Hello All,

I recently moved up to a medium format camera. i ran a few rolls thru it and they turned out crisp and clean. Recently I have not been able to get a single roll to come out in focus. when i print the negatives they are all just a little out of focus. i have been taking the film to a local lab. they process it. could they not be processing the film right? the film comes back slightly purplish wiht a sea spray type look to the negatives. can i refix? any help would be appreciated as i am about to pull my hair out.

josh

-- Josh Randall (randalj@co.kern.ca.us), December 05, 2001

Answers

when i say sea spray type look, i mean between the exposures in the clear part of the film it looks like a fine sea mist has coated it.

thanks in advance for the help

josh

-- josh (randalj@co.kern.ca.us), December 05, 2001.

The haze and tint sound like inadequate fixing. Are you using Tmax or Delta films? These are harder to fix. Maybe they're not changing their fixer often enough. This wouldn't directly affect the focus but it might muddy up overall image clarity.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@flash.net), December 06, 2001.

I'M USING 120 ROLL TMAX 100 FILM. I think the problem simply is a fixing problem because the photos are only slightly out of focus looking, and yes muddy looking as well. thanks for the response. anyone know how i could refix, about 20 rolls that are all chopped up into 4 frame pieces, easily?

-- Josh Randall (randalj@co.kern.ca.us), December 06, 2001.

Which camera are you using? Which focal length. Was the majority taken with a small f stop (eg 2,8)?

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 06, 2001.

Using a Mamiya 645, f stop of 22-32. all infinity focal lengths.

-- Josh Randall (randalj@co.kern.ca.us), December 06, 2001.

TMAX film does require more fixing than many other films. I would suggest using a "rapid fix" product mixed to film strength or stronger. You will probably have to do this in a tray if the film is cut up. Of course, you will have to use a Hypo clearing agent, then wash (maybe in a print washer?), and then "photo-flow" wetting agent in distilled water. The hardest part will finding enough of an edge on the film to hang up to dry if it is cut up into small strips.

-- Michael Feldman (mfeldman@qwest.net), December 06, 2001.

I had to do this recently for some reason I can't remember, wasn't insuffient fixing though. Must have been junk on them. I reloaded the strips into my spiral (plastic) and rewashed, then encounted the 'how to hang to dry' dilema. Since I'd already taken them out of the spiral I ended up sitting them in a tray balanced on their side's (with a bit of an arc, they'd sit there) What did happen was that they fell over several times so if I have to do this again, I think I'd leave them in the spiral and let the resultant curl come out in the neg file. If you've got somewhere safe to hang them, you might be able to use clothes pegs.

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), December 06, 2001.

If the images are unsharp I would consider other possibilities first: You mention that you are using f stop 22-32. Due to difraction this will give you the lowest resolution of your lens and visibly lower "sharpness" than with higher f-stops. Most medium format lenses reach their peak resolution around f11 and drop drastically when stopped down further. You can easily try this yourself. You will be surprised about the difference that a higher f stop will make. Most medium format cameras additionally have a sharpness problem due to the (idiotic) construction of their backs. In cameras like Hasselblad but also Mamiya 645 the film is never really flat. This is very visible when shooting with aperture 2,8 or similar. It is advisable for maximum sharpness to wind the film only just before taking the image. This is also a recommendation by Zeiss. Zeiss also says that the highest resolution will only be achieved in the middle of the roll (no joke!). This alls speaks for cameras using a direct film path, like the Pentax 67 or the Rolleiflex. Another problem -- perhaps the most serious -- is TMAX 100. It has a very low acutance, probably the lowest I have come across in the many years I shot B&W. This film simply looks fuzzy, lets better say it is definitly fuzzy and not "sharp". (Additionally it has a very poor tonal rendition). For high acutance I can only suggest using different material, eg. Agfa APX 100 or other cubic crystal film, eg. Fomapan T200, Efke 25 or 50 etc. Medium format also calls for high acutance developers, such as Rodinal or better Calbe R09. Again you will be surprised about the difference this makes.

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 07, 2001.

Lol....my experience is the exact opposite of Volker, I shoot TMX and TMY exclusively and I have found it to be a wondeful film. I don't know why Volker has problems with accutance but my negatives have sharpness that people comment on. Also I routinely shoot f16 f22 with my hassy and I have never seen this diffraction problem, for me the f16 and f22 are the best openings, of course I do use a tripod. BTW I have a 50 an 80 and a 180, all of them show exceptional sharpness at this stops.

are the tubular films more difficult to use? sure, and therein may lie Volker's problem, but once you get the hang of it the T max films are wonderful.

as to refixing your cut negs, buy one of those paper separators at an office depot, fill a container that will cover this separator and put the strip in each slot....should be a piece of cake. Good luck!

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), December 07, 2001.

Jorge, these are comments I usually do not respond to, since it is absolutely 101 knowledge. Difraction is a physical phenomenon and everyone going through High School has learned about this. Believe me, your Hasselblad has it too, otherwise Zeiss would have to find a way to eliminate the laws of physics. There are sufficient comments about Hasselblad types of backs and the tension of the film. Check it. Zeiss published extensively on it, also many articles commented on this. In the past years Zeiss ran extensive tests on this. The lovely Zeiss lenses simply do not reach their optimum resolution due to this and Zeiss definitly sees a huge problem here. I do not need to repeat this. It all leads to the same conclusion: A camera with rollers changing the film path does have problems with sharpness. The TMax: I am really getting tired to comment on this. Again, the journals are full of comparisons. The grain of a TMAX is not very distinct, but fuzzy. You and I cannot change this observation. Simply check the following page http://hamburg.germany.com/laborparnter/html/colorfoto_11.htm It is a reprint of an article in Color Foto 5/2000. You can either optimize a film for fine grain or high acutance, or find a good balance for both. TMAX has fine grain, which is fuzzy. Also the resolution of TMAX is not teribly high, Color Foto measured around 110 lines at a contrast 1:1000, which means that in a standard contrast you would typically get 30-40 lines.

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 08, 2001.

Jorge, by the way, I do not have a problem :-)

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 08, 2001.

Volker, went to high school and college and an advanced degree, I know what difraction is, and why and when it occurs in lenses. The only observation I made was that I do not see all these problems on MY prints, for some reason you do, or are you just reading from a magazine?

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), December 08, 2001.

Dear Jorge, somehow I do not get the gist of your question. Do you want to know if I read journals or do you want to know if "I am reading from them"? In the first case yes, in the latter I must admit that "I am hardly reading from them". Let's leave the joking aside. Difraction is a very visible phenomenon. I must admit I have no problem seeing the effects on especially on my slides but also on prints taken with a "sharp" film (perhaps a doctor would have a cure for this). Any grain focuser will show you the difference in a more than obvious way. Take two images, one at f8-11, the other at f22-32. It is advisable to include an edge. Project the negs on the baseboard of your enlarger and focus on them with your grain focuser. The results are more than obvious, but you can see this yourself. The problem doing this test with a Hasselblad is that (also depending on the focal length of your lens) the more you open the iris, the more the flatness problem of the back will affect the result and thus will counteract the higher resolution the lens will provide with a larger f stop. This is especially visible with telephoto lenses. I used Hasselblad type backs for decades and I know what I am writing about. There is a "quick and dirty" test that does not necessitate a collimator (which shows the problem in all its severity): Take the back off and just pull the darkslide with a film loaded. You virtually see the film bulging outward. Some people might say that this minimal bulge would not be critical, BUT even minimal aberration from the focal point will have visible effects. Due to this I changed to a medium format camera and roll film insert for large format with a direct film path and again I must admit that I see the difference. BTW, congratulations on your advanced degree!

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 08, 2001.

Volker, this is the objection I have to all these tests and colimators etc. To me the end result is what matters, and MY prints have great sharpness and tonal range with T max and the hassy lenses at 16 or 22. Now have I noticed that the negatives are not as sharp as those of my LF....of course, BUT, and here is the big BUT...the results on the print are great. Whether this is "real" sharpness, or "apparent" sharpness, or "contrast" sharpness...I don't care. My answer to Josh was that "I" do not suffer from the objections you have in reference to both T max films and the hasselblad lenses...my prints printed at about 6x6 inches look great.....If this is not your experience, well I am sorry for you, I don't know what to tell you or why this is....I was telling Josh MY experience both with the film and camera and MY results. For some reason you have taken offense that I am happy with my results and that I disagree with you about the sharpness and tonal range of the film as well as the difraction problem with the lenses...look, relax....you see it, I don't...some say potato some say potaato...good luck to you.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), December 08, 2001.

I agree, it is Impossible to get sharp prints using TMax. John Sexton's images are all fuzzy as heck, aren't they?

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), December 08, 2001.

And John uses that less sharp (as reported by me) Polymax Fine Art too!

-- Sal Santamaura (santamaura@earthlink.net), December 08, 2001.

Jorge, excuse me, but that was not what you were doing. You wrote primnrily in answer to my email, didn't you. Perhaps you should reread your initial posting. Your last posting and your first definitly do not work together. Do use your collimator, its a fun instrument :-)

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), December 10, 2001.

If you get an out of focus band across prints from a roll film camera, film flatness is the prime suspect. The first poster in this thread reported something rather different to this.

For some excellent articles about diffraction and film flatness, go to the Zeiss site, >photography >articles on lenses >archives.

This might be a good shortcut if it comes out on one line:

http://www.zeiss.de/de/photo/home_e.nsf/Inhalt- FrameDHTML/4FDEACEDCB7D0AF541256A53003923AA

-- john stockdale (jjss@bigpond.net.au), December 15, 2001.

volker and jorge should be seperated. They don't seem to play well together. Hey Josh, your cameras pressure plate might need adjusting

-- mike hadley (mahadley@maine.rr.com), December 21, 2001.

I think volker and Jorge sould be seperated form this thread since Josh said he has a haze between frames. Film flatness has nothing to do with that.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@flash.net), December 24, 2001.

Volker, no excuse me! if you read carefully you will see I was commenting on your post and experiences, I could not care less what your problems are!

Tim if you read my initial response I suggested to Josh how to re fix his film, I never mentioned film flatness......so pay attention bud.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), December 24, 2001.