• 1096: Parker snowfall. (Tri-X 400 at box speed.)
  • 1091: Lunar eclipse. (TMax P3200 at box speed.)

Different Kodak films in the same cannister. This clears out my film backlog! Both are on steel rolls in the 120 tank.

Improvised Caffenol CL: I’m short on instant coffee, so I saved ~500+ mL of coffee from today’s strongly brewed pot in the hope that that will make up the difference.

In 450mL cooled, room-temp (68 degrees) coffee, mixed 8g washing soda, 5g Vitamin C, 8g iodized table salt; let stand five minutes; added 13g instant coffee (Folgers). Mixed each into room-temp coffee in indicated order, shaking each to ensure it is fully dissolved. Added coffee at room temperature to 500mL. Let stand five minutes. Wow, it’s foamy this time: lots of bubbling. Part, but not all, of this is just that it’s easier to see bubbling against a solution that’s black from the beginning because it starts with coffee than it is to see bubbles in a solution that’s transparent because it starts with water.

Adding more iodized salt because it seems like previous results are pointing in that direction, and because P3200 is a high-speed film. This is basically the low end of what Reinhold suggests for high-speed films, so it may still not be enough.

Poured out pre-wetting water (pink! but only on the bottom half of the water, where the roll of TMax was), filled and rinsed again several times until water was clear, then poured in developer and started timer. Agitated 30x over first minute, then tapped bottom of tank and let it sit on edge of sink. At 35 minutes, agitated 10x over 20 seconds. Disposed of developer, rinsed clear, then filled tank and agitated continuously for one minute. Let 68-degree water flow into tank and overflow while performing a fixing test.

Fixing test: Exposed part of strip of each film to fixer for 30 seconds, then dropped them both in and measured clearing time. Tri-X was 40 sec, TMax P3200 was nearly two minutes! Well, Kodak does say it requires extra fixing time. Calculated fixing time is therefore about 4-6 minutes for the TMax. Poured in fixer, agitating 10x at top of every minute for 7 minutes to be safe. Recaptured fixer (that’s now 28 rolls, 18 after replenishment), then rinsed for ten minutes in cold (60-degree) water.

Finger-squeegied, cracked like a whip, finger-squeegied again, then hung to dry, clipped horizontally.

Evaluation and Notes.

Roll 1091

This roll is more or less useless: no detail in the moon, and/or not sufficiently focused. Well, I was shooting blind.

Roll 1096

This roll seems to be overexposed, but some frames are still usable. Some shots have a fair amount of grain in the sky again: more iodized salt? Just give up and switch to KBr?

photos posted