My Journey Into Photography: The Nightmare Film.....

I began learning to develop black and white film at the start of 2020 and to be fair I have had a pretty good run so far, until this week that is. The nightmare film from hell hath bitten my arse big time and I'm rather disappointed in myself for letting it happen. Developing film is easy once you get the hang of it, but there is always that one film that will not play ball no matter how careful you are. For me this week that film was Rollei Retro 80S.

Learning a new skill always has it's moments and for me those moments have generally been god ones. The first film I developed was Kentmere 100, it was actually two films in a twin reel Paterson System 4 tank using an Ilford Simplicity Starter Kit. It really was simplicity too. I got the developing times from Ilfords own data sheets they supply with each of their films and, despite shitting a brick, the joy from seeing my first attempt as I hung the films to dry gave me the confidence to carry on.

I had been reluctant to give developing a try for around 30 years after a splash of developer gave me dermatitis in my teens. I didn't fancy that again and I left it in the past until I came back to film photography. The good folk at the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast facebook group encouraged me to give it another whirl and up to now I haven't looked back.

I have spoken in a previous blog about my gift of some expired Ilford HP5 and FP4 from a dear friend and it definitely helped me out. I learned a lot of valuable lessons from that film and was beginning to move on and put myself through fresh film stocks to continue that education. I have shot a lot of Foma, the Czech film so beloved of photographers around the world for it's grain and consistency. I tried 100, 200 and 400 speed Foma and enjoyed the experience. It's price point was as much an attraction as seeing for myself what the fuss was about.

I have shot a couple of rolls of Bergger Pancro 400, a dual layer film that impressed me enough to try it again. The first rolls I shot I sent away for developing, but this time I'm going to develop it myself in HC-110 and I have two rolls to shoot this week. I have even shot a couple of rolls of Tri-X 400, the legendary film from Kodak that will definitely be making an appearance on my blog in the future. Then came Rollei Retro 80S.

I should have known it would be trouble when I loaded the first roll into my Nikon F801. It felt really thin and flimsy, a total opposite of the more robust films I have used in the past. Kentmere and Foma that cost less than Rollei Retro 80s were twice the thickness and so much easier to work with. After shooting the first roll of Rollei I went ahead and tried to load it onto a spiral to develop and that's where the trouble started, It point blank refused to load onto a Paterson spiral. After getting a tad flustered I wound the film back into the cassette and stepped away for a while to calm down.

I hate being beaten, as my dear wife will tell you. She has heard me shouting and swearing at my motorcycle over the years and bouncing spanners off my garage wall. That's her cue to come in with a brew which never fails to soothe my ire. Ye Gods I love that woman.

I gave myself an hour or two to calm my frustrations and think about what was going wrong. Given that we are in summertime here in the UK, I took note of the temperature in my kitchen and it was the same ambient temperature as outside, around 22 degrees celcius which is just nice for letting my chemicals warm up naturally, but not too great for trying to load film onto a spiral with increasingly sweaty hands. I waited until later in the evening to let everything cool down and tried again. I also thought about my spirals, was the humidity making them sticky? I rinsed them carefully under the cold water and dried them thoroughly. A small compressor in my garage has it uses, I blasted the standing water from the nooks and crannys and made sure the spirals were completely dry.

I tried again at around 10pm that evening, the temperature had cooled and the humidity decreased so I was quietly confident that I would be successful at the second time of asking. Wrong! It still wouldn't play ball and by this time I was more than a tad miffed. However, I had a third plan, a steel spiral and tank I had bought that I hadn't got around to using. I carefully wound my film back into the cassette and went to plan C.

The steel spiral was the trick I needed as I was able to load my flimsy Rollei Retro 80S onto it and finally start getting somewhere. However, by this time my brains had fried and whilst going through each part of the process in the correct order, I had forgotten to check my stop bath and fixer were fresh and ruined a roll of film with duff chemicals. I had mixed some Rodinal for the film and was expecting decent results, but due to my negligence I got badly developed and frankly utterly unuseable negs. I was gutted.

I put the experience to the back of my mind and a couple of days later shot the second roll of Rollei retro 80S in my OM-2. I had hoped the first nightmare was a blip, but no. Rollei Retro 80S has got it in for me. I remembered the bother of loading the film onto the Paterson spiral and went straight for the steel. I was loading it as I had practiced and was doing well until I got to the end of the spiral. I still had around a foot of film left. It was going to be one of those days.

After some swearing, mostly at myself, and some grim determination I eventually got the bugger loaded and got on with my developing. I also made fresh HC-110 dilution B, stop and fix so all was well as I went through the developing cycle. However... Stupid lad here forgot to use the stop bath and went from developer straight to fixer. Certain words phrases in Anglo Saxon that are not for delicate ears were used. Luckily I hadn't totally made a mess of it and actually got a couple of useable shots on the second roll.

I still have no idea why it was my Nightmare Film. I have been doing well with my developing up to this point and no matter how I look at it, I can only think it was a combination of thin film and humidity equalling a sticky, insubordinate, film. I was so looking forward to using this film, but I will have to think long and hard before developing Rollei Retro 80S again. It can go to a lab. It's a shame as I was looking forward to sharing my experience on a more positive note, but that's life I suppose. Totally my fault and I will learn valuable lessons from it.

Next week I hope to be talking about Bergger Pancro 400 and you can be sure i will be making sure my developing equipment is in tip top shape so I can share that with you. In the mean time, here's a couple of shots from the nightmare film and some digital shots I have been working on. I hope you like them.

If you would like to listen to the Negative Positives Film Photography Podcast you can find it at Negative Positives Podcast It's a great show full of interviews, gear reviews and fun film photography tips and tricks from Mike Gutterman, Andre Domingues and Roxanna Angles. As they say each week, stay positive and shoot some cool film photo's.