• 1362: Calvary Cemetery walking tour. (16 May 2023. Ilford PanF+ @ EI 50 in Pentax K-1000.) (on top.)
  • 1339: Owatonna (MN) State School / St Paul and environs. (2–8 Nov 2022. Ilford FP4+ @ EI 125 in Pentax K-1000.) (on bottom.)

Still catching up on my film backlog! Still have plenty to do.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for ~30 minutes. During the pre-soak mixed 4.4 mL HC-110 into ~400mL tap water. Poured developer in to the four-roll tank and topped off the tank with tap water. Agitated 40x over the first thirty seconds or so, knocked on the tank several times to dislodge bubbles, and let it sit for one hour. Gave ten additional agitations at 30:00. All agitations are all half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree angle, then gently back).

After 60 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 70 degree water, filling the tank three times and agitating 5x, 10x, and 20x respectively, before pouring out water. Replenished fixer with 300mL Ilford Rapid Fixer stock. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes, inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. (That’s now 37 rolls of film fixed in this batch of fixer, 12 since replenishment.) 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 1339

As with roll 1338, this is a pleasing, stately roll in general: solid grays, bright sky, lots of weight to the shadows. Textures look good on gravestones (03, 05) and brick (06, 08).

The landscapes in the middle of the roll (most of 12–2) are unsatisfying: there’s not enough visual separation between objects receding into the distance to give a satisfying sensation of distance. I think this is at least partly because stand development compresses the dynamic range and flattens the distinctions between the objects in the frame. The industrial landscapes in 21–23 largely work better because the sense of distance is indicated by the diminishing scale of tall objects indicates distance more effectively.

All in all, some nice shots here.

Roll 1362

WTF, PanF+? Another low-contrast underexposed roll that had nothing but unusable shots on it. The other roll in the tank came out fine, so it’s not a fundamental failure in development process; and the roll was only sitting for two months, which is not ideal, but neither should it be long enough that latent image decay was a problem, I would think.

Super fucking disappointing. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a problem with recent batches of PanF+: all I seem to be having is bad luck. At least it was a roll from a local cemetery, which I can go shoot again if I want with minimal trouble.