Brian
Murphy (Area 3+).
In the
Autumn 2001 edition of the Newsletter I put together a few
paragraphs outlining my
own experiences as a first- time-user of a second hand Jobo CPE2
Processor. That initial processing session involved a mixture of
Konicachrome and Jessops Chrome
film, and using
an E6 processing kit again from the Jessops range. I will say that
the session was successful, but you may recall that an electrical
fault within the Processor somewhat hampered my progress on that
occasion.
I
mentioned in my final sentences that my next experiment would be
with Fuji Sensia film these lines today are intended to update you
on the results of that later experiment.
Having
sorted out the fault in the Processor (via Ffordes Photographic
of Inverness, who I would highly recommend for their prompt honoring of the Guarantee), I found myself with 8 cassettes of
film, exposed and sitting in the fridge. These consisted of six
cassettes of Fuji Sensia, and two of Jessops Chrome, all of which I
had exposed at 200 ASA, rather than their designated speed
of 100 ASA.
I am
afraid that I am guilty of frequently breaking one of the text book
rules, in that I regularly experiment with differing film types
rather than finding one film, becoming familiar, and hopefully
successful with that film, and sticking to it. In recent years I
have predominately been using Konicachrome, but also used the
Jessops film, plus Turachrome, and one isolated cassette
of Kodak
Extra Colour---a free film with one of the Photographic Mags..
However in recent years having regularly seen a number of very
impressive Fuji slides contributed by other members of the CRC.
Slide Folio, I resolved to go slightly upmarket in price terms, and
to try Fuji Sensia for myself.
As I had
found the Jessops kit to be consistent over three previous sessions,
and being lucky enough to have a branch nearby I continued with it's
use. The kit instructions covering the uprating of the film were
easy to follow, and the Jobo unit worked perfectly. Therefore my
efforts, spread over two evenings, went well, and the experience was
altogether an enjoyable one, but what of the results?
These
were impressive, at least in my eyes. As expected the kit had
worked as expected, and there had been no deficiencies resulting
from the mixing of the two film emulsions. Overall when looking back
over the slides at a later date, it seems to me that the shots taken
with the Fuji film were slightly more impressive than those I had
been used to, and that the film was generally more useable in low
light situations. The fact that the film was shot at 200ASA and not
100ASA was also useful to me, as I tend to photograph my favourite
maritime subjects on a year- round basis. Given all of this I would
say that the extra cost involved, would be for me, as a relatively
low volume user, probably justified.
I attach
a selection of slides from this experiment as an illustration of the
results. Can I also say, that nothing quite matches
the ' wow’ factor' of the instant when I unreel a freshly
processed reversal film, and catch the colours caught by each frame!