• 1425: Molly Maher and Stephen Murray opening for Freedy Johnson at the Parkway Theater. (3 March 2024. Hand-rolled Kentmere 400 @ EI 1600 in Minolta XE-7.) (unknown location in tank.)
  • 1426: Molly Maher and Stephen Murray opening for Freedy Johnson at the Parkway Theater. (3 March 2024. Hand-rolled Kentmere 400 @ EI 1600 in Minolta XE-7.) (unknown location in tank.)

Loaded into the one-liter tank inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for ~20 minutes. During the pre-soak, mixed 14mL Rodinal (5mL/roll, plus 1mL/roll/stop pushed) in ~900mL distilled water. Poured developer in and topped off with distilled water. Agitated 40x over the first minute, then one more at 60:00. All agitations are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

After two hours, disposed of developer, rinsed in ~70 degree tap water. Mixed up a new batch of Arista fixer 1+4 (Jesus, does that stink, even compared to other fixer). Fixed 6 minutes (that’s now 2 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

All in all, these came out pretty well. The standard caveats about concert shooting apply: performers are moving around and the lighting means that the aperture is open and depth of field is small; and there’s a fair amount of luck. But there are some good shots here: a lot of the 10–15 range in 1425 are particularly good shots of the opening acts, in particular, and so are many in the 20–27 range, plus the end of that roll. 1426 has some nice relatively close-up shots of the performers’ faces and upper bodies, nice portrait shots; and I was having more luck with timing and composition and lighting than on the previous roll.

All in all, these are rather overdeveloped: the Parkway is pretty well lit for a concert venue, and stand development would have been good enough; pushing wasn’t really necessary. Faces and other highlights were blown out in a lot of shots, although there are plenty of instances where it’s correctable in post-processing.