I went to visit my mom in South Haven last weekend and we took the Mamiya down to the lighthouse. I also took a roll of color film, but I won’t get that back until next week (the lab gets a whole week off for Easter. Wimps.)

I have a bunch of photos to process (I hope to have them tomorrow), in the meantime here are a couple of color photos which have been knocking around for awhile (snow! gah!) The color seems a little harsh to me, but it may just be my monitor, since they look fine at home.

The real issue, though, this is my back yard. Again. Seriously, I need to get out more!

I put these up at Flickr last week, but totally forgot to put a selection here. Duh.

These were all taken with the Nikon F3 (35mm) with Fomapan 100 iso film and developed in Rodinal (1+50) for 8.5 minutes. Uh. Not much to say here. Fomapan film is Czech, which I find amusing, and it was a royal pain to get wound onto the reels (it’s kind of thin), but the 35mm didn’t crinkle as badly as the 120 that was similarly thin.

I have some film to pick up at the lab. Color film. That will be different.

I meant today! Anyway, more pictures from last weekend.

These two are from the Argus. I love how moody they are. I think the vignetting comes from the film roll having rewound loosely (again). The film was 400 TMax, developed in Kodak D76 for some amount of time.

These are from the Mamiya, the film was TMax 100 and developed in D76.

I have to say, I’m getting a little sick of snow.

I took some more still life photos this weekend. More of these turned out than the last time, but I’m still not thrilled with the results. I’m having two issues (maybe you feel there are more, please feel free to let me know, as I’d really like to improve my skills): lighting and depth of field. I’m taking these in the southwest corner of our house, which is not at all ideal for natural — when the sun is shining in, it is too harsh, when it isn’t it’s too dark. I have one light on the table, it can give some interesting effects, good and ill. Also, the Mamiya has a very shallow depth in close up, so I’m not getting as much in focus as I would like. Next time, I need to really crank up the f-stop (I didn’t write down my settings, but I’m sure I could have gone with a smaller aperture).

I do like the compositions, for the most part. And I also like the background set-up, which is a big piece of light green linen draped over some magazine holders. I think it provides just enough texture to be interesting but not overwhelming (I have plans to sew this linen into a dress, so I’d better start looking for something else!) The flowers were too tall for the set-up.

I’ll have more photos to post tomorrow. It was a film and developing intensive weekend.

I took these last week with the Mamiya and developed the roll this weekend using stand developing (1+100 Rodinal, let stand for an hour with gentle agitation for first 30 seconds, then at the 30 minute mark). I think I’m going to give up on that technique. These are ok, but only after some levels work in Photoshop because there was so little contrast in the negatives. I think I need to read up more on what exactly the point of stand developing is.

We got a lot of snow last week and I stayed home and took a lot of pictures of it, a few of which worked out (I would have had more, but for a developing issue).

These two were taken with the Argus and are the only two that worked at all because of two factors: I don’t think I was focusing very well (I have to guess at how far away things are and I am not good at that), and the film was winding very loosely onto the spool which I discovered upon opening the back of the camera (120 film doesn’t come in a light tight cartridge, but a roll with black paper backing which is fine under most conditions unless it winds incorrectly). I know why the last vestiges of the Christmas tree are in the pool, but my family already thinks Len is kind of nuts, so best not to explain.

These were all taken with the Nikon F3 with Kodak TMax 100 ISO and developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6.5 minutes. Unfortunately, the film should have been left in the developer for 7.5 minutes. These are ok, but it’s hard to tell if exposure problems with others were in camera or developing. Thinking about it, I remember deliberately going with slight overexposure while taking the pictures as it was quite overcast and I wanted white snow (rather than gray). Ah well.

Winter is not the best time for photography. It is the best time for lazy, thus the lack of posting.

Last weekend I experimented with still life and a different developing technique. The still life experiment didn’t go very well and the jury is still out on the developing. These were all taken with the Mamiya.

For the above, I used Kodak TMax ISO 100 and developed the negative in Rodinal/Adonal* at a 1+50 dilution for 7.5 minutes. I’ve read various opinions over at Flickr about the merits or lack thereof of developing TMax in Rodinal, mainly that there is a grain problem. These seem fine to me.

These three were taken on Efke (from Croatia), ISO 50. I wanted to try my hand at a technique called stand development. I diluted the Rodinal to 1+100 (1 part Rodinal and 100 parts water), put in the negative, agitated gently for 30 seconds then let it sit for an hour (with a gentle agitation at 30 minutes). I had some problems getting the negative onto the reel, it is very thin and I was using a changing bag which was making my hands sweat. Also something happened in camera, you can see in the top photo that the film backing is showing through, or something. Otherwise, I don’t know. The pictures themselves aren’t great and the developing technique neither helps nor hinders. Aside from the crinkling, I’m not sure I see a difference between these and the TMax.

File these under try again.

*Rodinal is an old formulation which is now being made under the name Adonal. Almost no one refers to it as Adonal, which I suppose makes sense when one is talking about an anachronistic product, but confusing nonetheless.

I had a few rolls of color film hanging around and finally made it over to the lab to get them developed (I do not develop my own color film: it apparently requires a level of precision that I don’t think I am capable of).

These are from the Contax. 10 of the 24 frames didn’t get exposed at all, some at the beginning, some in the middle and some at the end, I don’t know what that is about. I also had trouble focusing, so a bunch more are blurry.