Matching films to developers: HC110 & Rodinal

[Bob Michaels]

Takkun: May I make a suggestion? Go buy 5 rolls of fresh film, all of the same emulsion. Just pick a film you think you may like in the future. Quickly expose all 5 rolls normally.

Pick any one of the developers you have. Just get one you think you may like in the future.

Develop each of those 5 rolls, one at at time. Develop a baseline. Learn how to normally develop film. If you need more than those five rolls, get more of the same.

Only when you have established a baseline, change ONE variable at time. Maybe a different film. Maybe a different developer. Maybe a roll that was exposed long ago. Learn how EACH of those variables require changes in your baseline.

Only then go back to developing that backlog of exposed film you have.

Realize that juggling so many variables will create so many complexities, that it will be a long long long time before you ever will learn how to consistently repeat film development and it will always be a hit or miss proposition.

 

[Takkun]

Bob, thanks for the sage advice. Sometime's it's good to have a reminder not to go crazy with experimenting and to be scientific about it.

Truthfully, I have quite a lot of experience with all three films in XTOL and HC110, and have kept notes over the years (and embed them into my scanned images for reference). What was throwing me off was the age of the film and perhaps the latent image stability, and getting very thin images from times I knew worked in the past.

Since posting last, I got through the last bit of the batch(of 35mm at least, still have 10 rolls of 120), and the DDX worked out nicely.

Re-reading my first post, I'm realizing how foolish it was to think of trying Rodinal on films of unknown provenance, but I did pick up four 100 bulk rolls of my favorite stocks, along with Silvermax, to play with.

 

[FujiLove]

Replenished Xtol has worked very well with every film I’ve tried it with (Tri-X, Delta 400, T-max 400 and Acros, so far) and it’s very easy to use. I keep 2 litres of working solution in a PET bottle and replenish it at a rate of 70ml per film. Super easy, and it’s ready to go in seconds.

 

[Takkun]

After using it as the standard communal developer in undergrad, I was sold on XTOL and used it for a number of years. Always loved how it looked with just about every film stock I tried.

It took me a little while to remember why I switched to HC110: the usual mixing/storage/keeping issues, plus wanting to try high dilution development, which I still haven't got around to.

DD-X is something I've used intermittently (starting in middle school!) with similar results as XTOL, but the price is something else after HC110. One thing I haven't tried, after all these years, is Delta 400 in it, which I never got what I like in Kodak chemistry.