Secret agent

Ok, the first picture is not exactly safe for work. It doesn’t involve any real human beings though, just cheap fakes.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Tiny amount of shake in there sadly. Handheld at 1/60 in freezing temperatures. Could have easily gone to 1/125 as it turned out after developing.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

She was spraying stuff on shoes outside a shoe shop.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Singing in the middle of the street. There was obviously a road block from the building site on the crossing. I like the bike in the background.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Those were people watching the singer. The sticker on the backpack says “A heart for children”.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Dussmann Kulturkaufhaus. They have a rather good English language section.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

I think I caught a ghost on this picture …

All pictures taken with: Zorki 4K and Jupiter 12 35mm f/2.8.
Kentmere 400 EI 3200 semi-stand developed (*facepalm*) in Rodinal 1:100 for 150 min (!!!).

 

These are from the second roll that was in the tank during my first attempt to push film. Although these shots turned out pretty amazingly, semi-stand development was definitely not the way to go. It blew the highlights in quite a number of the frames. Obviously at the time I wasn’t even aware that I was doing semi-stand instead of stand development. I also left it quite long – for ISO 3200/6400 I would estimate that 2h are enough; I left it 2 1/2h. Many frames also had quite a bit of shake on this roll, because I was hand-held at 1/60 and f/4.5. I wasn’t really taking care because I was rushing to a doctor’s appointment. Considering how the negatives look I’d say that 1/125 at f/4.5 would be easily doable down in the subway. I fact pushing it to 1/250 or f/5.6 seems ok as well. I will have to test this again when I’m back in Berlin.

I have to say though: The grain in these shots looks much better than what Delta 3200 gave me. Ok, not quite a fair comparison, because it was really really dark when I took my Delta 3200 shots, but I don’t think these are much more grainy than K400 at box-speed! In fact I think this looks much better than all that digital noise my E-PL3 is churning out at ISO 1600. Worth exploring further!

I’m not the only one noticing how very unproblematic the grain is when pushing film with stand-development by the way. It doesn’t have to be Rodinal either. Quite apparently, as I’ve seen in many examples online, the results of stand-developing in Caffenol are similarly good. For pushing ISO 400 film the recipe for correct stand-development (not my failed attempt) is as follows: Rodinal 1:100 (5ml per roll, you can do two in a 650ml tank), 60sec slow agitation (5-6 inversions), 15sec swirling (like a wine-glass) every half hour; ISO 800/1600 90min, ISO 3200/6400 120min. As always in stand-development: 2-3 degrees below or above 20°C don’t make a difference and all film brands need the same time. Very fool-proof! Like an utter fool I completely screwed the agitation scheme for this one up and still got 10 good ones on the roll. That should give you an indication of how fool-proof Rodinal stand-development really is. Other developers are much more unforgiving when it comes to using the wrong agitation scheme and I would have ruined the entire roll. For anyone wanting to learn to develop their own film, this is definitely the way to go.

Comments

  • Being photos taken int he dark I like a certain amount of shake and grain. It makes the photo more real, more alive. Just my idea.
    robert
    PS: not sure why but I like the photo with the scooter.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      I agree, grain is nice. Too much gets distracting though. I really like that there is some grain in those, but not too much. I like motion blur, but that almost imperceptible shake that makes you want to clean your glasses is really infuriating. That’s how I feel about the scooter picture. I still like it though for some reason, just like you ( and I’m glad you do! 🙂 )

  • Great shots Lily…

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks so much, Dave 🙂

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