Kodak BW400CN Film in Greece - Success! (Abandoned Films 13b)

Film Background

Dear Readers, I did it again. The previous roll of long-expired Kodak T400CN film was only partly successful. But this time, it worked.

T400CN was a black and white film designed to be developed in C-41 chemistry, the same as popular color print films. The big advantage for me is that if I scan the film with my Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner, the digital ICE infrared function cleans scratches and dust. It is so effective, it seems like magic. But this only works with films that use dye clouds, meaning color print film or black and white films like the T400CN. The ICE will not work with regular black and white films, like Tri-X. I like traditional silver-based film, but the extra step of cleaning dust flecks adds a lot of extra time in front of a Photoshop screen. 

This film was originally rated at exposure index of 400. For the previous roll, I used 100 because of the age. But the negatives were desperately thin. Come to find out, the laboratory at Evergreen College probably made a mistake with timing or chemical mixture. Regardless, I decided to use EI = 50 in Greece. The film went to Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, and came back rich and full tone. It is fine-grained and high resolution.  

Here are some examples from Messolonghi in western Greece. Click any picture to see the frame at 2400 pixels wide.

Messolonghi

Salt production (Leica M2, 90mm ƒ/4 Elmar lens, deep yellow filter)

Salt mountain (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Messolonghi is surrounded by shallow lagoons used for salt production and fish farming. Hellenic Saltworks S.A. fills lagoons with salt water and then lets them dry over time. They pile the salt into these impressive mountains for final drying.  

Chapel wall at Etoliko, surrounded by salt lagoons (90mm ƒ/4 Elmar lens)

Unused municipal office next to the Garden of Heroes (35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Tourlida village with wood cottages supported on stilts (21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss ZM Biogon lens)

Traditional fishing boat, Klisova Lagoon (90mm ƒ/4 Elmar lens)

All in all, I am pleased. I will use my remaining rolls of T400CN at EI=50. It is a bit slow but quite manageable in normal daylight (but maybe not for a gloomy winter day in Olympia). Stand by for more examples in the future.