autumn

Yesterday I was so curious about my mishap with semi-stand developing in Caffenol that I scanned the roll right away.  Although I forgot to add some potassium bromide to my Caffenol-CL I can’t say I see much of an adverse effect in the scans despite the increased fog. Of course I can’t really evaluate grain in medium format, but the fog wasn’t so bad – much better than what I had with Orwo N74+ even with added KBr. My scanner definitely didn’t seem to have any problems with it. In any case, I’m really rather pleased with how this roll turned out and will definitely be using this method for Tri-X again (probably with added KBr though). The rest of the ingredients were the usual Caffenol-CL mix and agitation was 30sec initially and then 3 inversions after 1, 5 and 15min. Total development time was 30min. The inversions were of the 3sec kind that the Massive Dev App suggests and the development was perfectly even which feels like a huge success, since medium format always gave me trouble with that. The negatives were also quite easy to scan which I rarely experienced with Tri-X. And since I’m so happy with the results I therefore decided to post more than my usual 6 pictures per roll of 120 and split this roll in two posts.  First I want to show you some autumn pictures and tomorrow I show you some other stuff that is somewhat closer to the usual stuff I post.

By the way, at least the first and the last one were shot wide open, probably the 4th one as well. Did I mention that I love my Rolleicord?

All pictures taken with: Rolleicord V, Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 75mm f/3.5.
Tri-X semi-stand developed in Caffenol-CL minus KBr, 30min.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Comments

  • Harry

    Been taking same sort of pictures in B&W in wood near me, I find my negs are flat no matter which camera I use, I alter them in PS with the contrast/brightness setting but then again in a darkroom I would have used grade 3 or 4 paper so why do I feel guilty using PS. Your coffee mix seems to offer a good contrast so I will try your mix this week with some test strips of K400 and C41 in the same tank. I agree your exposure settings are bang on.

    Your Rollei as great glass on it and with your soon to be M6 and XA you are well covered in the camera department but those autumn scenes always make me want to try out a 5X4 or pinhole and a tripod…

    I do enjoy reading your blog always interesting.

    Kind regards Harry

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks Harry, glad you like my blog!
      Ah, don’t you worry about using Photoshop. Scanning is hugely annoying and scans hardly turn out perfect right away unless you use one of those pro lab scanners like the Pakon. Don’t worry about adjusting contrast and brightness, I do it as well. The negatives in this case had the perfect amount of contrast for darkroom printing, but scanned they weren’t quite there yet. I’m still perfecting my scanning workflow though and I’m rather unhappy with Silverfast, so maybe one day I find a software that won’t force me to adjust the levels in post-processing.

      As for my gear: Oh, yes, with the M6, the Rollei and XA I will definitely be set for most situations. I definitely get the large format urge in forests and parks though. One day I will have to try it!

  • Wonderful black and white images. I have to admit it’s a long time since I did any developing of films myself. But your account made me want to go back and do it again. Film certainly creates something very different from any digital capture.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thank you for your kind words Otto! If I can inspire you to get out your film gear, then I feel I have done it right! Film is definitely something else, that’s for sure. I just love the atmosphere of it. By the way, did you do workshops already when you were still using film gear? I was wondering about that the other day when you were writing about your workshop experiences. I guess nowadays something like your Cuba workshop with only film gear would be quite difficult, because there wouldn’t be any feedback in this short a time. I guess in Tokyo there are still 1h labs!

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