Nikon F100 with FPP Redscale

Redscale is an interesting technique to me as it’s just the sort of thing that someone would do by accident somehow and then discover “oh, this is good actually.” Combined with the fact that it’s simply using something incorrectly (exposing film through the base of the film stock so that light hits the red-sensitive layers first), it has just the level of ingenuity and slapshod hackery to make me love it.

I shot this roll at the recommended ISO25, which apparently makes for a ‘mild’ redscale effect: it’s a slow film, but some loss of speed is to be expected from shooting through the far more opaque base of the film rather than directly onto emulsion. I think it’s a pleasing result across the lighting conditions I shot it in, ranging from tail-end of British summer sun and some early autumn overcast. As in the above image, it’s a free ticket to slightly more interesting colour tones than the boring greys of a lot of prefabricated buildings in London, with its colour shift giving a pesudo-monochrome look that highlights tones.

There is still colour to be had, though: as one would expect, reds and oranges sing, with greens and blues ending up a little more subdued than they may be on traditional negative films shot correctly. Hand-holding a camera, even at f/1.4, at ISO25 is a little tricky in the light that London often has to offer: I ended up with some far shakier photos than they should have been. I’ll chalk this up as a learning experience and try to shake less in strong winds in future.

The film shone in mixed lighting from natural and artificial sources, such as in Waterloo station above on a bright day. The dynamic range of the film is surprising, given that (once again) we’re using it incorrectly and exposing through the base, but the shadows never looked over-crushed and highlights weren’t often blown out, other than through mistakes of my own making.

While I have moaned about how slow the film is above, I think it was actually a virtue: I think I probably lean on faster films a little too much to make up for my own impatience. Knowing that I was shooting a slower film and should probably pay more attention to how quickly I moved when taking a picture slowed me down and made me think more about what an appropriate composition might be. It probably won’t be a film I pick up a lot of, but it has broken the disquiet I had had around making use of a some low-ISO black and white I picked up a while ago.