• 1320: St Paul / Minneapolis / opening of Lee Rocker show. (30 Aug.–10 Sept. 2022. hand-rolled Rollei Retro 80S @ EI 80 in K-1000) (on top.)
  • 1333: Maiden Rock Cidery and environs. (25 Sept 2022. hand-rolled Rollei Retro 80S @ EI 80 in K-1000)
  • 1334: I-70 west of Denver and US 24 to Leadville. (6 Oct 2022. hand-rolled Rollei Retro 80S in K-1000)
  • 1336: Leadville and Frisco, CO. (6 Oct 2022. hand-rolled Fomapan 100 @ EI 100 in K-1000) (on bottom.)

Four more rolls, in the five-roll tank. Pre-soaked for nearly eight hours: I realized I wouldn’t be able to start until later after I poured the pre-soaking water into the tank.

During the pre-soak, mixed 1L Caffenol CL in ~850mL water, then topped off to 1L. 16g waterfree washing soda, 10g Vitamin C, 17g iodized salt, and 40g Essential Everyday instant coffee, St Paul tap water. Poured into tank. Agitated 35x over first minute, then 10x over 15 seconds at 28:00. These are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back). Kept orientation the same throughout development: this larger tank leaks a bit.

After 61 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree water, filling and emptying the tank until the water rinsed completely clear, then four more times. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes (that’s now 42 rolls from this batch of fixer, 16 since replenishment), inverting 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 1320

Another rather pleasant roll of Retro 80S, all in all. The first few shots, of plants at home, are rather appropriate in terms of lighting and subject to the film; for the rest of the roll, it’s what was in the camera, and the results were variable.

So there’s some blurry shots taken from the passenger seat of a car in motion; and there’s some murky shots taken on a rather cloudy day in downtown Minneapolis. Some of these (18, 21, 27–29) sort of work; many of them (20, 22–26) do not. The end of the roll, where I was shooting indoors at the concert venue just to take up the end of the roll, were more or less a complete waste.

All in all, I like the look of Rollei Retro 80S in Caffenol CL, but it’s a little darker and muddier than stand-developing in Rodinal.

Roll 1333

Welp, another “Retro 80S looks good in every developer” kind of roll. This was a short roll rolled just to test how it looks in Caffenol, and to see whether I’d accidentally allowed the hundred-foot roll of Retro 80S to be lightstruck (apparently not! thank goodness), and there are some nice rural landscapes on here.

Notably, the sky tends to be blown out (e.g., 03), but tonemapping two-pass digital negatives brings an awful lot of detail back (e.g., 04). A disappointment: Retro 80S doesn’t get great results for vegetation, but then, that’s lots of black-and-white films. (Still, not all; this is one of the ones that isn’t really suitable.)

Not a whole lot of innovative shots here; but nice results for a short experimental roll, and there are some peaceful and enjoyable pastoral landscapes here.

photos posted

Roll 1334

Some very pretty landscape shots in here, especially considering that the whole roll was shot from the passenger seat of a moving car. I’m also reminded again that Retro 80S doesn’t do a great job of separating green tones, which is too bad for landscapes in Colorado mountains, which have a lot of trees and brush. Sometimes the film stock does a great job with the geology, though (e.g., 18, 24). And some of the vegetation shots work well if the lighting of the vegetation provides enough contrast to supplement the film’s own separation of green tones (e.g., 29).

There are places where shooting from a moving car means the corner of the window/roof junction gets jostled into view (e.g., 05, 20), say when going over a bump in the road. But there are some very nice compositions (especially 05, 12, 18), especially given the little bit of control that it’s possible to exert when shooting from a car I’m not driving.

All in all, a pretty roll, but the contrast at 60 minutes is more than consistently works well here.

photos posted

Roll 1336

Another great data point for the “Fomapan looks fantastic in Caffenol CL” argument. Crisp, clean textures, with solid darks and a nice, smooth response curve. Textures of geological formations in particular are really well developed here (05, ).

As with roll 1335, there are some really nice shots (07–09, e.g.) where the sky, the background, and the foreground are all brought into tonal balance by the stand development.

There are some really nice photos showing the contrast of colors in trees’ leaves (especially in the range 07–16 or so), but some of these are marred by developer surge through sprocket holes, and I think that this would have been ameliorated by additional development.

The second half of the roll, shot from a moving car, is less interesting: blurrier, on the whole; less well composed; more likely to be underexposed; more affected by sprocket-hole surge. The first half of the roll makes up for it, though.

photos posted