Stikkord: infrared

My first encounter with Ilford SFX200

I have tried many different films through my time of experimenting with analog photography, but there is one film that I have looked at at the back of my fridge for quite some years. That film is the two rolls of SFX200, a black and white film with an extended sensitivity to reds. A so-called near infrared film. Now, I do like the look of near-infrared photography, and how it has the potential to lift a sunny day into something more abstract and effect full. In my previous dabbling with this type of photography, I have always defaulted to Rollei IR, but I have had some unfortunate situations with that film having mottling and other imperfections that have sadly ruined quite a few shoots for me. Maybe SFX200 is better?

Löfberg factory in Karlstad Sweden – Olympus OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko f1.8. Ilford SFX200 Ordinal 1+25

I have read a bit about this film and I have understood that it is considered a rather grainy film. I do agree with this assessment, however, I see a vast difference in the graininess of this film between it being correctly exposed or not. A correctly exposed frame has a far more delicate and less clumpy grain feeling than a poorly exposed one. To embrace the grain a bit, I chose to develop these two films using Rodinal 1+25. My development was 5 minutes continuous agitation with the AGO-processor. The films came out perfectly developed and it really highlights how different this film feels at different levels of exposure.

The first of these two rolls were shot last summer in Karlstad. This film was mainly shot at its IR-capacity with a 720-filter. The film was shot with an Olympus OM-1 with a standard 50mm Zuiko lens. I shot different locations, and I did some bracketing to make sure I had a decent exposure. I’ll add one shot here of some metal parts at a water lock in Karlstad. I just love how metal looks on black and white film developed in Rodinal.

Water Lock in Karlstad Sweden – Olympus OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko f1.8. Ilford SFX200 Ordinal 1+25

Here are some other shots from the first roll shot in the Olympus

For the second roll, I decided to try using it more or less as a normal black and white film. I chose to use my Nikon F80 camera with a Tamron zoom lens 70-300mm. This being a lot more modern set-up with a relatively modern lens, I chose to go for photographing birds by the lake Mjøsa. I know a place where there are a lot of seagulls sitting on light posts and guarding their territories. I chose this as my location to test out the second roll as a normal black and white film.

Seagulls by Mjøsa – Nikon F80 with Tamron 70-300 f4 – f5.6 – Ilford SFX200 Rodinal 1+25

To be honest, I don’t really see any difference in these images as to why I would shoot SFX200 as a normal black and white film. I would get the same results with HP5. That said, I do like how it looks and how the image above turned out. The flying seagull makes it work for me.

As a conclusion I can say that I absolutely love this film as a near-infrared film. I think it seems to be a more reliable emulsion than the Rollei films and I don’t see any major imperfections in it. Yes, it is grainy, but I like the way that grain looks and I even like it in Rodinal. As a normal black and white film however, I would rather shoot HP5, which both has a higher speed and is a tad less grainy.

Thank you for reading.

Trying Infrared

A while back, I bought a few rolls of Ilford SFX 200 and shot it with a red filter. A normal red filter, as you would use for normal films. I likes the results and I decided that I wanted to take it one step further and try out the invisible spectrum. I bought a few rolls of Rollei INFRARED 400 and began looking into tips and ideas for dealing with infrared photography. I soon learned that what I thought to be infrared films were actually just normal films with an extended red-sensitivity and that it didn’t really go into the proper Infrared spectrum.

My first decision was that I wanted to try this out with my best equipment. I opted for my medium format cameras, the Bronica ETR and the Hasselblad 500c and bought a filter that would fit both of them. A relatively simple an straight forward 720nm filter off eBay, the brand is Greene or something along those lines and it seems to work very well. Although, no filter factor was provided, so for this round I only did two compositions and bracketed a lot to get to know the filter somewhat. From my experimenting, I found that the correct compensation for this filter is about six stops.

A little forest scene – Hasselblad 500c w 80mm Planar f2,8 – Rollei Infrared 400 Ilford ID-11 – f11 4 seconds

My first idea for this tryout was heading towards a little river passing not far from where I live. The area around the river was too overgrown for me to get any shots of at this point, so I decided to go for a forest scene for my first composition. The exposure time got into the multiple seconds, and the one I was most pleased with was the one at 4 seconds. It gave me the infrared effect that I was looking for.

I then moved on to look at the view over Gåstjernet, a little pond in the same area, and I noticed how nicely the clouds reflected in the water, framing the landscape very nicely within the 6×6 format. I think this became the stronger of the two compositions and I also did the same amount of bracketing on this.

Gåstjernet – Hasselblad 500c w 80mm Planar f2,8 – Rollei Infrared 400 Ilford ID-11 – f16 1 second

My next problem was development. I wanted to use a relatively fine grain developer to get the most out of the effect, and the only one I had mixed was Ilford ID-11. However, there were no instructions on how to use this developer for this particular film so I had to get creative. I extrapolated the Xtol-time, comparing it to other Rollei films and ended up with a development time of nine and a half minutes. This gave me very nice negatives and the ID-11 seems to have worked very well with this emulsion.