Technically Color Film
So I finally got off my butt and decided to develop color film. The last time I did it, it half worked okay, and was half a disaster. This time... it was half okay and half a disaster. I don't know if I'll ever develop color at home again. I just kinda really hate it.
But I had an odd number of 135 rolls, and since my tank takes 2 rolls of 135 at once, I figured might as well thaw something to shoot.
What is this? This is Kodak Vision3 2383. I can't find a lot of info on it, but apparently it was a duplicating film, and as a consequence of that, it is
- super blue, (of course it's yellow, but converted, that's blue)
- slow as a sloth on a holiday
Is it a color film? Looking at the pictures, I'd be tempted to say that it's not. Slam that saturation down, go with black and white. But wait... those tail lights.
Hmmm. A little better, but still not convincingly color.
Meh, probably as "color" as it gets.
Yeah, this film is WEIRD. I think since this was a duplicating film designed to counteract orange film bases, it makes sense that things are tinted super blue.
I think there's a cinema film that's also labeled Kodak 2383 that's like a fully chromatic cinema film, and then there's the duplicating stuff. But again, very little documentation on either.
Oh look a bit of "green"(?) in the tree. I also struggled a lot to color balance the shots since there's no way to index it on what the scene is... supposed... to look like, and the film base washed out clear, so I couldn't even use that as a white point.
But what about the other thing I mentioned? Its slowness? Is it iso 100? iso 50? iso 12?
Try 3. Yup. iso 3.
Since my only 35mm camera on hand was the Mercury II (half-frame by Univex), I shot wide open at f/2.7 all the time, and adjusted my shutter speed between 1/30th to 1/60th, most of the time staying at 1/40. Just barely hand-holdable.
Look at these shots though! There's still so little grain for being half-frame shots.
Anyway, those are all my shots. Would I shoot this again? Ehhhhhh no. The results are too experimental for me, and honestly, I don't mind some film grain all that much. I'm glad I had this experience though. Super weird film.
You're a brave man! If you're iffy about developing color, maybe do a more normal film instead 😅
The results really are interesting. And it's interesting each image has different color casts - I wonder if that's just from how it was white balanced in scanning/editing? Or is it based on the lighting at the time and exposure times? Anyway, produced a nice collection of shots there. Always fun to experiment 🙂
Quote from James Warner on December 7, 2022, 12:38 pmYou're a brave man! If you're iffy about developing color, maybe do a more normal film instead
The results really are interesting. And it's interesting each image has different color casts - I wonder if that's just from how it was white balanced in scanning/editing? Or is it based on the lighting at the time and exposure times? Anyway, produced a nice collection of shots there. Always fun to experiment
Yeah, I could try to make them all the same exact, but I honestly wasn't too bothered by it. There just isn't a good way of converting these negatives, so I didn't bother trying to make things the same exact color cast.
Don't worry, I did plenty of regular film too haha. Just thought it'd be interesting to share this weird film!
vision3 is ecn2 not c41 film. if you want to try color film and home dev, from what ive heard, the cinestill kit and some kodak gold or any other normal color film would be a good idea.
your results look a lot like cross processed slide film or ra4 photo paper without color correction filters.
Quote from Estelon_Agarwaen on December 8, 2022, 7:57 pmvision3 is ecn2 not c41 film. if you want to try color film and home dev, from what ive heard, the cinestill kit and some kodak gold or any other normal color film would be a good idea.
your results look a lot like cross processed slide film or ra4 photo paper without color correction filters.
Hey thanks for the input!
So this isn't me trying out developing color at home. I've done over 20 rolls at this point. (Enough to invest in a sous vide haha.) You can see some normal color film in the December thread if you're interested. That roll and this one were actually developed at the same time. I've shot and home dev'd a number of ECN-2 films (both Fuji and Kodak) in C-41 as well, including doing all the remjet removal. They all turned out fine. There is definitely a difference between results from ECN-2 and results from C-41, but it seems like the consensus is that C-41 results are definitely still usable? Might also be worth it to mention that according to the official Kodak literature, which I finally found, this isn't 2383 isn't even ECN-2, but is ECP-2E. No clue what the difference is, besides that this didn't have remjet!
Personally, I think the reason the film came out weird is that the curves are completely different. Here's Kodak Gold 200:
And here is 2383:
I couldn't really tell you what that means, but especially on the spectral sensitivity chart, it seems like for Gold the color layers are all the same height, whereas for 2383 the yellow is significantly higher and the cyan is significantly lower than the others. Makes sense to me, since the exposed portion of the frames are super yellow even though the film base is clear.
That's an interesting note about it looking like cross-processed slide film or photo paper! I haven't ever tried those. It is recommended to shoot 2383 with a correcting filter, but I didn't have any.
Quote from Justin Tung on December 10, 2022, 3:18 amThat's an interesting note about it looking like cross-processed slide film or photo paper! I haven't ever tried those. It is recommended to shoot 2383 with a correcting filter, but I didn't have any.
You can check out matt marrash for the photo paper and correction filters. Have fun shooting, and never forget that fuckery is a fine way of photography. Loot at attic darkroom for reference.
Quote from Estelon_Agarwaen on December 12, 2022, 7:18 pmQuote from Justin Tung on December 10, 2022, 3:18 amThat's an interesting note about it looking like cross-processed slide film or photo paper! I haven't ever tried those. It is recommended to shoot 2383 with a correcting filter, but I didn't have any.
You can check out matt marrash for the photo paper and correction filters. Have fun shooting, and never forget that fuckery is a fine way of photography. Loot at attic darkroom for reference.
That attic darkroom channel is funny. That was where I first learned about getting color images from stacking black and white images with filters on. I love that they take the time and money to do things that are kinda pointless, but interesting haha.
And Justin that is super interesting! Way deeper than I've gone into studying film. I had no idea details about the films themselves were out there that were that specific.
What do you do with the chemicals, especially the fix once you are done?
I like the pictures, they are really interesting, each one has its own story, and that's what makes them unique.
