My first attempt at stand development was triggered by an accident. The story goes like this: My Yashica Mat 124 had been sitting on a shelf for the best part of a year when last weekend I decided to give it an airing. I was dead certain that the camera was empty so I opened up the back.........what is that white thing???.......sh.., it's a film!!! I slammed the back shut as fast as I could to save at least some frames (in the end I lost 3 whole frames). The camera was set at 50 ISO so I finished the roll with the same setting. Knowing that some of the film would be ruined I decided to try stand development on this roll.
I mixed 500ml of tap water (18 C) with 3,5ml of Adox Adonal (same as Rodinal), did 12 consecutive inversions, hit the tank a few times on the counter to get rid of any air bubbles and then let it rest for 70 minutes. Then did a stop bath with tap water for 1 minute, and fixed it with Ilford Rapid fix for 4-5 minutes. Washed it with running water for half an hour and finally added 3 drops of Photo Flo for one minute.
As you can see from the first two shots it wasn't all too bad. I have not adjusted the contrast, only highlights and shadows. So what happened to the third? There were two shots like that on the roll, those were the ones I had shot before opening the back. Alle the ones shot after opening the back looked ok. At first I thought it might be water marks, but why just those two?
Anyway I will give stand dev another try. Next time I think I will pre-soak it in tap water for 5 minutes before I start. I cannot see any streaking (bromide drag), that's one of the things I feared. Next up will probably be an Ilford Delta 100.
Yashica Mat 124 / Ilford Pan-F 50
