With the mild weather today, Amie and I decided to venture out to Lincoln woods. No real photographic goal, just a stroll in the park really. I had a roll of TMAX 100 that I had cut for myself sitting on my desk, so I tucked it in my bag and headed out.

The upside to rolling your own film is that you can decided how many exposures to have on a roll. I typically don't shoot 36 exposures on a given subject, so I prefer to have shorter rolls. That way I can always push process a roll if I need more film speed, and it makes it so I don't waste as much film before I develop the rolls (I don't just click away to end a roll so I can develop it).

The downside to this approach is that I don't always remember how many exposures I put in the roll. I've put as many as 42 exposures and as few as 12. I learned my lesson on the big rolls - they don't fit on the film reel for development, so I ended up scratching up the end of the whole roll, damaging some cool shots. I actually damaged 2 rolls at once (I had used two giant rolls on the same day) of some very important memories.

So, I didn't even know if this roll was any good or one that I had botched (which happens on occasion when I'm rolling), but I loaded it and poked around. The ground was muddy, everything is melting. The sun came in and out from behind clouds, teasing me to try and get contrasty shots.

I've been using such saturated film, Velvia and Fortia, that I haven't been worrying about using a polarizing filter much. I talked to Bill about this and he pointed out that I am really not doing myself any favors by not using the polarizer. It isn't just about the sky afterall, it removes scatter light from the picture in general. I put it out there that this winter I've shot almost exclusively B&W, and he kicked back with the fact that polarizers can be great for B&W too. So, I thought about putting on a polarizer and then remembered that I don't have a step-up ring from Nikon 52 mm lens thread to the 67 mm polarizer that I have for the Hasselblad.

I really need to buy one of those. Lamenting my lack of foresight, I put on a red filter (R25) which makes the complimentary color go darker (blue). It also causes approx. 3 stops of light loss. So, for all intents and purposes I was using ASA 12 film (as far as the exposure went). The light dictated that I shoot at f2.8 @ 30th-60th/second. Alright for the wide angle, but not much fun for the 135 mm.

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I developed the film this evening and an older roll (from when I wasn't sure). First, I mixed up a concentrated quart of Microdol-X developer. It works out to be 120 grams of powder to 32 oz. I like the look of Microdol diluted to 1:3, so I watered it down and danced the processing dance until it was done and dry. Something wasn't right from todays photos. I may have overexposed slightly. I would say that the Microdol wasn't right, but the other roll turned out great. In the end the problem was that the dynamic range was pretty limited - the photos lack contrast and look a little washed out. But, a little clean-up in photoshop to correct the levels and we're in business. It didn't seem to be an exposure problem per se, now that I think of it - it was probably the rather diffuse boring light out when I was shooting.

Unfortunately for me I had a really good feeling when I was looking at the scenes and visualizing the shots. I just didn't translate the image in my head to something that worked in film. The captures of the birds were fun - stalking birds is I suppose everyone's introduction to wildlife photography - but in the interior woods scenes I didn't get the "decisive moment" of peak light filtering through the trees.

Something to fix next time.