Loaded into 1L tank inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film for ~35 min. During the pre-soak mixed 20mL HC-110 concentrate into distilled water to ~800 mL. Emptied out pre-wetting water and poured developer into the tank, topping off with distilled water. Agitated 40x over the first sixty seconds or so, knocked on the tank several times to dislodge bubbles, and then agitated 5x at 20:00 and 40:00. 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 5x/10x/20x in 68-degree tap water. Fixed in fixer 1+4 for 6 minutes, inverting 10x over 15 seconds at the top of every minute. (That’s now 33 rolls fixed in this batch of fixer.) 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 1454

Oh, I like the look of Scala in HC-110, developed as negative rather than as positive film. Really fine detail (look at the bricks on 02A through 04A, for instance!), and lots of dynamic range. The graphic design elements on some buildings (e.g., 06A–08A) are great, too.

The fine details look good on the Elko Trader’s Market shots, too: the grass and metal of the wheels on 12A and 24A, for instance, and the pattern on the china figurine in 17A; and the rope and metal on 29A. The few humans appearing on the roll (e.g., 28A) also have good color and detail on their clothing and skin.

Nothing all that special here, although there’s some nice shots here and there; but some well-executed studies, at least.

Roll 1477

Giving Bergger Pancro another chance because, well, I’m a fool, I guess. There’s plenty to like about it, though: there’s a nice contrasty response curve, with deep shadows that don’t simply lose all detail and turn black; it’s quite crisp in its own way; and it captures a lot of depth in landscapes, somehow. But holy god is there a lot of grain, which seems to be the case no matter how I develop it. The two choices seem to be blowing out shadows to hide the grain or having so much grain that the photo is unusable.

There are some shots that seem to escape this double bind (e.g., in the 18–27 range), but golly, not all that many. The photos of the South Dakota Badlands (28ff) are too grainy and muddy-looking to really be usable.

I should stop buying this film. Not that I won’t keep experimenting with the remaining rolls I already have, but I’m not holding my breath on anything.

Roll 1478

Gotta say, the Badlands shots look a whole lot better on this roll. I really like Rollei Superpan and should shoot more of it. This is slightly overdeveloped and maybe should be left in the soup for 50 instead of 60 minutes, but it’s not so overdeveloped as to be unusable. Really nice contrast here, with grays just a little on the dark side, and the whites in the snow still preserving some detail: Badlands landscapes are beautiful here, especially 03A and 06A. Holy god, look at the texture on the rock on 06A! And 08A is similar and just as gorgeous. But 07A is a really nice deep landscape shot, too, where the valley floor has just the right tone and the frozen river really works to lead the eye towards the back of the shot. 10A works just as well and about the same, though there the leading line is the road through the park, and it’s more sinuous. WOW, I like the opening to this roll.

Similarly, the ice sculptures in the middle are gorgeous; they’re just a little overexposed for the ice, but detail is recoverable, and they work really well to show off the textures of other things in the shots—the tree in the background in 16A–18A have wonderful bark texture. The installations at George Floyd Square have similar well-developed texture; the raised fist sculpture (30A–31A) works well, I think, precisely because it shows the wear on the materials. The cracks in the asphalt and the texture of the paint on it (e.g., 31A) really shine through onto the film here.

Similarly, the sculptures at the Nyberg sculpture park have gorgeous, solid-looking texture in the bright winter sun; 23A and 24A are especially pleasing there. The bleak winter landscapes are OK but suffer in comparison to those from the Badlands; well, I guess not every shot can be a winner. All in all, though, this roll certainly is.

Roll 1486

Again, the shots from MiA look great on Tri-X stand developed in HC-110. In particular, these are some of the best shots I’ve taken of Guerresi’s Supha, a sculpture that has a permanent place in my head.

The shots from Savage, MN, the day after are also good, though Tri-X is hardly the ideal film to to shoot in bright outdoor sunlight. Still, experimenting with the wide-angle lens down by the railyard at the container factory was fun, and the results sometimes look quite good: 20, for instance, has a dynamic leading line swooping across the lower part of the frame and a graffitied railway car in the background. Hardly a revolutionary composition, but dynamic and pleasing. There are plenty of other "rural loneliness" semi-decayed shots on the second sequence in this roll.

The Dayton’s Bluff shots near the end are nothing special, just a way of using up the roll; but the compositions are balanced and pleasing, and there’s something enjoyable about seeing the sprawl of downtown St. Paul looming in the background from the freeway overpass on, e.g., 32.