This is a roll of some rather unforgivable errors:
The fact that something could be seen from this roll is a big
consolation prize for me. Owing to some stupidity, I mistook a roll of
Pan 25 for Retro 400, and exposed it at EI 400. I still thought it was
a roll of 400 right before I was ready to prepare the chemicals for
it. If it wasn't raining and lightning outside when I finally had the
realisation of my
stupid deed, i certainly felt that i was struck by lightning. But
thanks to The Film Developing Cookbook, a few of my relatively "over-exposed" shots are rendered
scannable.
Second error, the film was scratched basically from the last frame to the first.
Third, while i tried to hang the film up for drying, it dropped onto the bathroom floor and collected some dust. While not a costly mishap, it was a bit of a nuisance to have to roll it back onto a reel and have it washed again. Perhaps the scratch came from the fall.
The dilution and development time were more principle-based than empirical. But perhaps the principles of the Cookbook were empirical enough.
View On Black
Self development:
Rollei Pan 25 120, EI 400 (yes!)
Kodak HC-110, 1+99, 67 minutes (standard agitation), 20C
Change of Focus, Lightfeather Stardust, and 1 other people added this photo to their favorites.
xpat. 48 months ago | reply
I had a camera once (35mm) which would scratch almost every roll of film ...
Glad to hear you recovered your work! This is a nice shot.
Brian C~~ 48 months ago | reply
thanks. i certainly hope that my camera hasn't grown a thorn inside. it didn't have that problem before, so i want to believe that the scratch came from an isolated event. So what happened to your 35mm camera?
xpat. 48 months ago | reply
The camera was an old Russian Zenith, I had it when I was 15 yo, all manual and my light metering system was based on a cardboard matrix with "sunny, cloudy" readings on it.
I think I'm going to start developing my b&w films by myself again, I'm not very happy with the work that the lab does, and I like how you can get great tonal range when you extend development time.
[museopath] 48 months ago | reply
Dropping film has always been a pet peeve of mine... I really should get back to film~ I have my own bathroom now... XD
Brian C~~ 48 months ago | reply
expat.37 > which lab do you take it to? i think color 6 in central does a decent job - no surprises. i used to take colour and b/w to another lab in wanchai, but since they moved to quarry bay i haven't had my film done there.
Bakonawa > then you can use your hanging negatives as a shower curtain!
xpat. 48 months ago | reply
I use Color6 exclusively, service is fast, results are acceptable but inconsistent at times: I get different color cast on my colors, and it did happen that my b&w's were "unevenly" processed, especially the fixing part of processing (uneven yellow smudges on the film). It becomes visible especially if you shoot landscape and you have plenty of sky in the picture, all imperfections become obvious ...
Brian C~~ 48 months ago | reply
hmm my experience with them isn't as bad as yours. too bad in hk, choices of developer are really really limited, as far as i know, shops in hk carry Kodak's D76 and HC110 (may be T-Max's developer too), and Ilford's developer. If you find something else, please let me know too. :)
Takahiro Yamamoto 48 months ago | reply
It was good that you got some nice images! I love the serious look of the woman here!
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Seen on your photo stream. (?)
Linc ~ 48 months ago | reply
The end result is still very nice. I am not a darkroom person.
Silvia Cachia 48 months ago | reply
i don't know how you do it, but this is a master picture.........with scratch included.......................darkroom must be fun, and challenging at times....good for your talent