More stand development

As I am running low on developer and being a bit lazy as well I thought I will develop the roll of Rollei 100 doing stand development. I am fairly pleased with the experience given Rollei 100 is not amongst my favourite films and also my previous experience with it was mostly grain and burnt areas. This time though I got very clear film and quite good shadows. very little grain as well.

There is a bit of fogging which is I suspect the result of the developer being slightly warm and also London being quite muggy and warm yesterday which probably has resulted to the developer going up to 21 degrees while standing.

It has also been a very pleasant suprise to see how well it behaves at low light and slow speeds. Sharp! Sharp, ladies and gentlmen! This was shot at 1.7/30!

I developed this in R09 deluting it 1 to 100 and leaving it stand for 60 min and agitating in the first 30 seconds and once at 30 minutes. I didn't use any stop bath, only water and fixer for 5 minutes. 

Flying high

My ghost friend

I have always been very sceptical about shooting film in low light, let alone 100 ISO film in the middle of the night. As you can see it is quite possible. This was an exposure of about 30 seconds and the camera was on a tripod. I like how we are both looking ghost like. 

I have a 1600 ISO film I have been keeping in the fridge for some special occasion, I am not even sure why I bought it or what to use it for. Any ideas?

Rollei 100 vs Acros 100

Ever ready to experiment with film I use, I am still to find the film to replace Acros 100 from my heart. Rollei Retro 100 is ok, fine I would even say. Gives a very good contrast, almost no grain when using stand development and Rodinal. However I still can't get quite right the exposure for it...

This is what I'm talking about: 

Burnt areas. Lot's of grain as well. Sharp and good contract though. 

This is how Acros behaves inside, on a grey day outside, without any extra light

No grain. None. I just love this film! It gives really soft greys, warm even somehow tones. Perfect for portraits. 60 min stand development in 20 degrees (might have been even 18 towards the end as it is quite chilly at home), 1:100 dilution in R09 (which is technically speaking Rodinal). The only downside is may be contrast, but other than that this is the best film I have used so far. 

Let me in

I have a few upcoming posts about the photography courses I have been doing recently as well as to share some more images of autumn in London and around. In the mean time the above is an image from my first roll of Rollei 100 film.