Tenement project rethink

Reciprocity! What a word - and what a bloody nuisance! After mulling over the film/developer combinations for shooting this project and deciding to kick it off with Fomapan 100 souped in Barry Thornton's two-bath (it's what I already have at home), I'm going to have to reconsider.

I wanted to make a start and found myself in Dundee with half an hour to spare so nipped along to a block of 19th century flats in Baxter Park Terrace that looked promising. It was a dull day but, even so, the one minute indicated exposure at f11 on my Sekonic meter with the film rated at 50 ISO took me by surprise. The light didn't seem that dim but my meter is reliable so I accepted it for what it was - a very dark indoor space. I actually metered under a flight of stairs and the meter wasn't recording anything and it measures down to -6 EV

An Edinburgh stairwell captured on a Pentax MZ5n, 40mm DA lens and Tri X rated
at 1250 ISO and developed in Diafine. A film/dev contender?

I was toting the SL66E fitted with the 40mm Distagon (about 24mm equivalent on 35mm format) and set everything up on the tripod, set the f-stop and shutter speed and then thought, "what about reciprocity?" I went to look up the relevant info for Fomapan on my phone but wasn't getting a 3G signal. I've never needed to know how much allowance to make for Fomapan as I've never shot it at long exposures but I decided to add another stop as I reckoned the one minute was going to be on the generous side anyway.

It might look bright enough but this was a 20 second exposure
on 100 ISO film. Rodinal 1+50 did a good compensating job.

I took a couple of shots just to test how the film and developer partnership would work out (haven't finished the roll yet but I'm pretty sure there will not be a lot to see of the tenement close). When I got home I looked up Fomapan 100's reciprocity figures and it was then I discovered that it needs an extra four stops at 1 min. FOUR STOPS! That's got to be a record of some sort. Fuji Acros doesn't need anything extra up to a measured exposure of a couple of minutes and many other films need just a stop or two.

That's why I need to rethink things. One minute plus four stops is 16 mins! Three shots in a tenement close would see me tied up for the best part of an hour, most of it staring into (dim) space. I'm prepared to suffer for my art but not that much - especially not at this time of year and without thermal underwear...

Another very dark scene but this time not too many problems as far as contrast
goes. This stairwell is the same as the one below. 

Can't make up my mind whether this is a letter "e"
or the £ sign.

So I'm back pondering what film/dev to use. My local cyber pal Phil Rogers is promoting Pan F Plus in HC110 dilution G so strongly that I'm sure he must have some undeclared financial interest. The bad news for Phil and his pension fund, though, is that Pan F Plus isn't that much better than Fomapan in the reciprocity stakes. I reckon a one minute measured exposure would need nine or ten minutes. I'll definitely try the Pan F Plus/HC110 partnership at some point as Phil's highlights are very nice - and I'm not speaking about the ones his hairdresser gives him  :-)

I could use a faster film like HP5 Plus which would give me an eight second measured exposure and a reciprocity-adjusted exposure of about 25 seconds which isn't too bad. Or I could buy some Acros and have no reciprocity problems at all. I'm sorely tempted to use the Fuji film and develop it in Barry's two-bath but at £4 a roll it's not cheap and I don't know how the film would record the murkiness of the tenements. AND I've always thought Acros was a bit clinical, almost digital in the way it looks and I want to avoid that.

So what about Tri X in Diafine, the combination I used for the pic, taken a few years ago, posted above? Fast enough for reasonable exposure times (around five seconds adjusted), a little bit of grain on the 120 negative, nice, meaty tones and some compensation in the two-bath Diafine. Sounds like a pretty good combination to me.

* Apart from the very first shot which was taken a few years back, the rest of the pics on this post were shot just a a few days ago on 35mm using Agfa APX 100 developed in Rodinal 1+50. I want to photograph the tenement project on medium format but this was a chance to see how Rodinal performs as a compensating developer in scenes likes this - and it did pretty well.