Kodak Vision 3 250D -- in Monochrome!

I picked up a 200-foot spool of Kodak Vision 250D a while back with the intent of developing it as black and white film. A friend on a photo forum I frequent uses this and loves it (and his photos are fabulous, by the way.) He also uses other Vision films, and all have great tonal range.

Anyway, some of the images here aren't perfect as I didn't get the remjet backing off perfectly, but you'll see that this film has a decent tonal range, especially considering that the camera I used was one I pieced together from multiple broken cameras (so it may not be perfect.)

Developing 250D is similar to nut not exactly like developing standard monochrome film. Firstly, there's a carbon black backing which will partially come off in the developer. So you may not want to reuse developer after running this stuff through it. I re-use the developer, though, and it's fine. The remjet settles out at the bottom of the bottle after a few days and as long as I don't use the dregs or agitate the fluid, the developer remains fairly clear.

The only hitch for me is temperature control. Color film needs higher temperatures than monochrome, so when I develop this, after the first full-minute of agitation, I keep it under a light hot water stream during the following three minutes. This works best with a metal film tank. The developer remains warm for the rest of the 10-11 minutes this film needs to develop.

That's my recipe, but you should practice variations. Also, leave a comment if you've home developed this before and have any suggestions.

During the rinse, I rinse the film once and the water comes out grayish. That's the remjet again. Then I fill it about half way and violently shake the film tank. The water comes out nearly black. A second time and the water is mostly clear, indicating that as much remjet as can be removed by water alone has been removed.

A standard fix of 10 minutes and the film is ready to wash. At the end of the wash, I run the film under a water stream and use my fingers to squeegee away the remaining remjet. This works well and if you do it correctly won't leave scratches on the emulsion. Here are some (sub-par) results.

Muting Contrast and a Stolen Shot

For fun, I wanted to test my theory that the tobacco mutes contrast. Inford PANF 50 ISO is a highly contrasty film, so it's a great test for muting contrast. The first shots are the clearest example of how the filter works.

1/60th, f3.5, tobacco filter


1/60th, f8, no filter
Notice, also, that the first image has a darker sky. The tobacco filter is basically green and red. The red aspect results in the sky darkening. The green aspect means that green hues are lighter. This means that blues and some yellows will be darker. The net result is flatness. Look at the shadows on the statue's cap brim. Also the buttons of the shirt and the folds. The non-filtered image presents substantially more contrast with deeper shadows and more depth.


1/160th, f3.5
Money may not grow on trees, but cans do. And at about a nickel a pop for the CRV, that's some money.


And let's end here today. I snagged this shot while some pros were flipping through their camera's digital images and their model took a moment's pause. Not all digital advances are for the best. None of them managed to get this shot.

Super Saturday Special -- Four of Four

This is our last Super Saturday Special from the film I shot on March 31st. So, hopefully, this will be the best. No promises, though. This roll was a 36-count roll of Fuji Velvia 50 ISO slide film. Most of the shots were of the Walnut Creek Library. What a great building. It looks as though it was designed to be photographed. I also grabbed a few shots of the new Neiman Marcus (or Needless Markup as I call it.) The building is very retro looking with muted-green glass in various patterns. One may find themselves asking if they designed it to look retro so it would seem as though they've been here a long time or because they liked the look. There was some manner of fuss over NM's entry into Walnut Creek with a number of people fighting it. Not something I'm too concerned about not being NM's target demographic, but I do like the building a lot.




They say Fuji is known for their greens. I happen to like their reds and blues, too.

Super Saturday Special -- Three of Four

Nikon F3, Kodak 125 ISO Plus-X, 24-120mm zoom.

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Capital Building and Statues

I feel like I'm gypping you not breaking this into three posts. After work on Tuesday I sent to the Civic Center neighborhood. Why? To see how long I could be there without being stabbed. Answer: Six minutes. While there, I decided to grab some photos and, conveniently, the newest soon-to-be LEED Platinum building in San Francisco, the Public Utilities Commission building, was there to be photographed. It finished construction recently or is about to finish, so I decided to grab some shots of this pretty nifty building.


1/80, f8. Here you can see this building's most prominent feature -- the side-mounted windmills. The building's shape directs wind into the turbines, amplifying the natural air movement's effect. Pretty nifty, but I imagine those must make the view out of those windows somewhat limiting.


1/50th, f8. The windmills close-up.


1/125th, f5.6. An artsy-type shot from down below.

In addition to the new SFPUC building, I decided to grab some shots of the city hall and a couple nearby statues.


1/100th, f22. San Francisco's City Hall. Sunset. Lovely building.


1/125th, f16. Some city building. I saw the name of it and decided to remember it instead of writing it down. Then I forgot the name of it.


1/160th, f4.5. As you've probably guessed, I love photographing buildings. And the SF Public Library at Civic Center is a great building. This was shot almost wide-open (at 120mm, wide-open is f4.6). And on 400 ISO film. Nikon makes great gear. The N70 matches the 24-120 very well. This is helped by the fact that this is a fantastic lens. Of my Nikon lenses, it's probably the best.

We'll wrap up today with some shots of the statues around City Hall.


1/80, f11.


1/100th, f4.5


1/125th, f5.6


1/125th, f5. Ashurbanipal upskirt. Actually, this is a well thought and place statue.
Here, Ashurbanipal faces the library (he founded one, but not the San Francisco library, obviously) and stands out front of the Asian Art Museum.

Super Saturday Special -- Two of Four

Nikon F3, 24-120mm zoom, Adox CHM ART 100 ISO.
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Super Saturday Special -- One of Four

Yesterday I said I would have enough photos to give you rare Saturday posts until May. I wasn't kidding. My girlfriend and I walked around Walnut Creek, California, for about four hours this past week. In that time I shot one roll each of Ilford PANF 50 ISO, Adox CHM ART 100 ISO, Kodak Plus-X 125 ISO, and Fuji Velvia 50 ISO. Each Saturday for the coming weeks, I'll post the results from one of those films. This week, Ilford PANF 50 ISO. The camera: Nikon F3. The lens: Nikon 24-120mm.

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Bad Weather, Bad Waves, Great Splashes

Last Tuesday saw some rain and a good deal of wave energy within the bay. As I walked up the Embarcadero, the waves on the rocks and along the piers broke upward with










A sea lion statue by AT&T Park.


A reflection of the Ferry Building. I'd hoped it to be a clean reflection with a couple ripples. It didn't turn out that way.


1/8th exposure, luckily timed so that the trolley began moving late in the exposure, making only part of it blurry.