It’s been so long since I shot and developed this roll that I don’t remember much about it… I got busy with all the rolls that I shot over Spring Break, and then it was all the birthday gift stuff (and there’s still stuff to share from that too). Apologies.
Of the black & white films I’ve shot thus far, the Polypan F is by far my favorite.
Polypan F is a cinecopy film (according to the FPP) and lacks an anti halation layer… this doesn’t mean much to me, but apparently you can get some groovy glowing highlights, especially if the tension plate is shiny.
Sadly, the tension plate in the Nikon FE is a nice, flat black. I tried and tried to get some glowing highlights, but never did, really.
What I did get was clean, nearly grainless, very clean, crisp black & white.
The first frame had the usual Compania Imago strangeness to it, but everything else was fine.
As mentioned before, I don’t remember much about this roll, under what circumstances it was shot, etc, but looking through the pictures, I guess it was shot mostly in the week I was off. The first few pictures don’t give much of a clue, just random pictures out the windows, late afternoon (above) and sunrise.
But then, presumably a bit later in the day, I managed to capture my darling, adorable wife taking some tentative loops around the driveway on her shiny new bicycle…
The grain in that is due to all the torturing I had to do to get a marginally recognizable shape out of the scan. The cycling Hana is just too fast for ISO 50 and a wide open 50mm f/1.8 in the early morning.
Later on that day or the next, we went on a usual neighborhood walk and the film was fast enough to catch the Hanabibti skipping down the lane…
Actually, she was walking normally, but between the dark shoes and the light ground, it almost looks like she’s dancing a little jig or something.
I think I shot through the roll pretty quickly after that. I tried to channel my inner Huger Foote, but maybe I went a bit overboard, and maybe it doesn’t really work in black & white.
I souped the Polypan F in D-76 at 68℉ for 10 minutes, with agitations every minute, then my usual 3 minute stop, 6 minute fix, 8 minute wash. And after seeing the results, I knew I’d be saving the last roll for a special occasion or something, but when I placed that big order with Labeauratoire, I noticed he had some on offer, so I picked up 3 more… maybe enough for a little project…
If you can get your hands on some, do it: it’s good stuff! I know I’ll keep an eye out for some more.
As of time of writing, Labeauratoire still had some, the FPP has some, and if you hunt around, there’s probably some more around somewhere.
