Back to the Darkroom

Last week I processed a mixed batch of film.  Mostly this was some Rollei RPX-25 film in 4x5 format but to round out the batch and make best use of the chemistry I also included a few sheets of Ilford FP4+.  The developer was Ilford Perceptol diluted 1:1.  Back in the day European film manufacturer Agfa made a wonderful film called APX-25.  The company shut down many years ago and this film, once one of my favorites in roll film format, has been off the market for many years.  It never was manufactured in sheet film format, much to my dismay.  In recent years Rollei has joined the market and offered a couple of emulsions in various formats.  It has been rumored that their films are based on the old Agfa formulas.  I purchased some and have experimented with it over the last year or two.  I exposed duplicate shots of the film with the intention of processing in my old standby... Rodinal... as well as in Perceptol.  Eventually I will have some images to compare but for now I am just getting around to a batch of 14 sheets that I processed in Perceptol.  In hindsight my development time may have been slightly too long for normal development and next time around I will cut back slightly.  That said, I really like the results of the first two scans.  One is a shot of a Beaver Pond in the Columbia Valley that was taken on the Spring Photo Weekend with the Monochrome Guild gang back in early 2017.  The other is a shot of an old barn in a field of barley up in Lamont County, taken in the late summer of 2015.  Over the coming months I will process more of this film and begin to formulate an opinion, as well as fine tune my development time.