Three more tonight. Really getting through that developing backlog. Finally!

Loaded into the 1150mL tank inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for ~10 minutes. During the pre-soak, mixed 15mL Rodinal in ~900mL distilled water. Poured developer in and topped off with distilled water. Agitated 20x over the first minute, then five inversions at 30:00. All agitations are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

After one hour, disposed of developer, rinsed in 70 degree tap water. Fixed in fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes (that’s now 26 rolls from this batch of fixer), inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. 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 1365

Well, on the upside, I know that stand-developing underexposed PF2 in Rodinal 1+77 doesn’t work.

Regardless of the film being underexposed, it’s also unevenly developed, which suggests that more agitation is needed. There should be plenty of Rodinal in the soup this time, so that doesn’t explain it.

A few of the photos (e.g., 19) almost work, but none of them are usable.

Roll 1380

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.

Roll 1401

Damn, glad I got something usable out of this tank. It still shows signs that it would benefit from more agitation, though: some frames show clear areas of uneven development (00, 02) or sprocket surge. But many of these imperfect frames are still usable with cropping or digital alteration.

FP4+ really is a beautiful film for geology, in addition to its many other applications, and I’m once again wondering why I don’t shoot more of it. It’s got a nice, even response curve that neatly separates different geological formations (e.g., 03), cleanly shows the effects of light and shadow on formations while keeping their texture visible (05), and shows bands of different rock strata in formation quite nicely (that’s most of the roll from 13 onwards). The mountain goats don’t show up well in 17–19, but that’s a function of their relative size in the frame even at the end of the zoom lens’s range, not a fault of the film.

It works well for landscapes along the way through the park, too: 06 neatly allows for the geology, the road, the distant prairie in the background, and the sky all to be separated and easily parsed visually. The vegetation on the last half-dozen or so shots of the roll works decently well because it’s uniformly grassy and doesn’t have to be visually separated from other vegetation of a different type or at a different distance.

All in all, I’m really happy with this roll.

photos posoted