Trying out the LomoChrome Purple 120 Film in my Hasselblad 500 C/M

I was quite excited to recently receive my order of the 120 LomoChrome Purple film that I had pre-ordered late last year when Lomography announced they were re-doing the film.

I knew the film had previously worked well in Hove Cemetery when I had used the 35mm version so that’s where I wanted to try out this film. I decided to try it when it was a bright sunny day and I used my Lens Shade to hopefully avoid sun glare.

I wanted quite a vivid purple so shot the film at 400 ISO and here are some of the results:

I also tried out my prism filter to add to the fun of this film:

I already knew from previously trying out this film that the reds remain red and I found a couple of areas in the cemetery which had red flowers/berries:

The above two photos were taken towards the end of the roll of film and I noticed some areas of sun glare even though I had the lens shade on.

In the end I figured there may have been a slight fault with the actual film as the last photo below showed the backing paper marks on the film:

I bought these films as a batch of five so I’m really hoping the others don’t have similar problems like this.

I know next time I need to try this film out on a different subject matter since in the past year, I’ve taken so many purple shots on different camera’s at this cemetery.

I was also not as impressed as I thought I would be at using the Hasselblad with this film. I thought the photos were going to be extremely crisp and detailed.

I won’t deny that there is some slight crisp detail from using this camera but not as crisp as I get in my black and white films and I can only put this down to the fact it’s varied shades of purple perhaps softens the photos.

These photos were taken handheld so I do think it would be interesting to try this film out next using a tripod and seeing if that makes much difference.

The Washi S Black and White ISO 50 film with my Hasselblad 500 C/M Camera

I was pleased to see that Cool Film Club are now doing a monthly 120mm Film Subscription so I signed up to it to enable me to try out films that perhaps I’d never tried before.

I got my first box of 2 x 120mm films the other week from them and in the box was the Washi S 120mm 50 ISO black and white film.

I had been intrigued by this film in the past because it is an emulsion designed for sound recording and it appeared in the sample photos to have a high contrast which I quite like.

However, when I looked at purchasing this film in the past, it always appears to be sold out so I was really happy to get a roll of this in my subscription box.

I decided to try out the film in my local cemetery as I thought the film style would be suited to this style of photography.

Since it’s ISO 50, I went and shot the roll on a bright sunny day and used the sun shade attachment on my Hasselblad.

I wasn’t sure how the negatives would turn out since I felt this film is quite unusual.

I noticed that the film is packed in a recycled roll of 120mm film and this particular film had been repacked in what was originally a Tri-X 400 film roll. This actually turned out to be an issue when taking it to my local lab for processing because although I packed it in the plastic Washi Case which, clearly states 50 ISO, they processed it as the Tri-X 400 film so I’m not sure if this affected the way the negatives turned out.

I can completely understand how this confusion would have been caused and in some ways it was frustrating that a) I didn’t make it extremely clear to them that it wasn’t a Kodak Tri-X 400 film and that b) the Washi is packed in a recycled film package and they don’t have their own brand one which clearly states it’s an ISO 50 film. This makes me wonder if anybody else has encountered similar problems if relying on somebody else to process their film for them.

Thankfully the photos still appeared on all 12 negatives!

I scanned the negatives myself using my Epson V600 scanner and here are some of the photos I took:

The photos are quite high in contrast as I expected they would be. Where I’ve taken the photos in shaded areas they have come out quite dark. I’m unsure at this stage whether this is the traits of the film, the way I exposed the photos (i.e. not stopping up or down and shooting exactly as my light meter stated) or if the fact the film was processed by my lab as a Kodak Tri-X 400. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the film developing process to know if that would actually make much difference?

I also couldn’t help but have a play with my new (to me) multi-prism filter:

I quite liked the results of the prism effect, especially the last photo. I just knew the statue may be quite an interesting one to try out with the prism filter and the contrast of the film has given it quite a cool, heavenly effect in my opinion.

I’m quite keen to see if any of these negatives will develop into nice prints in the darkroom or whether the high contrast will mean I will struggle.

Using the Multi-Prism Lens Filter with my Hasselblad 500 C/M Camera

A couple of weeks ago, I found one of the multi-prism lens filters for the Hasselblad for sale on eBay in the UK with a buy it now price for around £20.

I knew this would be a fun accessory to have for my Hasselblad and experiment with and didn’t think it was too expensive compared to other lens accessories I’d seen for sale for the Hasselblad so purchased it.

Thanks to the Hasselblad booklets I own, I discovered that it was a bayonet 50 mount so it would fit my 80mm lens. The booklet also told me that I had purchased model number 50679 which has five prisms.

I also loved the fact that the booklet states ‘These multi-prism lenses have prisms producing multiple images on the film. A striking accessory for the advertising photographer and an interesting, creative tool for experiments.’

Although the lens filter didn’t come with the original box, it was in immaculate condition when it arrived and looked like it had hardly ever been used!

I was excited to try it out so headed to my beach opposite where I live.

I decided to use the Fujichrome Velvia 100 colour reversal film in the 120mm format as I was hoping if I got it processed in E-6, it would have a real pop of colour which I thought would be great for the prism effect.

I’m fortunate enough in Brighton to have a local lab called Colourstream who are able to process the film by hand in the E-6 chemicals for me.

I was very excited about this experiment because I had obviously never used this lens attachment before and also I had never had a film developed in E-6.

Here are the results:

I was able to twist the prism around on my lens so I could get different prism effects which I thought was fun.

Overall, I was really happy with the way the photos turned out and I really like the intense colour of the Fujichrome film.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the colours from the sky and beach did the film justice. I would definitely like to try this film out again with some more colours in the photos.

I also have some more creative ideas using the prism filter so am looking forward to trying them out and blogging about them in the future.