• 1310: Gov’t Mule at Canterbury Park. (16 Aug 2022. HP5+ @ EI 1600) (on top.)
  • 1335: Leadville Mineral Belt Trail. (6 Oct 2022. hand-rolled Fomapan 100 @ EI 100) (on bottom.)

Two more rolls in one of the two-roll tanks,.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for about an hour. During the pre-soak, mixed 500mL Caffenol CL: 8g washing soda; wait for it to dissolve and stop bubbling; 5g Vitamin C, wait for it to dissolve and stop bubbling; 10g? iodized salt, wait for it to dissolve and stop bubbling; 20g instant coffee, wait for it to fully dissolve and for bubbles to dissipate, all in 400mL tap water, topped off to 500mL. Poured developer in. Agitated 20x over the 30 seconds, then 10x at 30:00. All agitations are gentle half-agitations (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

After 60 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed thoroughly in tap water degree water. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 7 minutes (that’s now 38 rolls from this batch of fixer, 12 since replenishment), 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 1310

It was too dark to shoot. Roll is a total loss. Caffenol is not the ideal developer in this circumstance.

Roll 1335

Really beautiful roll: Fomapan once again looks great in Caffenol. There’s a smooth, even tone gradation, and the late afternoon sunlight really shows off the various subjects on the roll well. The machinery on the Leadbelt Mineral Belt Trail has nice sunlit/shadow separations (01–04); so do the abandoned structures that have been semi-preserved (05–07).

Similarly, the landscapes with the dying vegetation are also gorgeous: there’s plenty of visual contrast and separation, and the lack of greery on the vegetation helps to promote visual separation between elements. The lighting on the cloudy afternoon, where the clouds are shifty constantly, provided plenty of lighting shifts that I think I took pretty good advantage of. For instance, there’s plenty of side-lighting that leaves the rest of the landscape shadowed (e.g., 15, 16). And there are plenty of shots where the clouds themselves have lots of moody detail without requiring that the rest of the landscape be too dark to have any detail left (e.g., 17, 18). And shots where clouds, vegetation in the middle distance, rocks in the foreground, and mountains in the distance all have details and none has to drop into shadow or be blown out into white highlights (e.g., 19, 22, 24, 29, 31) are kind of magical; compressing the dynamic range of the image into something that the film can represent is one of the real benefits of stand development.

Really beautiful roll. I’m super-happy with the results.

photos posted