pinholes

["Amber" <ambersexton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi list,

In response to the numerous pinhole posts. 

I have had two teachers of specialty infrared classes in the past, 
both who had 25 years of shooting infrared (largely HIE as opposes 
to HSI) say that basically they are a fact of life.  They are probably 
a result of the manufacturing process.  One teacher, Sharon Fox 
was never able to get Kodak to admit that but along with another 
unamed person conducted a lot of research and came to that 
conclusion.

Marcia Lippman said something to the effect that one roll can be 
perfect and another can be "like it went through Vietnam".

Sharon suspected it had to do with the slick estar base.

I personally don't have any further answers, and for a while only 
used a water stop bath on my infrared film.  I now use 1/2 strength 
stop bath on all my film including infrared, and have noticed no 
increase or decrease in the pinhole frequency.  Since I only shoot 
HIE not HSI I have found pinholes to be an occasional random 
phenomenon, that I dislike but accept.

One of my favorite images has a pinhole directly in the center of 
the image,  It takes a long time and great care to bleach it out of 
the print and retouch it to blend, and has caused me to resist 
making prints of this image for years.  But it is possible to do well, 
although if a negative is riddled with them probably impractical.

If a negative is riddled with them it has been suggested to me to 
make a perfect print and have it retouched and a 4x5 or 8x10 copy 
negative made.  This is also not very practical but is worth it if the 
image is worth it.


Amber
ambersexton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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