Back in the spring I took my Hasselblad for a walk along Bournemouth promenade loaded with a roll of Fuji NPH 400. It’s a couple of years out of date but had been stored in the fridge. I have a fair bit of colour 120 film to use up and this was the oldest stock, so therefore first in line. I have no idea whether Fuji is still actually making this stock – everywhere I look it is listed, but it’s always out of stock. Anyway, it was a very hot day, during the first heatwave, so with blazing sun, 400 iso was not the obvious choice, I carried on regardless.
My usual method on such days, is to take a few light readings, reflective off green grass if there is any – that’s (in black and white terms pretty much Zone 5 mid tones), then I’ll do an incident reading. Bournemouth sea front faces south, so although at that point I wasn’t on it, the light where I was would be the same, and I stood in the same direction I would be photographing. Averaged the exposure and that’s what I shot the whole roll at. Never looked at the meter again! I did take a reading off the grass in shade too, knocked a couple of stops off and that also agreed with my calculation, this also told me that if I photograph anything in the shade I need to “open up” two stops, and also reinforced my calculation f11 at 250th.
The film was processed by Analogue Wonderland. I had points to use up! In fact I sent them a small bath but more about that in another post. When the film came back at first glance it looked like I had over exposed, on closer inspection the exposure was good, it’s just that it had a strong base orange. I feared how it would scan. In the end, all was well, the images you are seeing have had very little correction. I’ve since had a look at some NPH I exposed years ago and that too has the darker base, so I’m thinking that this is a characteristic rather than an effect of age!
I had one final roll of this stock to use up, and have since done so… that as they say is another story!
S.H.O.U.T. 