• 1284: St Paul / Inver Grove Heights. (4 Jan 2022. Film Washi A @ 12 ISO in Pentax K-1000.) (on top.)
  • 1285: Wilson, WI / Mendota Heights, MN / Indian Mounds Park (St Paul, MN). (23–26 Jan 2023. Film Washi S @ EI 50 in Pentax K-1000.)
  • 1280: Twin Cities and environs. (9–12 Dec 2021. Astrum FN-64 @ EI 64 in Pentax K-1000.)
  • 1283: Minneapolis & St. Paul. (26–31 Dec 2021. short roll of hand-rolled Fomapan 100 @ EI 100 in Pentax K-1000.)
  • 1299: Fort Ransom state park, ND / Hjemkomst Center and Hopperstad replica stave church, Moorhead, MN. (10–11 July 2022. Eastman Double-X @ EI 250.) (On bottom.)

More catch-up from my film backlog! Yeesh, I still have plenty to do: I’ll have another 17 rolls, plus one still half-shot in a camera, when I’m done here. Order listed above was uncertain during development due to accidentally spilling the partially-filled five-roll tank inside the changing bag while I was loading it, but has since been corrected. Most of these are experimental rolls in one way or another: two rolls from Film Washi, the first time I’ve ever developed film from them! One is my first hand-rolled roll, and is intentionally a short roll to see whether the bulk film loader and canisters are in fact lightproof or if there’s something else wrong with them. And there’s a roll of Astrum FN-64, which should be the same as FPP Dracula, but I’ve never shot this packaged version of the film stock.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for about six hours, then rinsed several times just before development — that water sure turned interesting colors. (Turns out, as I found out with a later roll, it’s the FN-64.) During the pre-soak, mixed 12 mL Rodinal in 1L tap water. Poured developer in and topped off with tap water. Agitated 20x over the first minute, then 5x times at 25:00. Initial agitations and halfway-point agitations are all half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

After 50 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree water. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes (that’s now 14 rolls from this batch of fixer), inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. Dumped fixer and rinsed for ten minutes in tap water, then emptied tank, added a few drops of Photo-Flo, filled tank with tap water and agitated 20x, and hung negatives vertically to dry.

Evaluation and notes

Roll 1280

FN-64 has a clean, crisp contrast and little visible grain in Rodinal. Again, it’s got that hard-to-define “vintage TV” look. Usually, there’s plenty of separation between the subject and its background.

This roll wound up being something of a grab bag, with a little bit each of several different types of subjects, so it wound up being a good test for the film.It works well for architectural details (02, 03), and pairs well with retro-type subjects (04, 05, 10). Not surprisingly, it’s hard to expose well at night, but evn then it can work well for well-lit subjects (9–12).

It’s also a pretty good choice for the snow-forward shots in the second half of the roll. There’s plenty of detail in the show when it’s exposed well (e.g. 16, 18), and this doesn’t need to mean that there’s no shadow detail, either.

Light piping is a visible problem on the first two shots on the roll.

photos posted

Roll 1283

Once again, I’m pleasantly surprised by just how much I like the look of Fomapan in a Rodinal stand. It’s got crispness and depth, especially when scanned in color. There’s some little snapshots (02–04 in particular) on this short roll that I’m pretty happy with.

Sure is easy to scratch in the changing bag, though. Which is probably why I don’t shoot Fomapan more often.

Roll 1284

Basically a complete loss, which is too bad. More or less every frame has some problems with uneven development, and most of the problems are quite prominent. I don’t know whether this is because Film Washi F shouldn’t be stand-developed in Rodinal, or because there wasn’t enough Rodinal in the tank for development to finish for this roll, or if it wanted more agitation, or … anyway, let’s not do exactly this again.

Light piping is also clearly a problem here, especially right at the very beginning of the roll.

I wonder if metering through a filter that approximates the film’s sensitivity would help when calculating exposure? Or maybe just agitating more often?

Roll 1285

Nice to be getting some acceptable results from the other roll of Film Washi. Film Washi S stand-developed in Rodinal has nice high contrast, much like the sample photos on the manufacturer’s web site. Darks are textured and detailed and weighty. It really emphasizes geometric patterns (e.g., 04). And the grain is quite fine, leading to gorgeous details on some pictures (08, 11).

There’s problems with uneven development here, too (e.g., 08, 12, 23, 26); I’m not 100% sure this isn’t light piping in at least some circumstances.

There’s an awful lot to like there, though. Rich darks are not quite like anything else I’ve seen. I think non-stand development is probably the best way to get better results from Washi films, though, and that’s what I’ll try next on developing them.

Roll 1299

Lots of crisp, beautiful shots here, with fine grain for the film speed and clean, strongly defined lines. The lighting is rather ethereal in the forest shots (e.g., 04, 12, 14), and there’s some nice compositions in here, e.g. 10 has a pleasantly off-balanced almost-symmetry to it. As always, the Double-X wound up overexposed, or perhaps overdeveloped? Maybe it just has a higher effective ISO when souped in Rodinal? In any case, the highlights are almost washd out in direct sunlight, but HDR scanning and tonemapping restores a good chunk of the detail.

Plenty of bright, ethereal lighting indoors in the second half of the roll, too: frame 50 is a personal favorite. There are some nice geometric compositions here, too: 54/56 is probably my favorite.

photos posted