One thing I wanted to do after Saturday’s development disappointment was to confirm that my D-96 wasn’t the culprit. There was no reason it should have been: it was recently mixed and I had only used it to develop three other rolls at the time (it’s good for 12).

Like a fictional detective — a sort of Minolta Jane Marple or Fuji Jessica Fletcher — I needed to pursue and eliminate other possibilities. On Monday morning, I loaded a short 12-frame roll of Ilford FP4+ to expose while I was out for groceries. As if it could be any other way, the negatives came out beautifully, confirming that, whatever the problems with the development of the Lomo Berlin was, it was not related to the chemistry itself.

I have one more roll of Berlin on hand and while I could just develop it for 8 or 9 minutes in D-96 and hope for the best, I may just use a developer with an official time, like HC-110.