• 1450: Northern Plains Botanic Garden, Fargo; Drekker Brewing; Wild Terra Cider; MN State Hwy 210; east of Fergus Falls. (3 May 2024. Film Photography Project Wolfman @ EI 100 in Minolta XE-7.) (on top.)
  • 1441: Bourbon St and environs, New Orleans. (6 April 2024. Rollei Superpan @ EI 200 in Minolta XE-7.) (on bottom.)

Loaded into the 1L tank inside daylight changing bag. Pre-soaked film for ~5 minutes. During the pre-soak, mixed 10mL Rodinal (5mL/roll) in distilled water to 1L. Poured developer in; did not top off, as the water line is well above the top of the reels. Agitated 40x over the first minute, then 5x more at 20:00 and 40:00. Cooled chemicals in picnic-cooler ice bath, then kept tanks in ice bath, to keep temperature at 68 degrees; it’s summer and even the basement is hot. All agitations are half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree inversion, then gently back).

Made a new batch of Arista Odorless (yeah, right) Fixer. After 60:00, disposed of developer, rinsed in ~72 degree tap water. Fixed in Arista fixer 1+4 for 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 distilled water and agitated 20x, and hung negatives vertically to dry.

Evaluation and notes

Roll 1441

Crisp and contrasty here; this works well for street work. I should shoot it for that purpose more often.

There is some rather nice timing on some of these shots (02A, 06A, 13A, 14A), though I’m not always happy with the composition on these shots. Well, that’s one of the difficulties with street work: it’s hard to get all the elements to line up reliably. There are a few nice street portraits here (11A, 12A), too.

I should shoot Superpan for street more often.

Roll 1450

Wow, this film looks great stand-developed in Rodinal. There are places where the highlights are overexposed, and I think that future rolls should definitely be handled differently; but they’re not blown out so badly that they’re irrecoverable, and the shadow detail really pops in some shots (e.g., 09, 13) with the slight overexposure. Maybe uprating future rolls by a stop or so would pay off if they’re going to be stand-developed in Rodinal.

Interior shots from the brewery and cidery are just so-so, and the few portrait shots of the beer server (27, 29) are, again, overexposed. (Though the textures on brick—21—and wood—33, 35—are sometimes quite nice.) This really shines in landscapes and with vegetation—that’s true earlier in the roll at the botanic garden, but it’s much more apparent out in the plains of northwest Minnesota in the second half of the roll. The early-spring plains with their mud and dead winter vegetation look crisp and, well, striking. Grain is quite fine and the contrast is snappy. There’s lots and lots of detail in the clouds, too. Some of my favorite landscapes so far this year are on this roll.

All in all, I’m quite pleased.