Rodinal 1:100

[ChrisN]

I recall doing a few rolls at 1:100, with times in the 20-30 minute area, and with agitation for 10s every 5 minutes. I think in theory the longer the soup rests, the smaller the grain will appear and the sharper the image will appear and the more chance there is for the compensating effects to work (to minimise highlight overexposure), so it's a matter of finding the right mix with sufficient agitation to prevent the uneven development problems. There's a lot of variables with that including the size and shape of your tank and reels and their thermal transfer characteristics, so we each have to find what works for us and what works for me won't necessarily work with your setup.

AGFA recommended 30s initial agitation and 5s every 30s (this is not stand development). Schwalburg recommended 30s initial and 10s every minute, and felt this was sufficient rest to allow the compensating effect to work. I have a long way to go before deciding what works best for me.

I've been fairly quiet for a few weeks. The M6 I bought turned out to have a shutter problem causing uneven exposure across the frame, so that went back, was serviced, and returned a month later with the same problem. Depressing. Luckily the seller has loaned me an M4-P in the interim.

[JayM]

Ok shot my first rolls of film ever today. Developed in Rodinal 1:100 with a 1 hour stand. Agitated with about 15 gentle inversions in the first minute. Then no touch.

Film was Tri-X exposed at 400. Scanned this with Plustek 7400 with the default Tri-X settings (whatever those are.)





I'm a little surprised that this is considered "low contrast" I guess I have a lot to learn.

Also, my understanding was that I should be able to throw shots in there that were exposed at 1600 and that they'd come out reasonably well exposed just with much higher contrast. This was not my experience and shots that were exposed at 800 is looked more underexposed than "contrasty."

Am I massively misunderstanding how this works?

[Chinasaur]

#1 and #3 look high contrast to me. Who tells you they are low? But then, the phrase "ich bin ein N00bie" applies to me re: developing

[Moriturii]

Yeah 1, and 3 is high contrast and is overexposed / overdeveloped. The middle one is fine.

Although this is straight scan, I am sure you can easily recover the overexposed bits on both pictures with 30sec minute in Photoshop :-)

Sharpness is fantastic though it seems, just sit with photoshop for a minute. Just make sure you scan your pictures in .tiff of course.

[Juan Valdenebro]

Originally Posted by JayM

Ok shot my first rolls of film ever today. Developed in Rodinal 1:100 with a 1 hour stand. Agitated with about 15 gentle inversions in the first minute. Then no touch.

Film was Tri-X exposed at 400. Scanned this with Plustek 7400 with the default Tri-X settings (whatever those are.)







I'm a little surprised that this is considered "low contrast" I guess I have a lot to learn.

Also, my understanding was that I should be able to throw shots in there that were exposed at 1600 and that they'd come out reasonably well exposed just with much higher contrast. This was not my experience and shots that were exposed at 800 is looked more underexposed than "contrasty."

Am I massively misunderstanding how this works?

Hi JayM,

As you can see, the development you did worked well for the second shot: the scene with lower contrast as there's no direct sun generating a much higher contrast because of the wild difference between bright light and really dark and defined shadows...

All you have to do is develop differently those sunny scenes with much higher contrast.

If you prefer not to do it that precisely, you can use the same development time for soft and harsh light: a middle point... Then your negatives will be soft light scenes that could have been developed for longer: for more contrast, and sunny scenes that could have been developed for a shorter time: for less contrast, and then while wet printing or after scanning, you can try to get the most out of any frame...

Cheers,

Juan

[JayM]

Awesome, thanks for all the feedback and tips.

The first and third scenes I might have over exposed by a stop. I remember they were both shot right after each other, and the first one I exposed at 1/500 to make sure the tree wasn't eating too much light. The phonebooths were shot right after that after which I realized I was now in very bright light and still at 1/500

Adjusting the first's exposure to -1 in LR seems to make it look more proper.

The second one is more like -2. I consistently forget how bright that part of the street is compared to just around the corner.

Will try again today and see if I can stay on top of my game more

edit: Worth mentioning that these are all from the same roll. Part of the reason that I thought stand developing would work well was that the lighting where I'm shooting kind of runs a wide range of shade, normal, and high contrast. After reading about different agitation to control contrast for 1+50 dilution etc it seemed like a poor choice for the situation. We shall see!

[Juan Valdenebro]

Originally Posted by JayM

Awesome, thanks for all the feedback and tips.

The first and third scenes I might have over exposed by a stop. I remember they were both shot right after each other, and the first one I exposed at 1/500 to make sure the tree wasn't eating too much light. The phonebooths were shot right after that after which I realized I was now in very bright light and still at 1/500

Adjusting the first's exposure to -1 in LR seems to make it look more proper.

The second one is more like -2. I consistently forget how bright that part of the street is compared to just around the corner.

Will try again today and see if I can stay on top of my game more

edit: Worth mentioning that these are all from the same roll. Part of the reason that I thought stand developing would work well was that the lighting where I'm shooting kind of runs a wide range of shade, normal, and high contrast. After reading about different agitation to control contrast for 1+50 dilution etc it seemed like a poor choice for the situation. We shall see!

Hi JayM,

Although agitation can affect contrast and grain, I'd recommend you to agitate in a simple way always, say once every minute, and also keep dilution and temperature as fix values, and decide your film contrast with the most appropriate factor used for that: development time.

Cheers,

Juan

[JayM]

Originally Posted by Juan Valdenebro

Hi JayM,

Although agitation can affect contrast and grain, I'd recommend you to agitate in a simple way always, say once every minute, and also keep dilution and temperature as fix values, and decide your film contrast with the most appropriate factor used for that: development time.

Cheers,

Juan

Hey Juan,

So in a situation where all on the same roll you were shooting in a wide range of lighting conditions, would you just pick a "middle of the road" development time and adjust contrast in post/when printing?

Thanks,
Jacob

[Moriturii]

Summarit 5cm f1.5 at f2.8 or F4, can't remember wich.
20 slow agitations first 60 seconds, then sit for 60 min. 18c water.
Rollei Retro 100 @ EI 50 (90% sure anyway)
Epson 4990 @ 2400dpi
No sharpening, no dust removal no nothing, just straight up and down scan and just pushed the histogram point thingies to the edges to get a wider dynamic range.
Perfect!

Looks soft and lackluster with this small size. Really nice and sharp when it's big! :-)

[joe4444]

Originally Posted by joe4444

I developed a few rolls using this technique, and they turned out well. Tonight however I accidentally skipped the initial water bath. A previous roll of Efke KB25 had a crystal clear base. The base of this most recent roll is a light brown color. It's kind of ugly. Other than that difference the images appear to have developed normally, but I'm still waiting for the roll to dry so I haven't looked at them with a loupe yet.

Was the lack of a prewash the cause of this problem? If not, what else could I have done wrong? Is there any chance these negatives will be printable?

No one has ever seen this? I developed another roll of Efke KB25 today using 3.5mL Rodinal in 300mL water. This time I remembered the prewash (about 5 minutes). The water was bright blue when I dumped it so I gave it one more quick rinse for a few seconds before pouring in the Rodinal. 20 slow inversions for the first minute then 59 minutes standing still. Then 3 water baths with a few inversions each, and fix as usual for 5 minutes. All distilled water throughout.

Same results with the light brown base. This time I also noticed some clear areas on the negatives. These were all in places directly below strong highlights (very thick spots on the negatives). Could it be bromide drag? The example images I've seen of bromide drag would be the opposite, so I'm confused. Could it be connected to the brown base?

I'll try to scan one of the negatives as soon as I can get into the computer lab on campus.

[Timeshare]

Tri-X (Arista Premium 400) pushed to 3200 iso in Rodinal 1:100 (2 hour stand) ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timesha...shedto3200iso/

[joe4444]

I was finally able to scan some negatives at school. Here is an example of the weird brown base I tried to describe. The color is not quite as apparent in the scan, so imagine it looks worse. Also, if you look very closely at the area above the moon you might notice that it is almost clear instead of yellow/brown. Again, this effect is much more drastic than the scan makes it appear. Next time I go to the darkroom I'll take a photo of these negatives next to others on a light table. That might demonstrate the problem more vividly.

Can anyone offer an explanation for this?

[notraces]

I use 1:100 frequently when shooting long exposures and i want to control the highlights -- remember, shadows develop first and then tail off -- highlights just keep rocking... By using a higher dilution, the developer will generally exhaust before your highlights blow out...

The following is an image I did this summer while the mosquitoes were trying to eat me alive. I developed 1:100 - 45minutes -- normal agitation for the first 5 minutes (invert slowly the first 30 seconds -- and then just 4 inversions per minute thereafter)... I develop at room temp -- whatever that may be - usually between 17-24C.

I think it turned out pretty well... Stand development is great with SOME films -- and not so good with others (as mentioned in this thread)...


beacon by notraces, on Flickr

[R.MacDonald]

Back in 2007 a friend of mine gave me a roll of Tri-X he shot at 6400. I finally souped it this evening. P. Lynn Miller's method worked perfectly. I had my doubts, but the negatives look pretty good. I'm gonna try printing them tomorrow.

[maxwell1295]

I've been doing this for a while now with very good results. I normally do 10-15 inversions for the first 30 secs and then let it sit for 90 mins, with 3-4 gentle inversions at the halfway point. I've gone as long as 120mins with similar results. I'm sure the developer is probably exhausted after 60 mins, but I figure the extra time doesn't hurt anything. These are Shanghai GP3 scans from my Mamiya 645e.

[PatrickONeill]

photographed the fort worth stock show and rodeo with tri-x pushed to 1600. 3.5 ml per roll (should of been at least 4ml per roll now that I've done some re-reading on pushing w/ Rodinal). one hour stand, and I couldn't help but swish the tank (like a wine glass) at 45 min...
negatives scanned w/ a Polaroid sprintscann 4000+

loved the results.


Fort Worth Stock Show 2012 by lightcapturestudio, on Flickr

considering a 2 stop push, contrast was well controlled. even the above image had some curves adjustment to bump up the contrast.


Fort Worth Stock Show 2012 by lightcapturestudio, on Flickr

the grain is there, and its big, however, its not clumpy, but sharp.


Fort Worth Stock Show 2012 by lightcapturestudio, on Flickr

I'm so glad I got two bottles of this stuff. I'm going to be happy for a long time now.

[kosta_g]

well, not to beat a dead horse, but how do you keep the skies so clean? I think maybe it's to do with the pre-wash/soak before developing?

I did a few rolls of trix and efke shot at box speed and i get that streaky look - like bromide drag (?). i'm going to research further on this....

[Ezzie]

It's hanging to dry, my first effort at stand Rodinal (R09) development. HP5+, expired, 3.2ml R09 in 375ml of water, 0.1g of Potassium Bromide, 19-20C/68F for 60 minutes. 12 slow inversions initially, 1 360 inversion at the 30min mark, water stop, fix and wash. Looks quite nice, that is with respect to density and contrast, will see what it really looks like when scanned.

[Ezzie]

An EI400 example from the HP5+ roll. Not at all bad.


Bøplassen #2 by Eirik0304, on Flickr

[Ezzie]

Another from the same roll:


Doctor´s doorway by Eirik0304, on Flickr

[VF101]

Using Lynn's stand development recipe, I got some nice pictures from my very first roll of Efke 25, scanned with my cheap Epson V330.
I've got one spare roll of Efke 25 to use next summer.


An approaching thunderstorm at Lake Chiemsee, Bavaria.
(Leica CL + Summicron-C 40mm)

[Pioneer]

Originally Posted by VF101

Using Lynn's stand development recipe, I got some nice pictures from my very first roll of Efke 25, scanned with my cheap Epson V330.
I've got one spare roll of Efke 25 to use next summer.


An approaching thunderstorm at Lake Chiemsee, Bavaria.
(Leica CL + Summicron-C 40mm)

Nice shot. You may get better results using the 20 min process outlined toward the beginning of this post but if you only have one more roll of KB25 it may not be worth the trouble.

[VF101]

Originally Posted by Pioneer

Nice shot. You may get better results using the 20 min process outlined toward the beginning of this post but if you only have one more roll of KB25 it may not be worth the trouble.

Thank you for your advice. I'm not sure if the scan from this cheap scanner does justice to the negatives and hence the development process. I think, I'll get a Plustek soon. :-)

[haffy]

Originally Posted by nuada

I have tested this development method with Ilford PAN 400. I exposed consecutive film frames at EI 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 and developed it in Rodinal 1+200 for 3h. Every frame was scannable, but EI 50 and 100 were bit too soft (due too heavy overexposure), EI 6400 was bit dark and contrasty.

I use this method when taking photos in "difficult" lightning conditions or when shooting high contrast scenes.

I have also developed like this old unknown film, which I found 16 years after it was exposed (Rodinal 1+200 for 1h, after developing it I found out this was Svema 64).

Did you shot all this ISOs on the same roll of film ? I am asking beacuse I heard that you can shot different ISO at a roll of film wit stand development. Don't know if that is true thou..

[gsgary]

1+100 2 hour stand