Topic: Fuji FP-100C negative recovery

[Poliweb]

Hi,

This is my first post on filmwasters. I used to waste a lot of 4x5 film many years ago. Then kids and digital came along and I started wasting pixels. In the last couple of years I have started wasting collodion (wet plate photography) and that has led me to instant photography. After all, tintypes were the Polaroid of the 19th century. As a result I have been playing around with a crown graphic and a polaroid 405 back and Fuji instant films. I am taking the camera on vacation with me to visit family in England and had hoped to be able to leave some of the positives with my family and take the negatives home for "reclamation". I noticed that there had been quite a bit of activity here on the subject a few years back and hoped that experts might still be lurking.

So here's my question: I have been using FP-100C and stripping the back with bleach. From what I have read around the internet people say that a good positive makes a good negative. However, I have found so far that a properly exposed positive leaves a rather dense negative that can give an image when scanned - but it's very weak as a result. However, I had some underexposed (maybe 2 stops) prints that yielded much better negatives with a much larger dynamic range. These produced great scans, but not good prints.

Based on what I have read, I had been hoping to be able to produce good positives and negatives in a single exposure. I have used Polaroid Type 55 and remember that it required different exposures for the positive and negative.

What are people's experiences here? Have you managed to get a good pos/neg combination?

Thanks

Richard

[Francois]

Welcome Richard!

From my very limited experience reclaiming negs (from the FP100B), the problem with the reclaimed stuff is that densities are always "off the wall". I tried printing some in the darkroom and it's a definite no go. As for scanning, it's a bit the same thing but at least I can calibrate the exposure more precisely.

If you expect to get the same quality as with the type 55, you're bound for a disappointing run. The FP100 films were not designed to give negatives. It's more of a hack job than anything. It works, but it's just not the same.

[Poliweb]

Thank you Francois (that's my father-in-law's name!)

I understand that this process is not considered reliable. I have seen some good results however - and had some myself. The first shot is a reclaimed negative from a normally exposed FP-100C print and the second is from a print that was underexposed by about 2 stops or so. I am quite happy with the scan of the second negative. As you can see the first scan is suffering a bit from being overprocessed to extract what I could from the dense negative. I was curious if others had the same experience - that an underexposed print makes a better negative.

I have read that the FP-100B (RIP) negative was brutally hard to reclaim.

[Francois]

Somehow, when you think of it, there could be a logic to the madness...
Now, that's just going to be goobely goop, but it makes sense in my head.
Instant prints work through pigment migration. So, the less exposure the image gets, the more pigments move from the negative to the positive. This should make a thinner negative which might be easier to scan...

Does that make any sense?

[Alan]

welcome to the forum.

i shoot fp100 mainly to recover the neg and I have found that its difficult to get a good neg and print.
I generally go with an under exposure on the print to get a decent neg.

I am quite like the unpredictable aspect to the process.

[calbisu]

There are two good entries here in FWs about bleaching negatives,

 http://www.filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=3278.msg43229#msg43229

http://www.filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=2850.msg27107#msg27107

I found that if you want nice and rich fp100c shots you better underexpose 1 or 2 steps


POlaroid 195 FUJI FP100C bleach by calbisu, on Flickr


the bleach project by calbisu, on Flickr


Polaroid 195 Fuji FP100b bleach by calbisu, on Flickr

[Poliweb]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Francois - yes - there's logic there - as exposure increases more dye is left in the negative and less is transferred to the positive. It's interesting to note that the old Polaroid type 55 required about a 1 stop overexposure of the positive to produce a good negative...

Alan - thanks, it sounds like you also find underexposure produces a better negative. Nice results!

calbisu - You mention that FP-100B requires 1-2 stops underexposure for a good negative - do you have the same experience with FP-100C? Nice pics too!

I guess that if I'm in doubt I should try the shorter exposure first - so at least the shot may be good for the negative if the positive isn't useful.

Richard

[calbisu]

Hi Richard,

I meant to 100c, just edited. But yes in my experience the underexposure applies to both to 100b and 100c

Then you can use both 100c and 100b as moderate fast films, bearing in mind to keep the negatives.

Carlos.

[Scott McClarin]

This is a Facebook dumbed down resolution version of an Album Cover I did For Will Samson two months ago.
Image was captured at the Coyote Buttes area at the Wave Formation it was perhaps a bit overexposed which was a good thing for the Instant Neg as you guys mentioned.

The Image used for the LP was a High Res Scanned Tif Image 120MB in size for a 12"x12" LP sized image of a Reclaimed Fuji FP100C Negative that was bleached clean and allowed to dry face up in a side room. One of the tricks to bleaching is letting the neg portion dry in a dust free environment after you take the image out of light. I built a special box to save my Instant negatives.
I used the Adobe CS5's clone stamp tool to clean up the image after mild sharpening and subtle hue adjustment to match what My eye remembers but it came out surprisingly sharp despite what the original flatbed scan revealed, i think Replicolor cleaned the neg before scanning it.

It was scanned by Replicolor in Salt Lake City Utah though I may look to get a better scan elsewhere to make a poster sized print from the same neg, I may try that in a month or two just to see if it is possible, as it may be reason enough to save all of my Instant negs!!! FP-100B also Scans Nicely if you underexpose  (opposite of the Color method)the shadow detail is impressive in the bleached negs!

Sorry for the large size of the image.

The neg sat for easily 3 months before I bleached it and did something with it BTW...

I imaging Wet Contact Scanning may make these Images Shine when the pattern of the dried emulsion is taken out of the equastion...

[Ezzie]

I must admit I have tried this a few times and never really got a proper result. The colour cast has been awful, or the emulsion is too far gone. But this time I seem to have got it more or less right. No corrections whatsoever after scanning. There is more information in the negative than the print that´s for sure. I see now that what I thought was a retired old fishing boat is an old pilot's boat. (LOS on the bow, Los = Pilot)

[limr]

I've had the same experiences  - underexposed positive yields a more workable negative. The colors do change, too. I've attached some examples. For the wheelbarrow, I was trying to figure out why I didn't have an example of the positive scanned in and then I remembered I'd done an emulsion lift on it. It's a good example, though, of the differences in exposure and color between positive and negative. (Edited to finish the sentence that I had mistakenly left hanging!)

Is there a 100B? I only thought there was a 3000B? Those negatives are a whole different story. White backing. The only way I know of to recover them is to scan them in as a positive image and then convert them to negative. They come out completely differently, however. (And you can also see the start of the hole in the bellows  )

(The b&w images, btw, were some of the runners-up for my submission in the TV show collaboration!)

[Ezzie]

There was an FP100B, it has been discontinued. Same type of "real" film negative as FP100C and former Polaroid films. FP3000B is as you say another kettle of fish. Scannable from the outset, but best kept away from daylight when drying, or will deteriorate drastically.

[Francois]

I still have a couple of packs of 100B that I keep for special occasions. You could bleach it like the color stuff but the tones come out strange. A bit like a partial solarization with odd color tones.

[Ezzie]

FPP were out of old FP100B stock, and I got some Polaroid 664 instead. Even better then FP100B. A litlle less contrasty. Lovely midtones.

[calbisu]

I still have a couple of packs of 100B that I keep for special occasions. You could bleach it like the color stuff but the tones come out strange. A bit like a partial solarization with odd color tones.

Francois, just the same here, my last attempts were total failures, and I have no idea why... next time I will bleach the back of the negative but I will not remove the goop, will see what happens...

[Francois]

For the few tries I made, I used a melamine sponge (magic eraser) to scrub the film. It's hard work though.

[moominsean]

I have a youtube video about bleaching fp100b...

Bleaching Fuji FP-100B negative

Basically you want to make a seal with water to keep the bleach off the goop side, and then rinse very gently, just kind of smoothing out the goop a little bit so it is even.

[Adam Doe]

I can recommend Sean's video. I now use his method after trying and not liking the tape and gel bleach method. Quick, simple and effective.