Kodak High Speed Infrared - Avens and Driftwood

As I mentioned in my previous blog post I seem to be doing a little better with this film.  The recently processed batch included 20 sheets of 4" x 5" sheet film.  I processed it in Kodak T-Max Developer, diluted 1:6, for 7:00 minutes.  It was a semi-stand development, with very minimal agitation.  I have used this in the past with great results.  But Kodak does not recommend using this developer for sheet film as it can result in uneven development.  That was rarely a problem in the past, but now that the film is two decades past its best before date, maybe I have to switch...?  I know that it also developed OK in X-Tol developer, so maybe I'll try that next time.

There were three or four images in the batch that showed some edge fogging on one side.  I checked my notes and all of these were exposed on days when it was relatively hot.  I know that the film is susceptible to heat, so again, maybe I have to avoid this and shoot on cooler days only.  

But, most of the images turned out reasonably well. So I will not give up on the film and will keep shooting with it.

With this film you never really know exactly what you're going to get.  Sometimes the negatives are really contrasty while other times they are rather soft.  Blue sky and water usually comes out black... but not always.  Living vegetation sometimes really glows bright white, while other times it is more subdued.  We can not see infrared radiation with our eyes, and light meters do not measure those wavelengths.  So, I make an educated guess based on the amount of visible light that I do measure, how heavy any cloud cover might be [clouds block visible light but not IR] and past experience.

This first post is of one of the best negatives in the batch.  This was taken down along the Blackstone River, not far from my cottage.  The background river rocks and stump have relatively normal tonality.  But the seed heads and leaves of the avens were recorded at much higher values than with traditional film.  It makes for a very cool image... and a bit of a surprise.