Three Lessons, Twice-Under

Yesterday afternoon, once my work day had come to an end, it was time to go on another kitty food mission. Having worked past my usual finishing time and being keenly aware of the sun’s proclivity for an Irish exit at this time of year, I loaded the Canon EOS Elan II (auto-everything so my frozen digits stand a chance in the cold) with a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 (speed to counter the darkness) and headed out for the store.

Fridays are pizza days for us. It’s a little capstone to the work week and a way to open up the weekend. So once I finished my meal, I popped up off the couch and into the kitchen to begin developing my roll. Unfortunately, what I found was thin. Some frames were barely there.

After thinking about it some and scanning the roll this morning, I have three lessons:

1. Mic-X stock solution either must be replenished (using Kodak’s instructions) or it needs more additional time for subsequent rolls than ID-11‘s +10%.
   • It’s also possible that, since I put two rolls through the stock solution I have on hand last weekend (1, 2), I should have started at +20% anyway instead of the +10% I did.
2. It has been a bit of a long six years week in my day job, and I wasn’t exactly paying enough attention to my development.
   • I might have noticed the possibility of the error above if I were more attentive!
3. Even with the substandard development, it appears that the camera is starting to show a few metering issues. A few of the frames really went off the rails and aren’t explained by development.
   • The rebate text on the film was clear and crisp, so it seems that I received an assist from the camera.

It’s not always entirely satisfying when you find two problems combine powers, but at least I can eliminate them in one way or another!