Silberra Ultima 160 Film

Silberra Ultima 160

Camera – Olympus OM20

Manual Mode Sekonic Metering

XTOL Replenished Developer

Bright Sunny Day/Hot

Kenro Scanner

I shot this film on a bright sunny hot day in June 2020 using the Olympus OM20 and metered all images at 160 with a Sekonic Meter. I developed the negatives in my replenished XTOL soup for 6.5 Minutes with 5 inversions every minute at 20°.

The negative material is very thin but easily manageable. I had no problem loading the film onto my Patterson reel. The film base was very clear, although I did prewash the anti hilation dye from the film before I developed. Didn’t want that getting in my XTOL.

The negatives came out looking good. To be honest I think I could have left them for another minute in the developer just to build a bit more in the highlights but overall I was impressed with the sharpness, tonal range and detail. I have yet to make prints, however, looking at the scans and especially the negatives they are going to print well with hardly any noticeable grain.

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Pinhole Photography Exposure

Pinhole Photography Exposures and Reciprocity Failure


When I first got my pinhole camera calculating the long exposures confused the hell out of me.

I Purchased a Lerouge 66 Pinhole camera from Greenwich Cameras in London.

I remember asking the guy on the stall about exposure times and he gave me a handy little leaflet which was a rough “Guesstimate” of how to expose a 100 speed film. Here is what the guide said. 

For 100 Speed Film

  • Bright Sunshine – 2s
  • Hazy Sunshine – 4s
  • Cloudy Bright – 8s
  • Cloudy – 15s

And thats it.

These exposures depend on the camera you are using and in particular it’s pinhole size. My Lerouge 66 has a pinhole size of 0.2mm, and Aperture of f.150 and a focul length of 30mm. 
I wanted to know more and in particular various film speed calculations and of course, reciprocity failure times. 
I downloaded an app for my android phone called… wait for it… Pinhole!

It’s a relatively easy app to use and by far the only one I really understood. All you need to know is your camera’s set up. 
So within the app you input your Focul Length (30mm). Pinhole Diameter (0.2mm) F Stop (f.150) Film size (120) and the speed film. The app will then give you a range of shutter speeds and corrisponding f number. 
You can also save these settings. 
So for example. Here is my set up within the app for FP4. 

You can save this information and name it for easy access another time. 
Swipe left and you will be greeted with the exposure scale. 

If you press the F Stop button (top left) it will increase to the next stop. But I always leave it on f.5.6 and I meter for f.5.6. and whatever speed my light meter suggests at f.5.6 then I convert it to the pinhole speed on the right. It’s quite simple. 
Then on top of that speed you need to allow for any reciprocity failure. 
I have made myself a cheat sheet for my reciprocity failures on various films for this camera. You can usually find a films reciprocity failure compensation on the films data sheet online. Ilford have quite an easy chart for reciprocity failure. 

So on the chart above you need to work out ’to the power of’ on a scientific calculator. So for example if we look at FP4 we can see it says 1.26
All you need to do is use this simple calculation. 
If my metered exposure for FP4 at EI 125 and at f5.6 is 1/60th I look at the Pinhole Chart and it says convert to 11 Seconds. I now need to work out the Reciprocity failure. 
On a Scientific Calculator (I use an App) I input 11 (xy) 1.26 and it returns 20.518 933 468 365 3. In short 20.5 Seconds. And that would be my correct exposure for my scene. 

I have used this system for all of my pinhole photography and so far have had good results. I am not sure how accurate the app is but it seems to work quite well. 

Photography Competition

books

Lockdown Compotition.


Let’s have some fun with our Photography!
As probably most of us are in Isolation at the moment and our Photography is either on hold or being challenged Ithought it would be great to get our creative minds ticking with a Lockdown Photography Compotition. Simple really. You send your ONE best lockdown Photograph into us here at SFLaB and we will get two other inspirational YouTubers
to help find the best FIVE photographs and a Winner. Winners will be announced in May on the SFLaB Channel. 


Subject

The subject matter must be taken within or from your own home boundaries.Either indoors, your front or back yard or views taken from your front/back yard. 


Medium

It’s up to you what you shoot it on. Film, Digital, Polaroid, Smartphone. Colour or Black and White. All we ask is you re size your image to 1200px long edge and at least 240DPI. 


Closing Date

Entries to be in by 31st April 2020
So get thinking and shooting and email your Photographs to roglowe147@gmail.com along with the date and location of the photograph. 
Photographs should be resized to 1200px and be at least 240DPI. Entries must be in by 31st May 2020 and the Winners will be anounced on the SFLaB Channel in May. 

Ideas

  • Look for interesting compositions, low down, high up
  • Stare around you for a while and look at objects that you’d never think would look interesting as a Photograph. They probably would.
  • Think about lighting. If you don’t have all the latest gear try using natural daylight coming in from a window or using a lamp or a flash light. You can always diffuse using a piece of white paper.
  • Try making your own interesting backgrounds for an object.

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