How long should I soup my film for?
The duration of your film soup is totally up to you, whether that be a matter of minutes, 24 hours, or even several weeks. It all depend on the strength and varying types of chemicals you opt to use for your soup. Choosing to use lemons, salt, coffee, soda, and other similar ingredients will result in more subtle and mild effects on the image when soaked for about 1–8 hours. If you’d prefer a stronger effect on the image, leave the film soaked overnight for around 8–12 hours.
Stronger ingredients such as detergent, floor polish, or vinegar, can create more wildly unique effects within just 1–4 hours. If the film is soaked within those ingredients for a much longer time period (ranging from 24 hours to one week), extreme effects will most definitely permeate the images, and you run the risk of losing details in the photographs.
It’s important to consider the temperature when experimenting with the film soup process. If you choose to try the approach of running your film roll through hot water for 10–20 minutes before leaving it to soak in your chosen film soup mixture overnight, your results will differ from formulas that use room-temperature water. Temperature is a significant factor that can affect the outcome of your film soup.
Overall, because no one can fully predict the outcome of the soup, the best thing you can do is trust your gut and tap into your wondrous sense of curiosity when traversing this developing adventure.
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Can you soup black and white film?
Yes, black and white film can be souped. As with color negative and slide film, Black and White films have layers that can be manipulated through the use of chemicals and various substances to produce weird and wonderful images.
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What are the best ingredients for film soup?
There are no strict rules when it comes to creating a film soup recipe. However, there are key liquid ingredients that most experienced film soup enthusiasts gravitate towards. Think of water, cola, juice, wine, beer, coffee, contact lens solution, vinegar, soy sauce, to name a few.
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Should you do film soup before or after shooting?
Film soup can be done either before and after shooting a roll of film. Allowing drying time for the film is necessary in both cases.
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Can you soup 110 film?
Yes, it is possible. Film soups can be done with all film formats, from instant photographs to 120. However, you would need to take a different approach and work with a 110 film specific developing reel.
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Can you soup 120 film?
Yes, 120 (Medium format) film can undergo film soup. All film formats – 35 mm, 110, 120, and instant film – can be souped. The best practice for souping 120 film would be to fully utilize the developing tank reel to ensure an evenly distributed film soup result.
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How to dry my film soup quickly?
Soak, Rinse, and Dry. These steps are instrumental to executing a successful film soup. Once your film has been rinsed, go to a completely dark space and use a hair dryer (set to moderate intensity) to dry out the film. You should be in total darkness while doing this so as to not run the risk of any light leaks in your image.
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Why does my photo lab refuse to develop my film soup?
Labs may be concerned with the possible malfunction and destruction of their equipment when dealing with film rolls that have been souped.
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Can I give my film soup to a lab?
Some labs will accept souped film, but this is not always the case. The chemical residue from your film soup could potentially damage lab equipment and other people’s film. For this reason you should always inform the lab of the film soup, and give details of the chemicals and elements used.
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Can you soup film after development?
Yes, it is possible to do a film soup once your film has been developed. It is not common, however it is a technique that can still be done and produce unique results.