First tank:

  • 1314: The House on the Rock. (24 Aug 2022. hand-rolled HP5+ @ EI 1600) (short roll: jammed in camera) (on top.)
  • 1312: The House on the Rock. (24 Aug 2022. hand-rolled HP5+ @ EI 1600) (on bottom.)

Second tank:

  • 1322: Kinda Fonda Wanda opening for Lee Rocker @ Hook and Ladder, Minneapolis. (9 Sept 2022. hand-rolled Kentmere 400 @ EI 1600.) (on top.)
  • 1327: Freedy Johnson at the Parkway, Minneapolis. (10 Sept 2022. hand-rolled Kentmere 400 @ EI 1600.) (on bottom.)

Four more rolls, in two groups of two each in two-roll tanks, developed at the same time as rolls 1324/1325/1323/1328 are in the five-roll tank. Half are HP5+, half are Kentmere 400, all at EI 1600.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for about ten minutes. During the pre-soak, mixed 10 mL Rodinal in 1L tap water. Poured developer in and topped off with tap water. Agitated 45x over the first minute, then not at all afterward. All agitations are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

After 120 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree water. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 5 minutes (that’s now 34 rolls from this batch of fixer; 8 since replenishment), inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. Reclaimed 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 1312

I’ve recently (as of Dec 2023) been reading Windisch’s Die Neue Foto-Schule, and he’s right that big chunks of vegetation look dull on film; shots 4 and 5 make that really clear. But shot 6, the detail of variegated leaves, is beautiful. And the heavy darks happen to work well for some of the shots, including the water-wheel in 7–9. There are similar problems indoors as with roll 1311; I think a bit more agitation would have helped somewhat. Still, there are some salvageable photos of statuary (11, 13–16, 25) and indoor lighting (very end of roll).

Roll 1314

Short toll because it jammed: this is one of my first hand-rolled films in a quarter-century and the canisters don’t quite sit right in the Pentax. Disappointing, lots of wasted HP5+ here.

What is there is nice and crisp, though: plenty of weird shots of the world’s largest indoor merry-go-round.

Roll 1322

Again, Kentmere just doesn’t push to 1600 as well as HP5+. This roll has an awful lot of mineral spotting on it (e.g., 3/25–7/29)—I’ve been thinking for a while that I should be doing a final rinese in distilled water, and I think this clinches it.

Mineral spotting aside, I think that what is there is still usable in some cases if the spotting is off of the parts of the frame containg the image’s main compoents, but there’s still less dynamic range than I’d like to see, and the standard concert-shooting problems—low lighting, rapidly moving subjects—still apply.

Still, the middle of the roll has some nice shots of the band, clean and sharp, well-timed.

photos posted

Roll 1327

This is Kentmere 400? And it came out this much better than the HP5+ from roll 1326?

Nice.

Part of that is just that the longer lens captured more interesting shots. Avoiding scratching the beejeezus out of the film helps a lot, too, as does keeping fingerprints off of the emulsion. And some of them are really nice and crisp (02), despite the long lens. Of course, there are plenty where subject movement or being jostled, too. There’s also some mineral spotting on a few frames—a reminder I should really be doing a final rinse in distilled water.

But there’s a lot of nice stuff in here: good shots of Johnston in action, putting on a hell of a show. 11A, 12A, 16A, 17A, 19A, 22A, and 33A especially stand out.

Very pleased with this particular concert roll.

photos posted