Second Try At Home Developing

This one didn’t turn out as well as the last, sadly. I shot a roll of 35mm black and white with the Vivitar V2000 to have something else to develop, mostly. I wanted the practice. Also, I thought it would be fun to play around with different types of film and see how they differed. This one was Fomapan 400 Action film from the Czech Foma company. They’ve been around for 100 years making various types of film, from consumer camera film like this to specialized medical film. I can’t blame the failure on them

We were out and about a couple Saturday’s ago and I thought a local state historic site, Brunswick Town, would make a good subject for monochrome photography. There are ruins, including the walls of a big brick church, that I thought would be fun to shoot. It was a great spot, and we’ll go back and try again for sure. 

I’ll start out with the most successful image from the roll. This turned out much as I’d hoped and the fogging and stray chemical marks that plague most of the other shots aren’t so noticeable here. It’s foggy, to be sure, but not awful. 

Here is a less successful image. The fog is bad and there are what I think to be shadows of the film itself on here. I am pretty sure I screwed up loading the film on the reel. I think some of it overlapped and was touching during the developing process. I was fumbling around in the dark trying to get it on right and I suppose I failed. Surprisingly, it turned out to be more difficult than the 120 film, which is the opposite of what I’d read was the case. But who knows, I’m just clumsy. Practice will make perfect.

I’m not too upset with this photo of Lisa either. I cropped out a bad stain and what’s left is pretty ok. This film has a very noticeable grain, but how much of that is native to the film and how much is due to my developing process, I don’t know. I’ll have to try some more and see. 

This one of an old house up the road from the historic site is pretty cool even with the fogginess. I might be able to pass it off as intentional and artistic. It makes it look kinda spooky for sure. 

In the end, I’m not upset at the results. Mistakes are learning experiences and the film was very affordable. It was a good one to screw up on. The next roll through that camera is going to be Kodak’s professional grade TMax at a 100 ISO. I’m curious to see the differences ad a bit worried about rolling the longer 36 exposure roll onto the spool. We’ll see. I also have Foma film on the way in 120 for the Brownie. I’m excited to compare how it looks with the Tri-X I’ve shot thus far. Here’s hoping the sun comes out someday and I can get out and shoot some more soon.