Kodak 4125 copy film

Today we have Kodak Professional 4125 copy/duplicating film. I found this on the Bay after shooting many other copy films and decided to see what results I could get. This 4x5 box expired July of 1980. Duplicating film is not intended for in camera use but for producing copies of either negatives or positives, in this case, continuous tone originals. Being a medium to high contrast orthochromatic dupe film, I shot a few portraits (not the most flattering or easiest way to start) but was still happy with these unique results I achieved. I don’t always abide by the 1 stop per decade guideline when it comes to BW films, so I started by metering this film at 12 ISO per the data sheet under artificial lighting. Developing in trays with HC-110 dilution B (what I had already mixed up) is not recommended due to the short times. I would rather recommend dilution E or H, which I will try next time. With such short development times, uneven negatives and lack of control becomes an issue.

I was quite pleased with my first few sheets. Especially being portraits under mixed lighting. From what I understand, exposure and development combos will alter contrast and highlight/shadow detail greatly. This is where I could dive deeper and really find what works best. Seeing this is a long discontinued film, I only have the 25 sheets to work with. More experimentation will be a must but I am just happy to have had results so far. I often see this film popping up on Ebay, all well expired of course. With my venture into odd sheet films/copy films, it’s always about experimentation and knowing it won’t last. But that’s all the fun!

The above image was exposed a bit different than with mixed strobe and ambient light. In full daylight I figured the speed would almost double, if not more. For this I doubled the ISO and added a CPL filter. Since this copy film is only sensitive to blue, green and UV light, I developed by inspection under red safelight. This is helpful when experimenting with exposures and processing times, as I am used to with wet/dry plates and other ortho films. So far this emulsion, in my opinion, rendered lovely, unique and very detailed images. Yes, there is probably many ways to manipulate results, which is the fun in shooting and processing odd films like this in camera. This is my very brief and very unscientific look into my experience so far and thought I’d share! I will be making more blogs in the future about whatever photographic process I’ve gotten into at the moment. Stay tuned….

CatLabs X Film 80