Retro 400s: To Stand or Not to Stand

[kiss-o-matic]

Did my first roll of Retro 400s. For the most part, it's what I expected... contrasty like 80s, but grainier. I had a rather challenging day. It was really sunny, but as you can imagine, the buildings can get in the way. Generally I like shadows and whatnot, but some of the shots lost a lot of shadow detail.

I used a recipe off of filmdev.org, which called for agitation for 10 seconds every minute. I think that was a bit high. I'm also wondering if I should try stand.

The first two shots I like. The third one, obviously is going to be a challenging shot due to the hat, and that the monk is wearing black. I shoot in Ae, and a lot of it from the hip for this roll. Thus, I'm not able to frame or meter very accurately. This shot, ironically, I could have if I was quick, but I wasn't. Could I have saved a little bit of the shadow detail w/ stand? Note that I tweaked it slightly in Photoshop.

This was shot on a Zeiss Ikon ZM w/ the Nokton 35mm F1.2.


This Photo Has no Title by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Tuckered Out by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Monk / Ginza (1) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

[shadowfox]

I quite like how the film looks including the grain.
Are you using the Rollei developer?

I almost always find 10s per minute agitation is high, no matter which developer, let alone tedious.

 

[kiss-o-matic]

I quite like how the film looks including the grain.
Are you using the Rollei developer?

I almost always find 10s per minute agitation is high, no matter which developer, let alone tedious.

Hi

Yes, I'm using Rodinal R09. And yes, I think 10s per minute is just a bit too high. Sometimes I like really, really moody contrast but even then I think 4 per minute is ample.

The grain of course is a question of taste. I don't find it bad, but the problem I'm facing is sunlight. These were shot at 400 ISO, and I find these days I have a very limited window to shoot in sunlight... then a more limited window with interesting subjects in it. I'm thinking I might need to go up to 800 to keep the shutter speed at something usable for moving targets, and which point grain is going to become more of an issue.

Want to sort out the exposure first, though. In nice, clear days, there are shots that will hit both extremes of dynamic range. Lots of buildings here casting shadows. There was one photo I didn't post at all, b/c the highlights were so blown, and the shadows pitch black. It was only one out of 36 so I'm not going to cry foul, but would like to be more in touch w/ my developers on how to handle that stuff. I might try DD-X. Should be nice on grain, but not sure about the contrast.