Tips on using rodinal

[erl]

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I just found a cat among the pigeons!

For what it is worth, just to confuse the argument the tech details are:

Camera Leica R8, lens R60/2.8.

Film: Ilford FP5+ exposed @ 3200 iso.

Developed in, yes you guessed it! RODINAL.

I don't give a damn about 'sharpness' and 'acuteness' or whatever they are. I just make pictures. Sometimes I like them for what they are. Not how I processed them. 😇

Jar of rubber bands

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[Aryel]

3 hours ago, erl said:

I just found a cat among the pigeons!

For what it is worth, just to confuse the argument the tech details are:

Camera Leica R8, lens R60/2.8.

Film: Ilford FP5+ exposed @ 3200 iso.

Developed in, yes you guessed it! RODINAL.

I don't give a damn about 'sharpness' and 'acuteness' or whatever they are. I just make pictures. Sometimes I like them for what they are. Not how I processed them. 😇

Jar of rubber bands

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Really beautiful, thanks a lot for sharing. I love how the grains become more visible in the out of focus area and how the jar was rendered. 

I just want more control on the final look so understanding the terms is important to me as it can help guide my eye. It can also tell me in which direction to modify (dilute, shake etc) to get a look I like  

In the end, the only thing that matters will be the print. Not the process, camera, lens or chemicals. Just the image. However, to get there, I need to make everything work together with the photo content and ´disappear’. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Aryel

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[Aryel]

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summitar 50

[Aryel]

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summitar 50 as well but printed on warmtone paper. 

I really like how the hairs were captured on this one and was quite surprised how well the Summitar handled the strong back light (nothing to do with rodinal). 

[chrism]

I recently tried a film new to me - Adox CHS 100 II. With a new film I tend to be conservative in developer choices (HC-110 or Rodinal) and then later get into the odball things, like Diafine or homemade monobaths. Having seen how beautiful Adox CHS 25 was in Rodinal I decided to use it on the ISO 100 film, 1+25 for 5.5 mins with continuous rotation. I don't think anyone can say this has massive grain:

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Or maybe you'd just need a huge pair of these to make such a claim! 😉

[Pyrogallol]

I still have a box of 8x10 Adox CHS100, the first version.

[Kl@usW.]

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vor 18 Stunden schrieb erl:

I just found a cat among the pigeons!

For what it is worth, just to confuse the argument the tech details are:

Camera Leica R8, lens R60/2.8.

Film: Ilford FP5+ exposed @ 3200 iso.

Developed in, yes you guessed it! RODINAL.

I don't give a damn about 'sharpness' and 'acuteness' or whatever they are. I just make pictures. Sometimes I like them for what they are. Not how I processed them. 😇

Jar of rubber bands

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HP 5 ? 

[erl]

1 hour ago, Kl@usW. said:

HP 5 ? 

Yes. Not Fp5+. My typo.

[Chuck Albertson]

Rodinal is as grainy as the film you develop in it. I like the results with medium-speed films (Delta 100, FP4+) with long-scale subjects. I used to develop HP5+ in Rodinal, but switched to Xtol when I decided I didn't like that much grain, and also had to expose it at EI 250 to get all the shadow detail I wanted. It's certainly economical - I'm currently working through a bottle of the stuff I first opened in 2012. Be sure to get a 25 ml graduate, or a like-sized syringe, to get the dilutions right.

[Aryel]

4 hours ago, Chuck Albertson said:

Be sure to get a 25 ml graduate, or a like-sized syringe, to get the dilutions right.

Using a syringe for now. Thanks a lot 😊

[erl]

I think the overriding observation I can make on Rodinal is that it is a TOOL. The motif is what makes your image, the developer allows you various ways to modify it, after the fact. Rodinal can flex the way your image will look,  by varying temperature, dilution agitation, etc. In the digital world, it would be called Post Processing. In the Analog world, we just call it Processing. Simple really.

Further modification can be established by using other developers, the same way. Kodak's Xtol is my other favourite, possibly my most used.

[Aryel]

9 hours ago, erl said:

I think the overriding observation I can make on Rodinal is that it is a TOOL. The motif is what makes your image, the developer allows you various ways to modify it, after the fact. Rodinal can flex the way your image will look,  by varying temperature, dilution agitation, etc. In the digital world, it would be called Post Processing. In the Analog world, we just call it Processing. Simple really.

 

Thanks a lot for writing this. The analogy makes lot of sense. It is simple, but I never really considered it in this way. So far, I always chose the developer based on the film stock until I ran out of id11 and used dd-x for everything. Leaving the door open and choosing based on roll content makes lot of sense. 

[Aryel]

Printed a few more from the same trix rolls (1:50)

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Summitar 50

[Aryel]

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Summicron 50 v1

I definitely like this one a lot and will try to reproduce in the future. 

[Aryel]

Continuing to explore, this time with Fp4+ (1+25). The scan looks really nice both the 35mm and 6x6. Will try to print over the weekend. 

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minolta cle, summaron-m 28, rodinal 1+25

[Aryel]

Same Moto, different view and cropped for printing on 8x10

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Minolta cle, 28summaron-m , fp4+ in rodinal 1:25

[Steve Ricoh]

Since this topic is all about the God known as Rodinal (which I worship incidentally, but only recently), what difference might one expect between 1+25 and 1+50, assuming the other variables, eg agitation, are kept constant?

[250swb]

5 hours ago, Steve Ricoh said:

Since this topic is all about the God known as Rodinal (which I worship incidentally, but only recently), what difference might one expect between 1+25 and 1+50, assuming the other variables, eg agitation, are kept constant?

With slower speed films that tend to have more contrast diluting Rodinal will allow it to act more like a compensating developer, so it holds back highlight development. I think you may need to go to 1+100 to get the full effect and stand development,  but you should see a benefit at 1+50 with normal agitation.

[Steve Ricoh]

11 minutes ago, 250swb said:

With slower speed films that tend to have more contrast diluting Rodinal will allow it to act more like a compensating developer, so it holds back highlight development. I think you may need to go to 1+100 to get the full effect and stand development,  but you should see a benefit at 1+50 with normal agitation.

Next roll I’ll try 1+50, thank you.

I was a bit disappointed with 1+100, stand developing in Rodinal. Clear evidence of bromide drag, I think it’s called, manifest by uneven development from the sprocket holes down to the centre line.

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[chrism]

I'd expect Rodinal 1+50 to take longer, have less grain, and produce less contrast than Rodinal 1+25. My reasoning is that I know how benign it makes the negatives for scanning when used 1+100. I also know what 1+25 looks like as I have to use that ratio to get the minimum 5ml Rodinal per film with some developing tanks. So I assume that 1+50 is somewhere in between.