A Deep Dive Into The Redscale Technique

My recent experiments with converting rolls of colour film to allow the redscale technique to be used has been an unexpectedly enjoyable one. I have taken rolls of colour from my stock of film (all of these rolls have been donated by my friends) and created some really interesting photographs. Redscale is a new palette that allows a creative photographer an extra tool in their arsenal. It also presents questions about other colour film options, but more of that later (possibly in a future blog post).

I was, however, a bit high level in my description of how the redscale technique works by reversing the film in the camera and exposing the colour layers to light, red layer first.  This blog post will correct that and attempt a more "engineering" approach to explaining the process.

Understanding Colour Film

It is probably worth having a quick look at this to understand how RGB works to create a colour picture.

The RGB Color Model 

Most peoples understanding of colour film is that there are a number of layers of emulsion, with each layer contributing to our Red Green and Blue (RGB) view of colour theory.  In film we are dealing with light and therefore things are slightly different.

Figure 1

Looking at figure 1, above, we are able to see that light has to traverse the three layers, each layer being exposed to the light associated with it, starting with blue, then green and finally red. While figure 1 is broadly true there are issues with rendering colour scenes so that they resemble how we experience reality. There are also light physics to contend with.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows how the emulsion for a colour film is engineered.  Firstly, the ultraviolet part of the light spectrum can be filtered out as it is largely invisible to human perception. Next we have the blue layer, followed by a yellow filter. Yellow filter, what the heck is that for? It turns out that the green layer and red layer are also affected by exposure to blue light. In other words the green layer is blue-green sensitive and the red layer is actually blue-red sensitive. The green layer isn't affected by the red part of the light spectrum and the red layer isn't affected by the green area of the spectrum. So to ensure that the green layer is only exposed to the green part of the spectrum, the blue part of the spectrum must be filtered out using a yellow dye (remember in colour theory a complimentary coloured filter is used to stop light of a particular colour, in this case yellow will stop blue). The principle applies to the red layer.

This is all very technical and I'm sure at this point your brain will be the same as mine

Take a break for a cup of tea and a biscuit, other snacks are available 😊

Back to the Redscale Technique

Looking back at figure 2, we can see that if we are to reverse the film, we also reverse the order in which light exposes the emulsion. Firstly, the light has to penetrate the anti halation layer (ordinarily this stops light bouncing around), the base gelatin before exposing the Red layer. As we've discussed the Red sensitive layer is Blue and Red sensitive. Also there is no yellow filter to stop blue light from affecting the red layer. The light will then carry on to the Green sensitive layer, again no yellow filter to stop blue light from affecting this layer.  The next layer is the yellow filter and so no Blue light can access the blue sensitive layer. 

Why is all this important? Perhaps a quote from Google will help

All photographic film emulsions use silver halides that are inherently sensitive to high-energy blue and violet light, even when sensitized for other colors. If blue light isn't blocked from reaching the green and red layers, it causes "crosstalk", creating overlapping dye exposures. This corrupts color fidelity, producing unnatural, highly shifted colors and muddy hues instead of a clean, accurate image

In Redscale photography we want to shift the colours to be hues of Red, so the crosstalk won't really matter.

It's worth noting that while the main Redscale effect is primarily a function of shooting through the film layers in reverse order, the base film colour can have an effect. With a colour film that utilises an orange film base, firstly the film base will block light more and so a 2 or 3 stop compensation must be used, e,g, if you are using an IOS 400 film then shooting at ISO 100 is recommended. Secondly the film base being orange in colour will enhance the red hues of the final photograph. A colour film stock with a clear film base, e.g. Harman Phoenix, will only require a 0.5-1 stop compensation and will cause the resultig photograph to be buttery yellow in hues. You can find out this information by looking at the datasheet for your film.

So thats a more in depth explanation of how Redscale works, if you ever wondered.

Cameras and Electronics

It's an odd thing to contemplate, in a world where everything is an electronic device, that it wasn't that long ago when cameras were entirely mechanical and manual devices. The film was wound on by the photographer, the shutter speed and aperture was set by the photographer and the the shutter was cocked by the photographer, the lens was focused by the photographer before finally the camera made an exposure, when the shutter button was pressed by the photographer.

There is a limit to what can be achieved by mechanical means alone.  Wouldn't it be great if the lens could focus automatically? What about if the camera had a light meter built in, even better if the light meter could cause the aperture and shutter speed to be automatically set? Hmm, I'd like to set my aperture myself and have the camera do the rest, no problem. On another day I'd like to set my shutter speed and have my camera sort the aperture out.

All of the features that we take for granted now, were once the domain of science fiction. As electronics developed and were miniaturized, they started to be included in the cameras of the day. Initially with built in light meters, then electronic shutters and auto focusing.

By the 1980s most cameras had some electronics in them but by the 1990s the cameras were fully automated electronic affairs. Marvels of the modern age.  With a business model of constant improvement and expansion, the 1990s cameras were not expected to be used for years on end. A quick look at the Dixons catalogue shows really capable consumer compact cameras, packed with electronics for amazingly low prices. 

The low prices revealing the intent that if the camera failed, it was not economic to repair and so the real solution was to replace. Even with a 12 month guarantee, the manufacturers would simply replace the camera if it developed a fault.  If the consumer price was low the manufacturing price was even lower. If a camera sold for £80 then it probably cost £20 to make at scale. Not really sustainable for the planet but that was for the future to sort out.

The 1990s were the start of consumers having money to spend on "toys" rather than something the family needed. So the business model was to manufacture at scale for your market, keep manufacturing prices low, sell at low prices on the high street and replace rather than repair the units if they failed. 

There was a deceit that happened with repairs. Camera manufacturers would either establish repairs departments at their factories or sub contract the repairs out to a separate specialist company. With the rise of Japanese consumer electronics, sending something back to Japan wasn't cost effective. These companies established repair departments in the UK by way of sub contracting.  The cost of repairing any consumer device was costing industry a lot of money. The introduction of electronics was done, in part, to make the devices more reliable and less likely to develop a fault and need repair. This was a huge cost saving for the manufacturers.

The general public however were used to having things that they bought repaired and so Dixons would take a faulty camera, for example, and fill out the repair form in store.  The customer would be assured the camera would be inspected and assessed.  The reality was that the camera would be chucked in the bin and when the customer came back a new camera would be supplied with the reason that the camera couldn't be repaired.

The reality of this system is that by the 1990s the reliability of these devices meant that faults went from 1 in a 1000 units manufactured to a vanishing small 1 in 1 000 000 units manufactured. 

By the time that digital cameras came along, faults were unheard of, almost.

So the current trend for people buying 1990s compact cameras, should ring alarm bells. While the cameras were super reliable in their day, after 35 odd years, those mass manufactured, surface mount electronics, that were never designed to be repaired, are a bit of a ticking timebomb. 

It's not the preserve of the compact camera either. The Hassleblad XPan, a panoramic format 35mm camera, that has retained its secondhand value and was expensive when new has been known to work fine one day and be dead the next. That is an expensive ornament. The best bet is to find a donor body and rob circuit boards from it, but even that avenue would be expensive as it's specialist work.

Anything that is entirely mechanical can, with the right skillset, be repaired and serviced indefinitely.  Early cameras that has electronics such as the Olympus Trip 35, only offered simple metering systems, run by a selenium cell, that if the electronics died, the rest of the camera could be used manually.

So don't pay lots of money for 1990s compact cameras. You can but it's a bit like Russian roulette, you may get lucky but not for ever.

As a postscript to this the reliability of these cameras initial design means that if they do die all is not lost. It's unlikely to be the main board or CPU that's at fault. Generally it's something simple that can be fixed. Broken wires, solder joints that have failed and contacts that require cleaning. The solder joint failure is more common than you'd think.

A camera that isn't operating even with new batteries, should be inspected carefully. If a battery has corroded in the battery compartment then cleaning the compartment with white vinegar may resurrect the camera. Broken wiring inside can make a camera appear to have died, when it needs replacement or simple resolder the connection.  It's also surprising what a squirt of electronic contact cleaner can do.  If a camera does "brick" itself, it may just be revivable.

Old Cameras, why bother?

I am not, personally, interested in fuelling industries that have a need to keep producing new stuff that isn’t substantially or objectively better than what has already been manufactured.

Manufacturers need to keep “improving” cameras so that people will get FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and go and buy the new one while the old one gets cast aside like an unwanted child's toy. But caveat emptor, those “improvements” may not be of any use to the photographer.

The X-Files

A bit like Mulder in the X-Files, photographers “want to believe”.  Marketing will sell “improvements” as the silver bullet to why you don’t take world class photographs.  If you buy into the marketing hype and your pictures aren’t great, you can blame the choice that you made in the camera shop.  Oh damn, I bought a Nikon when I should have bought a Canon!  Why didn't I pack whatever lens you left at home?

The range of cameras and lenses in any camera shop is amazing, but we all want to believe the marketing. We want to believe that there is a technical reason why our brand new camera or lens doesn’t make us Ansel Adams.  

Ansel Adams, or any other photographer of note, put the hours in, generally using the same camera for years and years, honing their craft, learning how photography works from a practical point of view, eventually making a catalogue of worthy work from many thousands of rolls of film or memory cards.

Back to the narrative...

A camera should take a picture. If it does that, well we are onto a winner, aren't we?

The way the picture is captured may matter to some. 

I might need a camera to capture family moments without a lot of fuss and bother or making my family pose while I muck about with settings only to be disappointed and frustrated at the results. A decent quality P&S that does all the heavy lifting, so those family memories can be captured quickly and easily and largely without anyone knowing, should fit the bill.

Equally, I may need a camera to capture the family portraits using a shallow depth of field, pin sharp focus and bang on metering. Enter the SLR or DSLR.  No P&S will achieve this and it is nonsense to expect it to.  The SLR/DSLR with a number of lenses will be the best bet. But do I need a brand new one? No I don’t. Most SLRs will work just fine and the DSLRs with a 20Mp, or larger, sensor will produce 8x10 prints of a great quality.

Where DSLRs are concerned, we have full frame sensors that were supposed to be better than APS-C, but the hype rarely met the expectation and certainly did not improve anyone’s photography.

Then we have Mirrorless cameras, that removed the mirror from a DSLR and made everything smaller and lighter, but better?  Obviously more portable and the lenses were smaller and lighter too.  But those Micro Four Thirds sensors weren’t full frame and therefore not very good?  Well the MFT sensor was perfectly good and is capable of really decent results. I'd challenge anyone to take an 8x10 print of the same subject taken on a MFT and  FF DSLR and tell the difference at normal viewing distance.

Medium format cameras are lovely but no one makes one new now so you have to go second-hand.

Large format cameras are still made but these are niche, and there are plenty of second-hand options here too.

Today cameras, of all types, are plentiful on the second-hand market, so naturally if considering a new camera purchase, that is where I’d tend to look first. New to me doesn't mean new in the box.

Why use old cameras? Well why not? They exist and in many cases have had very little use and so represent great value for money.

Obviously you need to beware of hype as some old cameras have achieved cult status and their second-hand prices have sky rocketed.

But old cameras are perfectly serviceable, if they work for the photographer and produce results where the expectation, unhindered by hype, meets reality then isn't that all that matters.  Some old cameras were underrated when new and damned by the reviewers with feint praise. In the cold light of a second-hand purchase, reappraisal will often be kinder.

Buy an old camera, be kinder to the planet and just enjoy the photography!

N.B. If you want to buy a brand new camera and can afford to do so, don't let anything I say deter you. But please list your old kit with a sensible, not hyped, price and keep the second-hand market buoyant.

Redscale Harman Phoenix 200

For this blog post I have converted a roll of Harman Phoenix 200 to redscale. Harman technology sell their own version of this as Harman Red 125. Given that this film is officially available as a redscale film, the only other one on the market is Lomography Redscale XR, I was excited to se what this emulsion could do in the redscale space.

Harman Phoenix is supplied in a red box and isn't a general colour film in the same vein as Kodak Gold, for example. Harman have described Phoenix as the initial steps on their colour journey and Harman are inviting photographers to get involved in that journey. Phoenix is a limited run film.

Harman own the Ilford brand and manufacture some really excellent black and white emulsions in HP5 Plus and FP4 Plus.  They are not known for colour film.  To create a colour film from scratch is a costly business and without the might of a corporation like Kodak behind them, then the research and development of a new emulsion might prove too expensive to even try.  Harman came up with a strategy that they have been completely upfront about.

1. Create a colour film, that may not be perfect but the sale of which will fund the next stage of R&D.
2. Invite photographers to use the imperfect film and provide feedback
3. Use the feedback to improve the chemistry and go to step 1

Harman have since created Phoenix II, which is a refinement of Phoenix  but still not perfect as a general colour film. But photographers are being involved in the development and really enjoying the experience.

Given that Phoenix was a limited run, it has started to run out, but Phoenix II is now available.  Phoenix is also staring to expire at retailers and so there are deals to be had on expired rolls of this emulsion.

My roll of Phoenix was gifted to me by my good friend Dave Whenham. Dave has an excellent blog here --> Dave Whenham Photography.

Dave also, very kindly processed the film for me too. So thank you Dave for your help.  Thats why I see this roll of Redscale as more of a collaboration.

The results from Phoenix redscale are excellent and so I will definitely repeat the experiment.  By the way, I also have a roll of Phoenix II that I may convert to redscale.

The Festival of Wood - Westonbirt Arboretum - 2003

The Westonbirt Festival of Wood was held during the 2000s until 2011, when it changed into the Festival of the Tree. I attended in 2003 and took the family Canon Sure Shot TeleMax camera loaded with a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus.

Westonbirt Arboretum

I thought that the negatives had been lost to time as house moves took place over the years that followed.  

However recently I opened a box that had been sealed when I moved house last year and I found some negatives all filed in sleeves but not in a file.  Some negatives from my trip to Egypt and some from Tunisia.  In the middle of the negatives and filed between a set of Egypt negatives and a set of Tunisia negatives, were the set of black and white negatives from the Festival of Wood. Half of them in the Sharm El Sheikh negative file sheet and half in the Hammamet sheet. quite why I did this is a mystery now.

Sharm El Sheikh

Hammamet, Tunisia

These are significant because they are a document of me getting into black and white photography and using the family compact camera. I'd forgotten about the day out and that I'd bought a roll of HP5 Plus from the local camera shop.  The negatives have a numbered sticker at one end and so I must have got the camera shop to process the film. So these are really first steps for me. I've rescanned the negatives and cropped some of them, the pictures aren't half bad, considering they were taken on a compact camera.

An Afternoon Out with a Compact Camera

Recently I wrote a blog about the joys of compact cameras.

In-Praise-of-Compact-Cameras

The compact camera is a great carry around camera and sometimes the thought of carting around a heavy bag full of lenses, camera bodies and all that jazz, it just a bit much.  My 35mm film compact camera of choice at the moment is a Lomo LC-A.  It's definitely not perfect but it produces images that are not dreadful.  This is a very low bar, I know.  

The internet influencers would have you believe that a Yashica T4, Olympus Mju II, Contax T2 or Ricoh GR1S are the best compact cameras for 35mm film and so they may be, but now that the cat is out of the bag the prices match the hype that the influencers create. And that serves no one well, least of all those of us who are on a budget.

The LC-A isn't hyped by anyone, apart from the Lomography people - because they sell them, but that doesn't mean it's no good. Mine is from the early 1980s and is a genuine Soviet built one. You can pick them up for a decent price if you exercise some patience and avoid instant gratification syndrome.  I used the camera for a walk around one of Somersets' prettiest towns Frome a couple of days ago.  Here are the photographs.

2020 - Pandemic Photography

It seems like it never really happened now. 2020, the year that Boris Johnson asked everyone in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to stay at home in order to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. During the period where we all stayed at home, I found myself getting a bit bored. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

Anyhow, I had some adapters that would allow 35mm film to be shot in a medium format camera. Sprocket hole photography.  There was an article that I found where you had to create a leader for your 35mm film from a scrap length of 120 backing paper.  Then you wouldn't loose any frames when the film was loaded.

Like so. This allows the takeup spool to be standard 120. Once the film is exposed you have to unload in a dark bag and wind the film back into the 35mm canister.

I loaded a roll of Fomapan 100 into a 6x7 medium format camera and during my time outside, shot these while observing social distancing (remember that?).

I'd forgotten all about these negatives until I came across them in an envelope recently.

The first frame thanks the NHS. Funny how we all did that when we thought we were going to die isn't it? (Bit of politics as Ben Elton might have said).

    

    

Racing Cars

Now and again, I enjoy going to motorsport events. I'll take a camera with me and see if I can get close to the cars.  I enjoy the design and engineering work that has gone into the cars and I try to capture some of the design choices with my photography. These photographs were taken on 35mm film. Fomapan 100, if memory serves.

In Praise of Compact cameras

There are times when you want a camera that is a serious tool to take properly exposed, beautiful negative frames. However all of the technical activity to get a properly exposed, nicely developed negative makes the whole process really slow. If you are having a trip with a friend to London, for example, as I did recently,  you cannot make your friend ( a non photographer) slow down and stop, while messing around with meters, f stops, apertures and shutter speeds, not to mention intentional composition. No, you want to point and shoot and crack on with enjoying the company of a friend.

Bit shonky due to an expired roll of film that was (accidentally) exposed both sides.

Luckily the trajectory of camera and photographic refinement made much of the technical work automatic, allowing even non photographers to take some nice photographs. Non photographers don't buy SLRs or Medium Format cameras, they buy a little automatic compact camera.  In the early 1980s there were loads on the market and the improvements in automation carried on until the 1990s.

Japan produced some lovely compacts such as the Olympus trip or the Nikon L35AF. 

Here is a trip down memory lane.  In 1991 I bought a Canon Telemax Sure Shot 35mm film camera as a tool for making family memories. The camera we (read my wife) already had was appalling. While I can immerse myself in technical detail and the finer points of photography, my wife wasn't interested. She wanted to make snaps of the kids, our days out and our holidays. We'd send our film off to Truprint for processing and get back negatives, 6x4 prints and a free Truprint film.  The Canon was perfect. An automatic camera with film auto wind, really sharp lens and perfect metering. The Telemax also had a two position zoom, 38mm or  70mm.  The DX encoded films allowed the cameras internal brain to configure the ISO of the film in the camera and use that to calculate the exposure and meter the subject. Finally the camera used a near infrared beam to assist with the focusing of the lens.

It was a great camera and served us well. Interestingly the resulting photographs and negatives are still in the photo albums.

The files from the digital cameras that replaced the Sure Shot in the early 2000s have all been lost. Not one of them still exists, even though they were backed up. The backups I still have but the format cannot be read. (why do I hang on to them?).

It is a matter of regret that the camera was not looked after and was consigned to a drawer. Even after I returned to film photography, I ignored the camera. And then it got lost in a house move.

Looking online today nice examples fetch £100 (but I'm digressing. again!).

The point being that a decent compact film camera will serve the user well and allow nice photographs to be taken without slowing down any social interactions/walks/trips/holidays etc.

It was with this in mind that I took my Lomo LC-A to London.

I won't repeat the information that you can look up on the internet.

Here is a link to save you using Google,

Lomo_LC-A

The LC-A is a compact camera that produces decent results. Not top flight, portfolio ready photographs, but decent pictures. It's automatic and is very quick to use.

The LC-A is becoming a favorite as a walk around camera. I took this with my LC-A at a location local to my home in Somerset.

I'd recommend an LC-A to anyone looking for a dependable, compact automatic camera.  The controls fall easy to hand, it's zone focused, which I'm happy with, and the meter is really accurate. It would make a nice travel camera.

Redscale - Variable results.

 Redscale is an experimental technique and therefore the results are highly dependent on the following

• Film Stock
• Expiry date of film
• ISO that the film is shot at

Looking at the ISO, assuming fresh, in date, film there are several exposure methods

• Underexposure
• Correct exposure
• Overexposure

Redscale film is a method of reversing the film so that the back of the film and red emulsion layer are exposed before the green and blue.  Because the film is exposed the "wrong way around" you need to compensate and allow extra light.

Redscale - Wikipedia

This is where the concepts of over, correct and underexposure can be brought into play.

As an example, suppose the film stock is normally rated at ISO 400, exposing at ISO 400 would give a hugely underexposed negative. 

• Underexposure - 1 stop extra light (ISO 200)
• The resulting photograph should be Dark Red
• Correct exposure - 2 stops extra light (ISO 100)
• The resulting photograph should be Orange
• Overexposure - 3 stops extra light (ISO 50)
• The resulting photograph should be Yellow

Much of this will depend on your camera and it's ability to change ISO from frame to frame.

The experimental nature of this technique means that you shouldn't be too precious until you have dialled in a filmstock with a camera, i.e. you've experimented.

Note the predominantly orange tones.

Note the overall yellow tones.

As a post script to this, I have made a roll of Harman Phoenix colour film into a roll of redscale. Harman do this themselves and sell it as Harman Red 125.

Harman Red 125

They suggest an ISO of 125, which is two thirds of a stop for best (their suggested) results.

My camera, the Lomo LC-A just has ISO 50, ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, so I'll set ISO 100 but I can try 200 and 50 as well. Thats the beauty of experimental techniques, you can experiment!

Redscale - A follow up post

If nowt else there is a blog post on the perils of expired C41.. Sometimes you hit the jackpot but other times...

Dave Whenham

When carrying out photography using experimental techniques with expired film and a LOMO LC-A camera, the results are definitely not guaranteed. Recently after rediscovering some Redscale negatives in my archive, I decided to write a blog on how to make Redscale film at home. 

Redscale-film

As I had a trip to London lined up, I compounded the folly by rolling some Redscale and loading it into a LOMO LC-A.  The first roll was expired but boxed and otherwise "new". This first roll was a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400.  Crucially, as it turned out, the provenance was known.

The second roll was a "found" roll of Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400. This roll was vintage 2008/9 and was purchased from 7dayshop.com.  "Found in a box of junk that had all sorts of stuff added the day I moved house. It turns out that the Fujifilm had been exposed normally before at some dim and distant time in the past.  I then made a roll of Redscale out of it.  The results were, um, "interesting".

So beware of rolls of film of unknown provenance.

Or as Dave says "Crimp your shot 35mm"

Thanks to Dave Whenham for providing the processing and scanning services for the C41 films.  His patience is appreciated.

In any case, keeping records might prove useful.

Enjoy the Keepers from the UltraMax.

Natural History Museum

South Kensington with a genuine London bus

Natural History Museum

Street photography in Redscale

Tube station overground