I had some cartridges 3D printed which unfortunately were not 100% light proof, so I spray painted them inside and out with two coats of matt black and lined the inside (sides only) with some thin felt paper. I extended this a little to cover the film slit, forming a light trap. This solved some of the scratching problem.
I then turned my attention to the film gate on the camera itself. Some very careful cleaning at the leading and trailing edge, with some very careful use of extremely fine sandpaper (sounds horrible, but it's 4000 grit) and now I have a roll of scratch free negatives. Yay!
I've slit some Fomapan 100 film while getting to the bottom of the scratching, not wanting to potentially waste money on what would be finer grained but more expensive film. In fact, I went to buy some Delta 100 this weekend only to find Ilford is pushing through some 30% plus price rises. Ouch!! Anyway, the results from the Fomapan 100 in PC-TEA 1+50 weren't too bad, though I might try developing the next roll in 510-Pyro. Development is in a Jobo 1520 tank with a 3D printed reel. Scanned with the Panasonic G9 in hi-res (low) mode with the 45mm PanaLeica macro lens + tubes, using a cardboard inlay in a 35mm Kaiser fototeknik film holder and Kaiser backlight.
Overall I'm quite pleased with this test roll. I've got a couple more strips of Fomapan 100 slit which I will shoot first to confirm the scratching is gone for good, then I might try some RPX25 or Retro 80S. I've also modified the cardboard inlay / mask to reduce the film frame opening to cut down on some extraneous light which should give better quality scans too.
- War Memorial Park
- Pohutakawa Tree Sculpture (NZ Christmas Tree)
- Early Wellington Buildings
- Decaying Heritage Building
- Brutalist Apartments
- Drone storage
- Office buildings
