asleep

Trying out new developers is always a bit of a scary thing, because you might ruin some perfectly good pictures in the process. Of course I try not to experiment with important rolls, but sometimes with street photography you don’t know what you got. Sometimes those outstanding pictures are hard to predict. So, when I decided to finally start the bottle of HC-110 that I got a little while back I was a bit apprehensive about choosing the right dilution and time for the film I was developing. For a while I was still going back and forth between dilutions and wasn’t quite sure how much liquid I’d need. However, I had already loaded the tank and with two rolls in the Jobo tank without the extension I realised that I would need the extension after all because of the minimum amount of developer to develop the rolls. I decided to take a gamble and get the extension on the tank in the changing bag. Considering how hard it is to get those attached even in daylight it was really quite a silly risk to take. But then, I was in an adventurous mood or else I wouldn’t have wanted to try out the new developer anyway.

Well, I only noticed that the tank was misaligned after I had already the developer in the tank and it was rotating on the CPE-2, too late to do anything about it. I just hoped that it would hold long enough anyway, since I had checked it in the bag and it seemed to be stuck on tight. Of course the damn tank split open in the end, the friction of the rollers was more than the connection could handle, but it only happened during the fixing stage when the film had already been in the fixer for a sufficient amount of time. So, luckily I only lost the fixer and not the pictures. Nevertheless, lesson learned: Never put the damn extension on as an afterthought!

The pictures themselves turned out fine. In some of them the highlights needed some taming, but that’s the result of sloppy guesstimation in exposure rather than development, since most of them turned out well. Other than that I’m rather pleased with the outcome, really not bad at all! Lucky for me, since I have enough of this developer for 333 rolls developed in the Jobo! And yes, the stuff has a shelf life long enough to actually get through this many rolls, not to worry.

In other news, earlier the window was open and suddenly there was an unmistakable smell in the air: Autumn is coming. We will still get a few beach days and I’ll play a bit more with my Canon SureShot WP-1, but it’s clear now that summer is on its way out.

All pictures taken with: Leica M6, Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
dm Paradies 400 developed in Fuji Hunt C41 Kit, Jobo CPE-2.