Finishing up my drive, I loaded a “fresh” roll of T-Max 400. By “fresh” I mean slightly-expired, eBay-special film. I’m not too thrilled on how the outdoor pictures came out on this roll (indoor pictures to come in another post). The contrast in the winter trees is poor. The picture seems too grainy. I’m not too sure what happened here, as I used rolls from the same batch.
I’ve been experimenting with the scanner settings lately on future rolls, and I think that many of the automatic density features are not working right. On the last roll I scanned, I re-scanned some of the frames that looked too dark or blown out instead of relying on Photoshop after the fact. Incorrect scan settings could be contributing to the poorer quality.
It could also be the film or development process itself. I’m not ruling anything out. Maybe the film got skunked by some heat that the others didn’t.
The contrast on the tress is much better. I probably could have done a better job with overall brightness.
The reflection from my windshield shows up quite a bit. I’ve been reducing it by layering the dashboard with black felt. It isn’t perfect, but it helps a lot/
I used the rest of the roll for indoor pictures with flash. Some of them came out fantastic. We’ll be taking a look at those next.
Development Details
- Film: Kodak TMax 400
- Camera ISO setting: 400
- Developer: Rodinal
- Developer Dilution: 1:100
- Development Time: 1 hour
- Development Agitation: Stand (20 inversions first minute only)