• 1491: Como Park. (6 May 2025. Rollei IR @ EI 25/200 in Minolta XE-7.) (Only roll in tank.)

Loaded inside daylight changing bag. Pre-wet film. During the pre-soak mixed ~9.4mL HC-110 concentrate into distilled water to ~250 mL. Emptied out pre-wetting water and poured developer in to the single-roll tank and topped off the tank with distilled water. Agitated 10x over the first 15 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 six minutes. All agitations are all half-agitations, gently (i.e., gently twisting to a 90-degree angle, then gently back).

After six 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 42 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

Well, for my first time shooting IR film with a visible-light filter, I’d say this is a moderate success. The best shots in a bracketed sequence usually came from the low end of the sequence, with less exposure; later exposures tended to lose the interesting very dark sky appearance that’s a prominent part of what makes this film unusual-looking.

Holy god, is this emulsion easy to damage while handling. Seems like I’m seeing my clumsy thumbprint on every third frame, although really it’s just 21A and 26A. There’s geometric lens flaring, too: I don’t have a hood for the Minolta lens Iused and apparently wasn’t paying close enough attention to the direction of the sun.

The last image on the roll, exposed without a filter at the nominal ISO of 200, also works well; nice to know the film can also be used as a non-IR film without a filter.

photos posted