TexasGirl Photography

Recently, I wrote about testing out a roll of Arista EDU 400 film in my Brownie, which involved re-rolling the film onto a 620 spool. You can read about that here.

Thus assured that the film was a good fit for my little box camera, I wanted to give it a proper trial run in a camera that allows me to adjust the exposure. Kodak prices are painful, and fixing to become more so, and I can foresee a time when I am forced to give up my beloved Tri-X in the not-so-distant future. It’s in my interest to stalk more affordable film stocks to find one I like, and both Arista and Kentmere Pan are on my list.

To that end, I carried a roll of Arista with me to Big Bend, and I finally loaded it into my camera on the last day. We spent that whole day in the back country. Late morning, I went for a walk down Pine Canyon Road looking for 12 little scenes with my Hasselblad.

Considering I had been looking at the scenery around our camp for several days, it was a fair challenge finding things I wanted to photograph. I really felt like I had to push myself. I ended up messing around with getting closer to some of the desert flora. My 80mm lens is hardly macro; I can only sidle up to 3 feet.

I feel like most of the time I use my Hasselblad to photograph larger scenes, or people, so it was fun using the camera in a different way. And in terms of the film itself, I am pretty happy with how it performed. I overexposed it quite a bit; I treated it the same way I would tri-x in terms of how I set my exposures, so I’m guessing that the “true” ASA is different from the “true” one for tri-x. This is all part of the process for me, though.

I suspect my treatment of the film in processing could be better, as well, in terms of pulling better results out of it. I followed the instructions on the box, using D76 1:1. The images look a bit stressed, to me, and I’m not sure if that’s a processing thing or an exposure thing. I didn’t feel that way with the negatives that came out of my Brownie. Things to consider!

For the moment, I am looking forward to getting a few more rolls of Arista to put onto 620 spools in anticipation of next year’s Frugal Film Project. That might be the end of the road for me with this film stock, but you never know! I look forward to seeing how these negatives print.

I will admit that until I processed a roll of Kodak from the trip, I was feeling pleased with the cheaper / experimental rolls I had used. Then I saw my one-and-only, and realized the differences. It’s bittersweet, knowing the financial side of things, but the future is beyond my sight and I will certainly stick with my true love as long as I can! Thanks for looking!