I wanted to scan a few 8x10 negatives that I took yesterday of my trip through Riverside. It was a quick trip, it was somewhat cold yesterday, in the low 60s (but it felt like the 50s in terms of degrees Fahrenheit). I needed to get out to do something, I was feeling very sick (mentally) of being inside the house. It was windy so it wasn't the best day to go out, but it was sunny, better than the Monday with rainy weather (which we need, by the way). So I went out.
Driving along the 91 freeway, it seems as if there is as much traffic as ever. It is not the way it was in the March and April, when people were obeying the stay-at-home orders. Back then, there was much, much less traffic. Now, people are tired, and they want to go places, and yes, there is business to conduct, even as we confront these appalling daily death tolls.
I got off and went to my first destination, to the Riverside Parkway to photograph the stream. I had to turn around and leave, however, because I saw that there were landscaping workers picking up trash and attending to the plants. I know that those workers rarely wear face masks, and I didn't want them to appear in my photos, so I drove along Pierce street, heading north, trying to find a place from a high vantage point where I could photograph the San Gabriel Mountains that have a cap of snow (because of Monday's rain).
Driving along La Sierra Avenue, I finally reached a park that I had never visited before, and got out the camera. It is called Hidden Valley Wildlife Area, and it is close to Crestlawn Cemetery. It reminds me of the television series Bonanza, except that, in the distance, urban sprawl is visible.
Of course, there were a few cars there, and none of the people had face masks. It is a wide open park, but they don't believe in masks, they are all working class Latinos and Anglos, and they simply have decided they are tired and they aren't scared enough. I would have left but there were not that many of them, so I decided to go ahead and give them ample distance and try to walk on the field and get my shots.
It was windy. I feel I should mention that. Also, I am using an orange filter, and figured, that would be three stops of additional exposure. And, of course, I need to use an aperture of f22. So, there I go, with my Willtravel, two film holders and my tripod.
Exposure was calculated as follows, using Arista 200 film. If I use sunny sixteen, then the shutter speed should have been about 1/200. However, it was getting late in the afternoon, so we did not have furnace-like blazing light, so I figured, 1/100. Then, add the factor for f22 and not f16, so that brings me to 1/50. Plus, another three stops for the orange filter, 1/30 --> 1/15 --> 1/8. I set a shutter speed of 1/4 and my negatives were massively, massively overexposed. It was almost a total failure, I got such dense negatives. I think I should have used a shutter speed of about 1/15. Now I know.
Here are scans of the negative and my manipulated and inverted image.
I am having a problem still with the line that runs down the long edge of the negative, which is where the negative is held in place in the film reel. I am using the 20th Century Camera reels, and the anti-halation layer of the film does not wash off that line because, of course, it is held up against that reel and water doesn't get in to wash it off. It is extremely annoying. I am having to wash each negative individually, and I will be ordering nitrile gloves in order to try to rub off that line of resistant anti-halation covering to the back of the negative. This is a recurring problem with my negatives, especially when I was developing 4x5 negatives with my B's reel. It ruined quite a few of those negatives too.
At some poing, I will have to dark-proof my bathroom and just develop in trays. That will hopefully solve two problems: the band of anti-halation on the long edge of the negative, as well as the fact that, hopefully, I can set up a quicker production line when I have many negatives to process. It took me a whole week to develop the 8 negatives I took from Alta Vista last week.
Also, I confirm once again the vignetting with my lens using the 8x10 Willtravel camera.
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