Experimenting with redscale film.

Redscale film is actually normal color film that is reversed and shot through the anti-halation layer. These layers are typically red in color and are meant to absorb the light as it passes through the film to keep the light from bouncing back off the camera’s pressure plate or the roll paper on 120 film. This helps avoid haloing from occurring on the film. The object is to shoot through the anti-halation layer before the light hits the color dyes of the film. The way to pull this off is to either buy the film from a company like Lomography or reverse the film yourself.

Sure you could just put a red filter over the lens and shoot that way, but then the anti-halation is still in place and the light that passed through film won’t bounce back into the film again.

Ok, this is a weird film, and this article is more about what the film looks like.

A buddy gave me a three roll pack when I was in Portland the day. He told me that he didn’t particularly like redscale film, and asked if I wanted to try it. I said sure and I don’t particularly like redscale film either, but I’d love to give it a go.

I loaded one roll on to a 620 spool and I put it into an Argus Seventy-five and every frame came out different! That was fun. I load another roll into a Koni-Omega, and I tight control over exposure at e.i. 100, so all the frames were pretty close in color tones. I just had the rolls processed normally with no pushing or pulling in development. This made for an interesting experiment.

I’m still not that big of a fan of redscale, I could see why some people like it, but the process doesn’t speak to me. I have another roll I will experiment with. I’ll shoot that at e.i. 50.