I’m an experiential learner. I can read about a topic all I want, but until I actually do something with the information it doesn’t stick in my brain.
I had promised myself I’d develop my first roll of film at home before autumn. And then lots of life happened and I kept not getting to it.
My son and I had plans to meet in Martinsville the other day for coffee and conversation. The weather was good so I loaded a roll of Kosmo Foto Mono into my Yashica-12 and brought it along. After coffee we walked the town square and I exposed all 12 frames.
When I got home I had a couple hours to spare. I decided to just plunge in and develop the roll. I mixed up all of my chemicals, most notably diluting Rodinal to 1+25. Then I consulted the Massive Dev Chart, where I made my first mistake: I used Fomapan 100’s developing time, assuming it’s the same stock as Kosmo Foto Mono. The Massive Dev Chart called for four minutes of development, so that’s what I did. Had I looked closer, I would have found a separate entry for Kosmo Foto Mono and a 3½-minute development time.
My second mistake was in not regulating temperature. Ambient temperature was 72 degrees; the development times were geared for 68 degrees. I didn’t realize I’d made this mistake until it was too late, so I just rolled with it to see how it would turn out. What turned out was dense, overdeveloped negatives.
Something else went wrong that I can’t explain: the last four images on the roll, the ones that were closest to the developing reel’s core, were heavily and uniformly fogged. You could see faint images through the fogging, which suggests to me it was a fault in my developing and not a fault in the camera.
The negatives were so dense that my CanoScan 9000F Mark II scanner couldn’t discern most of the images. It successfully scanned only these three.
I brought them into Photoshop, where I reduced exposure by half a stop. Otherwise, these are just how they came off the scanner.
I lamented my challenges briefly when I posted these on Flickr. I got some advice there that Rodinal doesn’t do well with development times less than four minutes anyway, so I might try a 1+50 dilution next time for the longer development time it gives, which would give me latitude to adjust developing time for the ambient temperature. Or I can stand develop in Rodinal, as temperature isn’t so important.
I admire people who can read or hear about how to do a thing, internalize it well, and then do it well the first time. I’ve never been that person. I always have to bumble and stumble my way through until I figure it out. So here’s my first bumble. Next time I’ll stumble, I’m sure. After that I’ll start to get the hang of it.
Here’s hoping I can try again soon. I really like it that I can shoot a roll of film in an afternoon, and have scans ready to share with you by the next morning.
Get more of my photography in your inbox or reader! Click here to subscribe.
