Article: Why 90 year old rodinal is still a soup for all seasons

raytoei@gmail.com

raytoei@gmail.com

Veteran
Local time
7:08 AM
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Messages
2,022
View My Gallery
Found this interesting article by an old Popular Photography magazine, December Issue, but dunno which year it was. http://eriephoto.com/Rodinal.pdf

A quote "In all cases, agitation during processing is critical to this process. If a film is left in the developer with no agitation at all, bromide streaming from the heavily exposed highlights will soon stop all developments there, and soon only the weakly exposed shadows will be active The mixture of active and inactive developer soution will lead to staining or streaking. Thus, the first reason for agitation is to prevent such uneven development.

Now suppose that the film is contantly agitated from start to finish. Again, the highlights will release more bromide and the shadows less, but because they're both being constantly flushed with brand-new fresh developing agents, all latent-image (exposure) densities will receive the same development, and contrasts will therefore be raised considerably. Moreever, the beneficial edge and adjacency effects in which weak and strong developer solution merge at the tonal borders of brighter and darker image areas, will be totally eliminated.

This means that agitation must be intermittent to allow periods of quiet rests, or stagnation, in which the compensating action, as well as the contour-sharpening efects can take place"

cheers!
 
Last edited:
The current bottle of Rodinal that I'm almost finished looks like it may just be ninety years old. It's gone brown and has all sorts of strange particles in there that actually keep blocking the syringe when I draw some out.

Incredibly it still works perfectly!

It's an amazing developer and I'm gaining more and more respect for it as I use it ... in fact I haven't used my favoured Xtol for quite a while now!


edit ... oh and i noticed one of the ads was advertising their latest price list for 1979!
 
Last edited:
Wow. I've seen bromide drag when doing stand development, along with a corresponding lack of contrast. That explains that 😀

What I want to know is how people who routinely use stand development for an hour or more don't have a big issue with bromide drag. Because I thought "agitate for 30 seconds then let it stand for 90 minutes" meant zero agitation after the initial bit. Are people leaving something out when they summarize with "stand development"?
 
40oz said:
Wow. I've seen bromide drag when doing stand development, along with a corresponding lack of contrast. That explains that 😀

What I want to know is how people who routinely use stand development for an hour or more don't have a big issue with bromide drag. Because I thought "agitate for 30 seconds then let it stand for 90 minutes" meant zero agitation after the initial bit. Are people leaving something out when they summarize with "stand development"?
Click to expand...


I can't speak for anybody else, but when I've tried stand/semi-stand development, I've used very dilute solutions of developer, eg. 1:100. no bromide drag with Rodinal nor HC-110.
 
I've never used rodinal, but have gotten bromide drag. Always from under-agitation in my case, and more importantly, only in areas with a lot of density - skies and white walls, etc. Shots on the same roll in contrasty light with dimly lit backgrounds were fine.
 
JSU said:
Rodinal is about the only developer with which I have never had streaking from bromide drag.

The quote from the article runs exactly contrary to the experience and conventional wisdom associated with stand development.

For me stand development means constant agitation for the initial 60 seconds and being allowed to sit, untouched for the remainder of an hour. The only variation I have for this is Tri-X at ASA 1600 and above when I do a gentle 10 second swirl, not an inversion, at the 30 minute mark.
Click to expand...

😕

I was just going to say...The quote is totally against my experiences.
I just pushed some film for over 2 hours without any agitation (except the first 60secs) and it came out great. Actually probably a little overdeveloped...

I use Rodinal without any agitation. I think it's the best and most consistent way of using it. Never had any problems this way. Shows the individual character of each film really well.
 
Last edited:
Tim Gray said:
I've never used rodinal, but have gotten bromide drag. Always from under-agitation in my case, and more importantly, only in areas with a lot of density - skies and white walls, etc. Shots on the same roll in contrasty light with dimly lit backgrounds were fine.
Click to expand...

I suppose that's it. Mine was in HC110, very dilute, and a bright sky in the background. Some shots on the same roll didn't show any drag but they didn't have bright backgrounds.

And I suppose it just works for some people for the shots they like and the way they use the film, while for others it doesn't for the same reason.
 
First a correction: Rodinal is now getting on 120+ years old. There seems to be a difference in the year, either 1889 or 1891 - either way, it is one of the oldest photographic products still available.
As for agitation or no agitation - it depends on your taste in negatives. You want punchy, hard edged and grainy ones - agitate. If you want relatively "smooth" looking negs - do stand development or semi stand development.
Rodinal is a developer that you "shoot yourself in to" - you set aside some film and do a series of tests with developers, time, dilution etc - and once you got it nailed - you just keep using it.
I have been using it since the early 60's - it is a great "fall back" developer when you are stuck. Might not be the prettiest negatives - but always printable. These days it is more of a hassle to find it - so when I do, I stock up. Other people store wines - I store developers (Rodinal, HC 110, Accutol - even some Promicrol).
I used to buy it in 6 packs (six 1 liter bottles) and used it for everything from Minox (not recommended) to 8x10 sheet film.
Originally Rodinal was also used as a paper developer - I once tried it, but that was not a good choice - probably would work well with some AZO Printing Out Paper - but modern paper is not suitable for it.
 
Last edited:
Does anyone actually know why this stuff goes brown and starts to form crystals once opened. I'm nearly at the bottom of a 500ml bottle I opened a year ago and it really doesn't look good at all but still seems to function perfectly.

Based on appearances I would haved turfed it six months ago if I hadn't actually expected this to happen from reading other people's experiences!
 
I've always been able to produce a consistent negative with agitating rodinal. The less the better for me, agitating once a minute produces contrast too rich for my tastes but every two minutes hits a sweet spot. I have had less luck with stand development, the negatives were certainly there but producing consistent results were difficult. I'm learning to maximize slower and less frequent agitation methods and what I've developed so far keep getting better and better.
 
Keith said:
Does anyone actually know why this stuff goes brown and starts to form crystals once opened. I'm nearly at the bottom of a 500ml bottle I opened a year ago and it really doesn't look good at all but still seems to function perfectly.

Based on appearances I would haved turfed it six months ago if I hadn't actually expected this to happen from reading other people's experiences!
Click to expand...

I picked up a bottle from a photo store that looked as if the bottle had been sitting for a number of years. The liquid was just dark. When compared against a newer bottle from A&O and Compard the latter two were opaque. I used the old bottle of rodinal down to its last 50-60ml. Beyond that thee crystals kept getting in the mix. I think as long as you avoid big chunks of crystals getting in the solutions it will work fine.
 
Keith said:
Does anyone actually know why this stuff goes brown and starts to form crystals once opened. I'm nearly at the bottom of a 500ml bottle I opened a year ago and it really doesn't look good at all but still seems to function perfectly.

Based on appearances I would haved turfed it six months ago if I hadn't actually expected this to happen from reading other people's experiences!
Click to expand...

Can't explain it but I've had similar experiences with Rodinal that was YEARS old. Goes almost black. Worked fine down to the last drop. I use a very small measuring cylinder and pour it out from the bottle, so don't have the problem with drawing crystals into a syringe. When it ceases to pour it's time to stop.
 
I supect Marty (freakscene) would be able to tell us what actually happens to Rodinal chemically when this occurs.

He hasn't posted for a while though ... shame, his knowledge of all things photographic is remarkable!
 
I read that the browning and crystals are "natural" and harmless, and in home made parodinal the crystals are an important sign that the developer is potent.

I have had streaking in Rodinal stand developed 1:100. The sample below shows the problem where a large dark mass leads to lack of development in the adjacent sky. I assume the film is in the tank with the sky towards the bottom.

I think an agitation at the mid point of time can help to solve this problem.

4141063324_9895a1353a.jpg
 
It shows you that old advice is still current. I think the article dates from the late 70's as the Pentax ME super (on the cover of the issue) was introduced in 1979.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom