After getting back in to film photography I’ve shot a wide variety of film stocks. I decided to spend some time with just a single stock/developer combo with the goal of learning how it use it well.

Because it’s inexpensive and readily available I picked Ilford HP5 as my stock. And because I like how it works, I picked Rodinal 1+100 as the developer.

With my first roll of HP5 I wanted to take careful exposure notes, detailing what parts of the picture I put in to each zone.

But then I fogged the film with a light leak during development, making the whole thing kind of invalid. Guess I’ll try again with the next roll of HP5.

But a few photos turned out ok.

I used the white ring in the middle to set exposure, aiming to have that area up around zone 7. The wide open lens gives a decent background, though those thick flower steps make odd lines. And it seems like the stem supporting the main flower kind of comes from nowhere.

I’ve taken a ton of photos of these little ceramic gnomes. Up until now they have been hanging from branches in a bush. But the bush has been removed, so the gnomes apparently migrated to this nearby tree. Average metering here. Maybe needs a little more exposure, and a step or two closer to the subject.

These were shot using a Pentax Spotmatic ii. I used the 50mm/1.4 Takumar the whole time. Developed in Rodinal 1+100 @ 22C for 12:45. I tried following the agitation method recommended in the Rodinal spec sheet — constant for the first minute, 1 inversion every 30 seconds afterwards. Scanned using my home scanning setup.

Full album

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