• 1259: St Cloud/Minneapolis. (18–21 July 2021. Svema FN-64 as Dracula 35mm, at EI 64. On top)
  • 1257: Minneapolis. (12–17 July 2021. Adox CMS 20 II Pro @ EI 10, on bottom)

Last time I tried stand-developing CMS 20 II Pro in Rodinal, the contrast was extreme, and I thought that this was because the midtones were underexposed, so I’m trying to find out whether exposing more and developing with a stronger solution would help to push out the midtones better. Too, my last roll of “Dracula 35mm” was exposed properly, but was a little too midtoney: I’m hoping that I’ll get some more contrast this time around and make the images pop a bit better.

Yes: I’m expecting one of the rolls to gain more midtones (and less contrast) through overdeveloping, and one of the rolls to see the midtone range pushed toward the white end of the spectrum by overdeveloping (pushing around one and a half stops, I think?). That’s because CMS 20 II is high-contrast and the problem with previous rolls is that the light parts of the image (which are the dark parts of the negative) are developed to completion, but the midtones are underdeveloped. Developing longer won’t push the very bright bits much further—they’re already almost as developed as they can possibly get, and exposing at EI 10 this time should already have pushed them over—but that the rest of the film is underdeveloped, so hopefully the procedure will push the midtones out more. But The Svema film is normally toned; the problem I saw with the previous roll is not enough contrast, and pushing will help ameliorate that by lifting the midtones higher. I hope.

Mixed 6.5mL Rodinal into ~400mL distilled water. Pre-wet film for half an hour at 68 degrees, changing water twice. Poured out water, then poured in developer, and topped off with distilled water to ~500mL; agitated 40x over 60 seconds, then 10x over 15 seconds at 30:00, to a total developing time of 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree water, filling, agitating, and emptying, with 5, 10, and 20 agitations after filling. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes (that’s now 12 rolls from this batch of fixer), turning 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. Recaptured fixer and rinsed for ten minutes, then emptied tank, added a few drops of Photo-Flo, filled tank again and agitated 20x, and hung negatives vertically to dry.

Evaluation and notes

Roll 1257

Plenty of really nice work here: the combination of overexposure and overdevelopment seems to pay off, insofar as there are real midtones in places, especially with via-HDR processing. In some cases (7, 9, 11, 15, 33), the texture is deep and wonderful on brick and concrete. There are still places where only via-HDR scanning gets any midtones at all (15, 27, 29, 55, 57, 61, 71).

There are odd places where discolorations on the negative are visible (41–47, 63): bromide drag?

Very high-res scans seem to pay off here.

Photos of the Methodist church seem to be largely overexposed.

photos posted

Roll 1259

Some uneven development here, especially at the beginning of the roll: more time in the soup, maybe? There’s a very nice response curve here, with adjacent objects being separated by local contrast taht the Rodinal brings out by enhancing edges; I really like it in some of the sepia-toned photos (3, 7) and via-HDR scans (3, 6). It also works well when there are areas of contrast in complex patterns (11)

Vegetation seems to be easy to overexpose here (5), and using a red filter (13–16) really blows out everything. End of the roll is largely a loss, in fact. But this is another film I’ll shoot again, given the chance.