Don’t do what I did… or maybe do, now that you know what can happen.

Petzval Week

Behind the scenes: Fun with Curled Film

Film curls.

Some film curls more than others.

Some film rolls up along its length as if it misses being stuffed into the canister. This one can be a bit of a bother to scan, but it’s usually easy enough.

Other film winds itself up in a spiral. This one can be tough to scan, but patience tends to win, and with decent results.

In my (limited) experience, many rolls of film tend to curl along the width. This is a nightmare to scan with the Lomography Digitaliza that I use as a film holder in the scanner.

I found a solution that works, sometimes, but I don’t recommend it:untitled|88|©JamesECockroft-20150228Yes, those are teeth marks.

And, yes, they helped flatten this 5-frame strip of film enough to stay in the holder long enough to go through the Scan-O-Matic 7000 mk II.

But they also left quite interesting marks on (and through) the film base, and did fun things to the emulsion, as you can see above and in an image I shared as part of the flare tests. (An aside: emulsion tastes a bit funny. You should take my word for it and avoid trying some for yourself.)

This has in it some possibilities, maybe, for experimentation… I think others have already mined these, but still, could be good times!

 

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.