Pig Sty Avenue

  That swan was most definitely not sharp enough , and I've found out why: hands up. all my fault, but valuable lessons have been learned.  I had an R(25A) filter on the camera by default because I love what it does to the sky. So a couple of rolls of film were underexposed. I jumped to the problem being EC and spent some useful time tweaking the dial on the top right hand side of the F4, so that's a new skill. But a bit more YouTube research suggested shifting the ISO would be better. Well, using older, cheaper film cameras, lacking in bells and whistles, I've become accustomed to using the ISO on the box, and when I got the F4 I was delighted with DX making the process automatic.  This week I realised that my camera, just like a digital one, can get ISO adjusted frame-by-frame if wanted. Duh! And so now, waiting for the rain to abate so that I can get out, I've got a roll of Kentmere 400 in the camera, and I've set the ISO to 50. AND I've learned that the ISO...

  Attempted to make a small batch of PaRodinal on Friday (today's Sunday). As can be seen, it has still to settle: at the bottom a cloudy white layer, (likely from the paracetemol's chalky excipient) topped off by the teak-coloured actual rodinal (one assumes) .  It'll likely be a few days at least before I can use it, and, having a couple of weeks off before returning to the University to teach my final term and wanting to shoot a couple of rolls meanwhile, I was flicking through Anchell (1994) I re-encountered Beutler's A+B (p119). S sulphite and a wee bit of Metol in solution A, S carbonate alone in solution B. So I washed out two heavy 70cl spirit bottles (one had contained brandy, the other rum) I'd been keeping for a job like this, and made up enough Beutler A+B to do 20 rolls of 35mm.  I was encouraged to do this after looking through some old photos on Flickr: taken with an Agfa Isolette with a Solinar lens on HP5 and developed in Beutler. This one, for exam...