Transcript
Hi everyone, Azriel Knight here, and welcome to day 1 of A Fortknight of Film, a film marathon where I shoot a different roll of film every single day and I vlog every single day. This is a result of 58 very generous donors on my Kickstarter. I actually made my stretch goals, so I'll be shooting for 17 days straight. A couple of things before I get started, in addition to black-and-white, E6, and C-41, I spent all weekend developing chemicals ahead of time to make sure that I save myself some time during the process, so in addition to black white, C-41, and E6, I'll also be developing with ECN-2 and ORWO 5168. One other thing before I get started, if you want to see these videos a day early, be sure and sign up to my Patreon. For just $5 a month, you get early access, and, you know, if you want, just sign up, you'll get charged the $5 right away, watch A Fortknight of Film, and then if you don't want to contribute any further, go ahead and cancel at that time, but that's a good way to get these videos a day early, so if you like this video and you want to see tomorrow's video right away, that's one way to do it. I ended up buying more film than I have days, it's you know, just a good idea, just in case something happens, but what I also wanted to do is give you the opportunity to vote for which film you think I should shoot each day, and the way I do that is with Instagram Stories. Today is Monday, October 5th, 2020, it is 5:40 AM, and I asked you guys on Instagram Stories which roll of 120 film you liked to see me shoot with. Did you want to see me shoot with Ektachrome or Velvia 100? And by a vote of 55%, you chose Velvia 100. I'll be loading the Velvia 100 into my Pentax 6, I've got a 55, 105, and a 200mm lens, and I'll be heading off to a small town called Rosebud Alberta, but first, let's get the film loaded.
[Smooth Retro Tunes]
Okay, guys, I've arrived in Rosebud. The sun has just peeked over the hill, and the light is beautiful. I Did make one stop on the way here, I saw this, like, fog settle down on a farm field, my main concern today is that I've never shot Velvia before, and that's gonna be a growing theme; just that I've, I'm gonna be trying a bunch of films that I've never tried before, and, you know, on top of that, slide film is very fussy, and I would say even seasoned photographers have trouble getting the light just right, so I thought about doubling up on my first shot, and decided against it. I metered for the highlights and figured the shadows will fall wherever they’ll fall.
[Sweet Licks]
Pretty quiet morning. I think I'm on shot number 4 right now, and I just got this beautiful house behind me here from the other end. I just switched from my 200mm to my 55mm. I'm not sure if that was the best idea. Might head back to the car to switch to my 105mm, but I’m just trying to take it easy. I got a long ways to go, so there's no sense in rushing it. First time I've carried all three lenses with me. I have to say it's a little sore on the shoulders. It is a very moist morning. It smells like wet leaves. The leaves are still changing, but so many have fallen too, and I know I said you guys will get to experience a Canadian winter, or at least snow, technically speaking. But they just reported it's going to be the warmest October in 10 years, so don't get your hopes up for any crazy snowstorms.
Hey buddy. What's going on? Where's your home? Mmm? Where's your home? You got all wet. Yeah, you got all wet. You're a big boy. Random, so random.
[Groovy Music]
Okie dokie, I just finished my last couple shots. It was a red barn in the distance, and then I just saw this purple flower on the way back that I thought was really nice, and I ended up switching back to my 200mm, so there's another point of nervousness today, not only am I shooting a film I've never shot before, not only is this the first day of a marathon, so it should start off with a bang, hopefully, but I'm using a lens that I haven't tested yet, so it's a bit of a triple threat. Other than photography, though, it's been an incredibly relaxing morning. I saw that dog, which was just adorable and slightly frightening at the same time, because he came up to like my waist, and it was really a nice drive out, really beautiful sunrise, yeah, I mean provided that the photos turn out, this would be just the greatest kickstarter, no pun intended, to my vlogging marathon, so I'm gonna head back home now and get this film in a tank and get it developed.
Okay guys, I am back home now, I'm in the darkroom, and I am ready to develop this roll.
[Synth Tunes]
Okay, guys, I am just washing the film now, I'm doing the final wash. My first concern is that the film got off track at some point, so I found it harder to agitate back and forth, because the film was sticking to the side of the tank. Not the worst thing in the world, but I think what I'll do is I'll take the film out after I've finished washing it, I'll put it back on track, and then I'll put it through the salad spinner. You'll notice I use the water from the sous vide instead of putting it under running water, the reason for that is because it's exactly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or in this case, 99.9 now that I've shut it off. As far as I'm concerned, this is just as good as running water because it's washing back and forth over it and I'm using fresh water every few inversions. and I could basically tell when it's clean, when it pours out clear. I think this is my fourth inversion, or fourth set of water, and I don't know if that translates, but that still is pink, so I gotta keep going. One thing I really don't like about developing E-6 is the constant washing after each step, you have to wash it, emptying and filling it seven times and the table gets wet after a while, normally I put a towel down. In this case I just forgot, so I've been using a rag, which is now on the floor, [Groan] and yeah, just a lot of arm movement. I mean, C-41, fairly straightforward, E-6 is just like step 1, wash, step 2, wash, step 3, wash... Still coming out pink, arguably more pink than last time. So how do we do a blind reveal if I have to take the film out and put it back on track before I put it in the salad spinner. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do a 100% blind reveal this time, but it certainly is blind enough. I don't have a clue if it's going to work or not, it's my, like I just made this batch of E-6 over the weekend, like I said, new lens, which I shot most of my frames with, and then I have little experience with slide and no experience with Velvia 100. Sometimes I like to let it sit and you know, not fester, but you know, just settle for you know, a little bit in order to soak up all of that excess crap off of the film and into the water, it tends to help too if I leave it for a couple minutes. It gives me a chance to clean and get everything reset for the next development. [Vehement Sloshing] Pretty clear, not quite there yet. I used to shake it really hard, and then a couple of times, at least on medium format, the film came off track, I mean it's already off track, and I don't want to make it worse, but since then I just do regular old inversions. I'm rotating as I go, a quarter each time to it can be thorough. Okay, it's pretty clear on the last one, so this is going to be the last one. I am going to empty this out, do this for another 15 seconds, and then the big reveal. I'm going to do it all on one take from here on. I hate this part. I mean, this is the best part for a viewer, but it's the worst part for me; it's basically is all my time wasted from getting up at four in the morning to driving out an hour out of town, spending however much I did on the Velvia, I bought so much film, I don't even know how much this one is. I'm going to say $10-15, probably closer to $15. I did it, I said I was going to do 15 seconds. I did 45 or something there. Okay, here we go. Even though I've got a salad spinner, I get as much of the water out as possible. Here we go, man. Wish me luck. Yeah, I see it came right off track there, ugh, it's horrible. I mean not the pictures, but the fact that it came off that bad, and it scraped all against the outside. Don't think I can get it back on track and I don't want to further bugger it, so the negatives themselves look very blue and if I remember correctly, that is a byproduct of while it dries, though I guess we'll see. I'm gonna do a very light salad spin because of the fact that it's already off track, and then we'll pull the negatives out and have a look at them. Wow, looks like my last shot is definitely buggered from all of that folding. Maybe the weight will help it bring it down. I'm pretty hopeful. I'm going to hang these to dry and have a closer look at them. I will not drop my film this time. I will not drop my film this time. Other than this last image at the end, all buggered up, I think I did good. I think most of the exposures are decent. I won't know until I get it on the scanner, though, but you don't have to wait for that. Here are today's highlights.
[Pensive Music]
I hope you enjoyed those. I gotta say, there were more winners than I thought would be winners. Even when I pulled the film out of the tank, I was like " ehhhh, they look pretty good, but how are they gonna scan", and they scanned great for the most part. The ones that I doubled up on, I'm glad I doubled up on because the alternative was either overexposed or a little underexposed. I gotta say I've shot Velvia 50 before, and just like Velvia 50, the shadows just drop right off, like off a cliff. Even during the daytime, so that's one thing to definitely watch out for, but when you get the exposure right, there is quite a bit of latitude, there's just not a lot of forgiveness, if that makes any sense. Yeah, overall though, the photos are amazing, even with that one that got mangled, the one of the flower, turned out fantastic in the scan. I'm really surprised that that turned out in the scan. I was totally expecting it to look like garbage. Anyway, that's all for now. If you enjoyed this video, please follow me on Instagram and Twitter @AzrielKnight. Be sure to check out Instagram stories so that you can vote for which film I'm going to shoot with every day, and if you feel like it, you can support me on Patreon, maybe even get these videos a day early, and until tomorrow, stay classic!
Some pigeons live in here, so I'm trying not to get pooped on.
Transcription by Tim Peters (Gemista)