Saturday, October 2, 2010

A new developing disaster - updated

And it is indeed a disaster. After being able to get out the most fantastic shades ever from the Pentax, Acros and Rodinal I finally thought I got this...


Couldn't have been more wrong. 

I use R09 One shot developer which is basically Rodinal under a new name sold in the UK. It is a very unstable developer and you only mix it before you actually start developing as much as you need. The bottle says that it can keep at least 6 months after it has been opened. 

Nothing of that kind. Apparently the summer heat and the fact there is now very little left at the bottom of the bottle have speeded up my developer going bad.

I am now crying over three spoilt negatives with pictures that could have been great... yes, I am an idiot. However there isn't anything I can currently do, unless someone teaches me some PS magic. Because the result is this bad:

I mean this does not even look like a picture! Seriously!

After Ivan telling me about a super magic called stand development I thought I should try it and when the first film came out like this I thought it must be the stand development or something funny going on with the scanner. So I thought I will develop the film from the Fed. It came exactly the same...

Here is when I thought there is something wrong with the developer. However now, when I am typing this I am thinking could this be the fixer? The fixer actually being exhausted and playing silly buggers...

So you would think I would have stopped here and just gone to buy new developer. I though I would give it one last try... and another disaster. That is the thing with film, that you have to try and there is no undo button. 

Crap altogether. Very disappointed. I have one more film which will hopefully turn alright, but before that I will get a nre developer. 

Update 3rd Oct:
I went to Silverprint today to get a new developer and the guys were not sure what exactly happened to the negatives, but they were as always super helpful and said that on Monday there will be someone who can look at them. I got a new (smaller) bottle of R09, which is the newer formula of the Rodinal which is no longer sold in the UK and a new fixer as well, just in case. Now with the new bottle and one film developed I get a feeling it is almost 100% certainly the developer that has stayed for too long in the bottle.

1 comment:

Иван said...

I deeply am sorry. I thought you had the old formula, which works that way for sure. I will try it on my own and then help you out :-(