• 1293: Dr Evermoor’s Forevertron. (5 June 2022. Kodak Ektachrome 100 @ EI 100.)

One roll of 100-speed Kodak slide film, shot at box speed. Reducing the stand-development time to seventy minutes to see if that improves contrast.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for about an hour. During the pre-soak, mixed 4mL Rodinal in ~250L tap water. Poured developer in and topped off to ~300mL with tap water. Agitated 40x over the first minute, then inverted tank once without further agitating at 35:00. All agitations are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back). After the halfway inversion, let tank sit upside-down, monitoring for leaks.

After 70 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 68 degree water. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes (that’s now 18 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 distilled water and agitated 20x, and hung negatives vertically to dry.

Evaluation and notes

Roll is overdeveloped, and this roll settles for me the question of whether Rodinal 1+75 is suitable for Ektachrome E100: it isn’t, though it might be workable at shorter times.

There’s plenty to like, here, though, and some shots are usable as-is: 02, 03, and 09 are good examples. Others are usable with via-HDR scanning, which restores a lot of detail compared to direct scanning: 04, 05, and 07 are good examples where detail is substantially restored by scanning to HDR and then auto-tonemapping. There’s a feeling in these shots of an abundance of light shining over everything, partly due to the overdeveloping, sure; but also there’s something about the texture, slightly soft, that gives the photos a sort of illuminted-from-within glow in many cases (e.g., 08).

Lots and lots to like about the composition, too, which tends to be balanced but with strong dynamic elements.