Shooting & developing Film Washi F at 100 ISO
Encouraged by the results from my roll of Washi S I've tried another experimental black and white filmstock from the Film Washi catalogue.
The Film
Film Washi's F is an orthochromatic emulsion cut from X-ray film sheets used in medical diagnosis. It lacks an anti-halation coating, resulting in glowing highlights.
Shooting
Since it's summer I rated this roll at 100 iso and shot all 12 exposures handheld while maintaining usable shutter speeds. I metered the scenes with incident and reflective readings. There's a fine balance between gentle aesthetic halation and blowing out the highlights entirely, so overall contrast of a scene should be thoroughly considered so as to preserve desired content.
Developing & Scanning
Following guidance from the Film Washi datasheet I developed this film as if it were Ilford FP4 PLUS. I used Ilfotec DD-X at 1:4 and 22°C for 9 minutes, and am happy with the results. The emulsion itself is relatively thin - which proved painful when loading onto the reel. Also the tape which attaches Washi S to the film spool produces a blue glow (triboluminescence) when removed - which results in feint exposure on the nearby film. I scanned via DSLR and processed the negatives in Lightroom Classic using Negative Lab Pro.
While the final result is difficult to anticipate, I do quite enjoy the halation effect produced by this film. However, due to the unpredictable nature of Washi F paired with poor highlight-retention and prominant grain I won't be rushing out to buy another roll.