank shot in the previous roll. The black dots noted in the previous shots are here in spades.
Shots nine and ten also suffer from extensive dotting. Ten also ran into the end of the roll because I slightly misaligned the film at the beginning and hoped there was enough extra emulsion to cover the half inch difference between the arrow that says 120 inside the camera and the line that's supposed to line up with it. Oops. Missed it by that much. Kind of an interesting look.
It's hard for me to say if this fully addressed the issues with batch 260526; the mottling and the black dots both look to me like they could still come from the plasticizer, or it could be something else. This batch is a definitely improvement from the previous one. Temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 70s and lower 80s Fahrenheit, upper 20s Celsius, tomorrow. If I don't get out tomorrow with a roll in more temperate conditions, I'll try later in the week. Today was definitely a stress test, and I'd like to see what the film does a little farther from the edges of the weather.
Posted at 2:10 AM