I haven't felt like paying the price for Kodak TMAX for the past five years, but I did recently find a roll of expired TMAX 400 in a refrigerator drawer to load into my Minolta X-700. The thirteen years past the expiration date did not seem to significantly affect the results.
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| New Mexico Museum of Natural History |
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| Albuquerque Art Museum |
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| Tiguex Park (west end) |
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| Rio Grande |
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| Bosque |
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| Tiguex Park (east end) |
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| Good bye to cataracts |
I visited the Rail Yards which hosts a craft and farmers' market on Sundays. Margaret was looking for some fresh corn and garlic, but my interest is always in exploring the massive old locomotive repair shops. The City has invested millions in the location with several proposals to make use of the site. Extensive restorations are now in progress to devote one of the big buildings to a new media school. There has also been a building housing the Wheels Museum at the site for some time.
The site was active for about a century, used primarily for the repair and periodic rebuilding of steam locomotives.
My
camera on this occasion was my Minolta X-700 with the Minolta MD
1.7/50mm lens. I shot a roll of Kentmere 400 and processed that in PMK
Pyro.
I went to the Albuquerque Rail Yards to see the 2926 locomotive which had made a short trip there from the restoration site across town. While awaiting the tracks to be made accessible to spectators I decided to walk through the site to look at the big buildings that comprised the repair facility many years before. To my surprise, the doors of several of the building were open and there were none of the usual guards to deny entry to visitors.
I have had somewhat inconsistent results from my Arista Edu Ultra 200 with Rodinal and in this last roll with PMK Pyro. I'll likely try to give it a minute or two longer in the developer. I have a hundred foot roll, so plenty of time to get it figured out.
We are having some cool overnight weather in Albuquerque, but still a lot of sun most days and some great light along the river.
I haven't been getting out much for a while, so when I noticed some nice early morning sunlight in the house I decided to finish up a roll of film that has been sitting in my Minolta X-700 for quite a while.
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| photo by Shane Ramotowski |
I have had nice results in the past shooting Kentmere film and processing in both HC-110 and PMK Pyro. Recently, though, my negatives end up looking a stop or two underexposed. I bought a new beaker and a syringe for measuring and mixing the developer, thinking that the problem could be contamination of the processing equipment. That made no difference in the outcome, however. I still had to compensate for the thin negatives with Photoshop adjustments. So, my plan now is to shoot the film at a stop slower and accept that it is not going to produce what I want at the rated box speed.
It is tempting to theorize some manufacturing fault, but I haven't seen any reports on the issue elsewhere , including from the people who have inspired me to use the film at Photonet and Rangefinder Forum. On the up side, the fact that I can get a reasonable outcome from the weak negatives speaks to the fundamental excellence of the film in regard to exposure latitude and fine grain.
I paid just twenty dollars at a yard sale for my Minolta X-700 three years ago. Since then it has made a lot of pictures I like. The camera is light weight and compact and the Minolta lenses I have tried have all produced excellent results. I took along the X-700 a couple days ago when I visited the Albuquerque Botanical Garden. I mounted the MD 1.7/50 lens and loaded a roll of Kentmere 400.
