Topic: This must be possible, or maybe im just thick....

[Thom Stone]

having recently been playing with pulling and pushing film and developing at different stops with a mind of find a good combo for gig photography. I recently under exposed and slightly underdeveloped a roll of HP5. Shot it at 3200 and dev'd it at 1600.

On scanning I noticed on some of the very under exposed frames, when the light hit them in a certain way you could see a seemingly well exposed positive?! this jogged my memory on something i had read on the net a while back about ambrotypes which lead me to amphitypes.

http://en.mimi.hu/photography/amphitype.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrotype

My question film wasters, can any of you bright young minds think of a way to harness this positive by either scanning or printing it? perhaps with a series of mirrors :-P


_MG_7789 by Thomo_Lomo, on Flickr

[LT]

I dont know about capturing it, but it's quite a common phenomenon with underexposed and thin negs. If I get them, I stare at them for hours, but only from the side of course

COuld be worth trying to do it purposely with some 5x4 sheets and see how far you could push the angle of view to get a digisnap of it? might make for an interesting effect.

[moominsean]

for shame, leon, espousing the use of digital photography!

[LT]

to get a digisnap of it?

sh@t - did I just say that out loud?

[Thom Stone]

haha, whoops leon, i didnt notice til sean pointed it out. :-P

surely its no different from using a scanner though?!

[Nigel]

It is an interesting effect, I've experienced it as well, but I didn't realise it's more noticeable on underexposed negs. It would be fun trying to capture it somehow.

[Mojave]

I saw this too on some scala I developed as regular negs and thought it was the scala doing it. This is awesome! They all look like positives.

[Francois]

In the old days, they used to present those pictures in a small jewel case. The high end models had black velvet on the back to help make the image. The cheaper ones had black varnish applied to the plates.

[calbisu]

My question film wasters, can any of you bright young minds think of a way to harness this positive by either scanning or printing it? perhaps with a series of mirrors :-P

I had the same ¨problem¨ and what I did was pretty simple, I scanned the positivized-negatives as a document and results were not so bad. Two examples, the first one is scanned as a negative and the second one is scanned as a document.

[Skorj]

Yup! Scan in reflective, not transparent mode... Skj.

[sethasaurus]

You've got what they used to make as ambrotypes and tintypes - an underexposed negative on a black background.

[Thom Stone]

hmm a direct scan in reflective mode is not doing it, just getting a negative, tried it with and without backlight (altho obviously that wouldnt work) tried it with a black background behind it (in this case a dry goop side of a peel apart i found lying around) and have also tried a simple quick scan (like you would a page of a text book or whatnot)

I think the problem I'm having is the angle of the light i need to get a positive, as you may notice from the digital shot in the first post of the thread im having to tilt it towards the light in a certain way to get the image. therefore the direct light of the scanner is not working.

These images arent so important that I must find a way to get this to work but If i could find an effective way it would just mean that I would be able to go into a gig situation with a film camera, horrendously underexpose the film and still get a shot.

cheers so much for all the responses tho guys, love it her on the FW forum your all so nice and ready to humour me

[Thom Stone]

I had the same ¨problem¨ and what I did was pretty simple, I scanned the positivized-negatives as a document and results were not so bad. Two examples, the first one is scanned as a negative and the second one is scanned as a document.

I don't know what you did different but this seemed to work brilliantly! however the direct negative scan from your shot is well exposed and acceptable. mine are sillllllly underexposed.

[calbisu]

I had the same ¨problem¨ and what I did was pretty simple, I scanned the positivized-negatives as a document and results were not so bad. Two examples, the first one is scanned as a negative and the second one is scanned as a document.

I don't know what you did different but this seemed to work brilliantly! however the direct negative scan from your shot is well exposed and acceptable. mine are sillllllly underexposed.

May be it's because I was scanning 6x7 negatives, out of that I do not know why the reflective scanning is not working on yours.. It's a pity I do not have the negatives with me but I kind of remember that I also had to look at them in an oblique way.

[Thom Stone]

hmm odd, what scanner do you have? mines and epson perfection 3490 photo flatbed