Sep 17, 2018
results are in
by matt
Last of the roll of Fuji Acros 100. All test shots came out ok and the bellows are definitely much better, and probably 90% fixed. All the scans I received seemed to be much brighter than I was expecting, which was somewhat strange. I know the meter on the Makina works fine and I exposed for the shadows in pretty much all the photos I took with the camera set to ASA/ISO 100. Quite a few scenes had a high amount of dynamic range so it’s conceivable that this played a part in some of the scans looking really over exposed. But I’m not 100% convinced. Then there’s the obviously ‘digital looking’ (almost cartoonified) artefacts in the areas of some scans which have subtle tonal shifts. I’m really happy that the Makina’s bellows have less holes in them (although not fixed completely), but something is niggling me about all the Acros 100 scans that I received. As I wrote previously, I’ll have to ride this one and see how it goes…
As example of the brightness, here’s shot that I had to try and make darker:
This is the original:
There’s almost a touch of infrared about it! Over developed? And maybe a problem with the scanner being able to cope with the tonal range of the black and white 6×7 negatives? Dunno…
So…in terms of the problems:
Light leaks? – Better and probably non-existent in the results of the test roll (black and white is more forgiving though). But it looks positive :-)
Strange border round the edges of some images? – Better, but not gone completely (you can still see it on the bottom and right hand side of this photo and also the photo at the top of this post).
Overall, it’s good and I’m happy. I was even happier when I looked at the scans for the first time on Saturday because I had already shot two rolls of Ilford HP5 and only had a few shots left in my third roll! As I wrote previously, I was cautiously optimistic (and confident) in my repair skill :-)
In other news, the new bellows should be winging their way to me from Japan in the next week or so, then it’ll be time to send the Makina off for repair and CLA. When it comes back from that, I will be very excited indeed :-)