Making Contact

A few weeks ago I posted that I had decided to get my Pracktica MTL3 out of the attic and put some film in it.  In the end, I put two rolls of film through it.

The first was a roll of Kodak BW400CN.  This is a black and white negative film rated at 400 ASA and is processed using the C41 chemistry.

This roll of film was 36 exposures of complete and utter randomness.  That being said, it was largely shot in and around Colne.

Talk about coincidence.  The last few shots on the roll was of a 1960's London Bus in Colne Town Centre.

Once processing the film I decided I would get them on to the computer and with a little editing may come out with some nice images.  First a learning curve!  Getting the images in to the computer.

I was quite lucky that my Canon MP220 Printer/Scanner works quite well at scanning on the bed.  However, it is no where the quality of a true neg scanner and I may have to either invest in one or pay to have the negs scanned.

Funnily enough I quite like the image above.  The scan quality and dust on the scanner give the image a really dated feel.

Before I wanted to go and make prints I thought I would go back to the traditional way of selecting before printing.  That is making a contact print.

For those that haven't a clue on what I am going on about.  A photographer would lay the negatives across a piece of photograph paper then expose it to light.  Once the negatives had been removed and the paper processed you had a sheet with a copy of the image on them.  This sheet would then be used to select which of the negs would go for final processing and printing.

With my little experiment I decided I would make a digital contact.  That is, scan each of the negs and make a contact sheet of them rather than individual images.  So that is exactly what I have done.  Below is the finished contact sheet.  Now I must go and find a better neg scanner!!!