IBC: First Field Trip

Post-Script: You think that processing these paper negatives out in the open air, with spring winds, dust, pollen and elm seeds blowing around, that they'd be pretty dirty. I was surprised to find, after a good rinse back home, that they scanned really well, with very little in the way of dust spots. The side panel to the camera was repeatedly opened as I poured chemicals back and forth between their storage bottles and the processing trays, with the rear panel being repeatedly opened for focusing the image upon the view screen. Not only was dust not a problem, but the new paper safe (a box-within-a-box) showed no evidence of light leaks.

My light meter indicated that these images should have been exposed at f/32 for a half second, but the quickest speed that I can accurately time the exposures by hand, using the lens cap shutter, is about 1 second; and my old lens's aperture doesn't stop down any tighter than f/32. Still, these came out rather good.

I should also note that I have not been applying any pre-flash exposure to these negatives, as has been my normal procedure when working with paper negatives. I've chosen to not yet apply a pre-flash in order to reduce the number of variables that I have to work with; when the time comes, I'll probably start pre-flashing these in the darkroom, prior to loading into the paper safe box. If you're not familiar with pre-flashing, it's a technique that reduces excessive contrast by rendering better shadow detail to the negative, from applying a faint, even exposure of light to the negative, prior to its in-camera exposure. This faint amount of light is not enough to increase the highlight exposure, and so it has the intended affect of improving dynamic range.