• 1220: Minneapolis: Hwy 55; Lowry Hill (18 Mar 2021. Lomography Potsdam Kino = Orwo UN54 100 @ EI 100. On top.)
  • 1217: Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and environs. (8 Mar 2021. Arista .EDU 100 @ EI 100.)
  • 1213: I-35 south of Twin Cities (25 Feb 2021. Rollei RPX 25 @ EI 25.)
  • 1214: Washburn Park water tower, Twin City Model Railroad Museum. (28 Feb 2021. Kentmere Pan 100 @ EI 100.)
  • 1212: Twin Cities and drive south on I-35 (??? to 25 Feb 2021. Arista .EDU 400 [which is actually Fomapan 400] @ 400. On bottom.)

Pre-wet film in tap water for an hour. Changed water several times: something is bleeding a dark blue guck into the water. Kept changing water until it was clear. Mixed 12mL Rodinal in 1L of water, poured that into the tank, then topped off the tank with water to ~1.15L. Agitated 20x over first 30 seconds, then 5x at 30:00. Switched orientation of tank at 30:00 to avoid bromide drag. Developed for 60:00.

After development, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree tap water, filling the tank and emptying, then doing the same again, but agitating 5x, 10x, then 20x. Fixed for 6 minutes (that’s now 12 rolls from this batch of fixer), inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of the every minute. Recaptured fixer and rinsed for ten minutes, then emptied tank. Used Photo-Flo with distilled water, agitated 20x, emptied tank, shook rolls, and hung negatives vertically to dry.

Evaluation and notes

Roll 1212

There’s apparent uneven development in some frames (01, 02, 14, 25, most of 32–37) and visible haloing in some (03, 06, 12, 14), especially the HDR version. Maybe increasing the agitation schedule to 2 gentle half-agitations (90-degree rotation rather than complete inversion) every twenty minutes would solve both problems?

It is apparently impossible ever to be completely successful at keeping the cat hair away from the film, no matter how hard I try.

Nevertheless, I quite like some of these. The texture on the brick buildings at Forgotten Star work well with the film’s grain, and HDR processing brings out details from the shadows that are lost on standard scans. The non-HDR scans, though, are nice and contrasty, and there’s some shots in this roll (10) that work best as high-contrast scenes with lots of black and white. HDR processing works well in the snow-and-ice segments, though.

Roll 1213

Also has unevenly developed frames (e.g., 01, 02) and haloing (e.g., 04). Will try upping the agitation a little bit here, too.

HDR frames often bring out detail in snow scenes that would otherwise be lost, e.g. 04, 05, 07, 15, 23–27.

The odd distortions on 16-18 (and, less prominently, a few other places) are perhaps light piping? That’s what the negatives look like.

This low-speed film is super fine-grained, and the tonal graduations are gorgeous. I like this in Rodinal.

Roll 1214

Not sure how I feel about this Kentmere 100. it’s kind of grainy for 100, and I can’t tell yet if I like the look of the grain as a whole. But the carvings at Washburn Park water tower look good with it.

An upside: it did better than expected when brought inside at the rather dark museum. On the other hand, a flaw of those pictures is often their narrow depth of field, which is the price of trying to use medium-speed film indoors in a dark museum.

As a definite downside, it’s a pain to handle because the base is a little thin, and I seem to have scratched the negatives without trying. Maybe I should be using a hardening fixer. Or cleaning out my daylight bag more often. Or cleaning the surrounding environment even better than I already am. Or not using film whose emulsion has to be babied quite so much.

Roll 1217

Haloing is pronounced on HDR-type scans of some of these (05, 21-29, 49). Comparative filter shots are an interesting experiment here. Best shot of frame IDs 9–17 is definitely 13, the blue filter; it makes the haze in the distance turn ghostly, and lightens the dead vegetation enough that it elevates the photo to being high-tone. But there’s little visible difference in 23–29, perhaps just because the sky was so overcast that day. In 31–39 the clear winner is 39, the orange; it lightens up the dead vegetation and darkens the sky.

photos posted

Roll 1220

A few negatives (e.g. 30, 31) look insufficiently or unevenly developed, but basically the Rodinal semi-stand worked well here. Tipping up the agitation a little bit probably wouldn’t hurt, though.

All in all, though, this is a smashing success: the film really does look like early 20th-century movie film (well, it basically is), and it’s got a kind of ponderous gravitas to it. Texture is wonderful on the grain silos and bricks throughout. I’ll want to shoot more of this.

photos posted