New photos on Flickr...

I realize I may be writing to a lot of laymen in photographic terms, so I'll quickly try to summarize what I've done.

From a bunch of past filmmaking gigs, I've hoarded some leftover and unexposed film that the productions otherwise would have discarded as waste and thrown away. So, instead of just tossing the film in the trash, I decided to take these 100' strips of unexposed film and load them into individual cartridges for taking still photographs.

The film stock I shot on is called Kodak Vision 5279. It has an ISO of 500 (very sensitive to light), and is balanced for tungsten (incandescent studio) lights.

A lot of it was taken during the holiday season in 2008, and some of the more experimental stuff I just snapped off over the past few months for fun.

Now, this type of film you can't just take to your local Walgreen's and have them develop it for you.

First of all, it requires a different set of chemicals called ECN-2 processing.

Second, it has a special black coating on the back of the film to prevent light from passing through the film and bouncing back through. If it didn't have this coating, most films would have a strange halo effect in highlighted points of the frame. Also, this black coating would RUIN the machines at your local Walgreens, and ruin the photos taken by other customers as well.

I tried asking some of the labs that process motion picture film, but they simply won't process rolls as short as 36 frames. So I decided to process the film myself at home.

Now, it's EXTREMELY difficult to get ECN-2 (the required chemicals for this type of film) in small quantities for processing at home. So I decided to experiment even more and just go ahead and do the C-41 process (which is the process used for most consumer brand still photo film).

I bought a small cylindrical tank, got a small $18 C-41 kit from B&H photo, and off I went.

Here are the results: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanbowerbank/sets/72157614573399785/

Let me know what you think!

by Jon