I need a formula to develop Neopan 1600@6400. Suggestions?

[dropoff]

When used to develop my film I was a diafine user. I had to stop doing my own bw developing because of practical reasons. Anyway I am back at it using Rodinal(Afga Adonal in this case) and i have heard miracle stories of pushed films using stand development.

I wouldn't mind the grain i just want to keep some of the detail in the shadows and highlights. I know i can use other developers but rodinal is what I have at hand and i am too cheap to buy anything else at the moment.

Suggestions ?

 

[Tim Gray]

Don't expect miracles.

That's more than a three stop push for Neopan 1600. There won't be much in the way of detail in the shadows.

I've not done push and stand development in Rodinal, but I have tried it in XTOL 1:1 with TMZ. While I won't say the result was bad, I'm not convinced it was vastly superior to normal push development. It was certainly less controllable.

I just looked at the sample of TMZ shot at 6400 with stand development, and it doesn't look *that* much different than the TMZ underexposed by one stop and push developed for EI 3200, i.e. EI 6400. That frame would look a bit better had I push developed it for 6400, but Photoshop compensated for that reasonably well. There characteristic curve does look to be different; the compensating effect of the stand development does change the relationship of the highlights to the midtones. I can't say whether this is always good or bad.

On a side note, out of the 5 development tests I did on that roll (and several others for other rolls), the stand development test was the only one that had uneven tones where they shouldn't be, evidence of some kind of bromide drag-type effect.

 

[Rob-F]

"I need a formula to develop Neopan 1600@6400. Suggestions?"

My suggestion is, "Don't bother."

I have not been too impressed with this film, even at 1600. It does much better at 640 ir 800. Is there some reason why you could not use TMax P3200 instead? I think it is better suited to such a high EI.

I believe that shooting film at 6400 is somewhat of an exercise in make-believe. You can set your meter to any speed you want, but that doesn't mean the film is really delivering at 6400. If we set our meter to 6400, but then measure carefully for the important shadow area, we can get a decent picture. Perhaps we can get about the same picture we would have gotten with an overall reading taken with the meter set to maybe 1600 or 1000.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

I think this was as shot at ei of 3200, ie. 2.8f and 1/30 I think. Captured on Neopan 1600 and pushed in Tmax Dev.