Four more rolls with standard agitation schedule. Again, these are film types that have been difficult to stand-develop.

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for ~10 minutes. During the pre-soak mixed 45 mL Rodinal into distilled water to ~900 mL. Poured developer in to the five-roll tank and topped off the tank with tap water (to approx. 1.15L). Agitated 15x over the first thirty seconds or so, knocked on the tank several times to dislodge bubbles, and then agitated 5x every 30 seconds to a total development time of nine minutes. All agitations are all half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree angle, then gently back).

After 9 minutes, disposed of developer, rinsed in 70 degree water. Fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes, inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. (That’s now 45 rolls fixed in this batch of fixer, 20 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 1331

This is badly overdeveloped, more or less a total loss. I don’t know what the guys at Film Washi were smoking when they recommended this development procedure, but I want some of it.

A few shots (12, 13) are recoverable by tonemapping multipass digital negatives, and they look good: good enough that I’m kind of looking forward to shooting the next few rolls I’ve already purchased. There’s something hard to articulate about the sort of depth that the film gives to vegetation when it works well; it’s very much the kind of effect that reading Akira Lippit’s Atomic Light too many times would lead you to expect that an X-ray film would give.

But almost all of the tonemapped images are still low-contrast and very grainy, and for the most part, this roll is a loss.

Roll 1345

Another nice, clean roll of film showing how well FP4+ does in more or less any developing situation. There are minor spots where it looks like there ws uneven development (e.g., 05, 07, 25), and all in all I’d prefer to stand-develop FP4+ in HC-110, but these came out plenty clean.

Not a whole lot going on here compositionally, and it’s unfortunately kind of a boring roll in terms of subject matter. But there are some nice geometric arrangements (11, 15, 16, 25) and some moderately pleasant industrial landscapes (08–14).

Roll 1374

Pretty good-looking roll, for a concert. Wish I’d found a better vantage point, though the spot where I was sitting was OK. As always, the standard caveats about concert photography apply: the lighting was low and subject to unannounced change; the subject was moving relatively fast, given the slow shutter speed necessary; other people tend to step right in front of the camera at crucial moments; and shooting film makes all of these concerns more acute.

That said, there are some really nice shots here that I’m quite happy with. 04 and 06 are good, non-blurry, well-timed shots of Webley with his accordion; and 10 and 11 are great shots of Webley performing one of my favorites of his songs. 14, 15, and 17 are also nice action shots. 24 is similarly good on timing and composition, but the exposure is a little off for the lighting, leaving Webley’s face more washed out than I’d like, and grain is more prominent and noticeable. (25 and 28 are almost the same shot executed with more luck.) 32 is one of my favorite action shots from any roll that night.

Roll 1386

My intent on getting this little point-and-shoot was that it would be easier to get a non-SLR into concerts. This turns out to be true, but this little Konica, general photo quality notwithstanding (see roll 1355), just doesn’t do well in concert lighting. Not having manual control over shutter speed is a deal-breaker here.

Nothing usable on this roll.