Neopan 100 Acros and Mamiya 7

Johnmcd

Johnmcd

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Just running a number of different films through my new Mamiya 7.

Very impressed with the Neopan 100 Acros. Very fine grain.

7 minutes in 1:14 Ilfosol 3

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100% crop scanned at 1600 dpi with Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro. Very fine grain.

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Tomorrow I finish a roll of Rollei Retro 100...

Cheers - John
 
To be frank, I dislike Acros for its digital look, but it can get very good if shot at EI 50 and developed in Rodinal. I only use that film for night photography for reasons of reciprocity. Expose Rollei Retro between 50 and 100, and if you have some, use Rodinal, the results can be very rewarding. Generally speaking though, with such a big negative it would be better to use a film that gives you sufficient sharpness and great tonality and DR, Tri X is an obvious candidate, especially if pulled slightly.
 
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You're right about the big neg, but if you want fine grain then I think it does a great job.

Digital look? I find just about anything looks 'digital' once I downsize it for screen viewing. What I am noticing most is a DR difference to any digital camera I've ever owned.

I also think it scans easier (than say HP5) as it doesn't appear as dense.

Here's one more.

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mfogiel said:
To be frank, I dislike Acros for its digital look, but it can get very good if shot at EI 50 and developed in Rodinal. I only use that film for night photography for reasons of reciprocity. Expose Rollei Retro between 50 and 100, and if you have some, use Rodinal, the results can be very rewarding. Generally speaking though, with such a big negative it would be better to use a film that gives you sufficient sharpness and great tonality and DR, Tri X is an obvious candidate, especially if pulled slightly.
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I'm not sure I agree with the "digital look" comment but I do like Acros for the reciprocity aspect, a great film to work with.

Nice pics BTW, contrast is a little high but I like them anyway.

Mamiya 7II
80/4
Acros at 50 exposed for around 4 min

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Todd
 
To show you what I mean - this is Acros in Prescysol EF - shot with Hassy Planar 100/3.5

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Looks ok, but is a bit flattish, instead this is Acros in Rodinal, shot with the SWC/M Biogon38:

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And this is again Hassy Planar 100/3,5, shot on HP5+ in Tmax Developer - if you do not develop too long, the negatives scan very well:

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If you can still find it somewhere, try TXP, exposed around 160-200, it is a great compromise betwen the tonality and sharpness, this one has ben shot with a Rolleiflex/Zeiss 75/3.5 Planar and developed in DD-X:

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I think the reason many people feel it's boring is that they scan it. Film was designed to print in a wet darkroom and dodge and burn not a straight scan. There's a very big difference in the look from scans and wet prints. Acros is one of my favorites if not the best all round film (100 iso) that I've ever used.
 
By coincidence I developed my first roll of 135 Acros 100 last night in Rodinal 1:50 and was very pleased with the result. It reminded me of APX100, so I'll be interested in what the OP concludes after using the Rollei Retro. I tried some in 35mm a while back and whilst it seemed OK it dried with a ferocious curl along the film that made scanning a pain.
I also did a roll of HP5+ in Rodinal yesterday and was less than impressed - the grain was worse than Delta 3200 in DDX!
 
Rodinal?

Rodinal?

When I was younger (those were the days) I exclusively used Ilford chemistry for films and paper because it was used by the high school I was at and was always available at the local camera store, certainly in Australia anyway. And most of the time it was ID11 or Microphen.

Rodinal seems very popular with most people for a bewildering number of reasons and appears to be used in similarly bewildering number of ways with regard to mixing, agitation and time.

For a person that has never used it and looking to be weened off my Ilford safety blanket, what can I expect from using Rodinal?

Yes, I have done a search, but the number of replies is, let's say bewildering 🙂

Thanks - John

Cheers,

John
 
Johnmcd said:
When I was younger (those were the days) I exclusively used Ilford chemistry for films and paper because it was used by the high school I was at and was always available at the local camera store, certainly in Australia anyway. And most of the time it was ID11 or Microphen.

Rodinal seems very popular with most people for a bewildering number of reasons and appears to be used in similarly bewildering number of ways with regard to mixing, agitation and time.

For a person that has never used it and looking to be weened off my Ilford safety blanket, what can I expect from using Rodinal?

John
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I don't think Rodinal is a particularly fine grain developer. To me it's about the same as ID-11 when used on conventional films such as FP4+ and it's not recommended for HP5+ for some reason. Certainly the HP5+ I developed in Rodinal two days ago was disappointingly grainy. The Acros 100 I did today came out well.
I have a bottle of Rodinal Special (Studional in the US) which I intend to trial against Perceptol before the year is out. The Special is supposed to be fine grain but as the development times are quite short I'm a bit apprehensive about how aggressive it might be.

So, for me, Rodinal is a good general purpose developer and the convenience factor of keeping qualities and of liquid one-shot mix over the ID-11 powder mix is why I tend to use it more often than anything else (except I use DDX on all Delta films).
There are folk who swear it's the elixir of life and pay reverence to Rodinal the way some people do to Barnack Leicas, but I rather think it's often a matter of having made up their minds they don't want to listen to any contrary opinions. Convenient it is - the Holy Grail it is not.

At the moment I'm testing a few different films to find my current "favourite" since Agfa APX is no more, and I'm giving them all the standard recommended development in Rodinal 1+50. Once I've settled on one film type I intend to do a little further comparison testing using a small selection of different developers to see what grain improvement I can get - at least from developers that are available here. There are some special ones in the UK and US but getting them here at a reasonable price and in the small quantities I use isn't much of an option.
 
Leigh Youdale said:
I don't think Rodinal is a particularly fine grain developer. To me it's about the same as ID-11 when used on conventional films such as FP4+ and it's not recommended for HP5+ for some reason. Certainly the HP5+ I developed in Rodinal two days ago was disappointingly grainy. The Acros 100 I did today came out well.
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For medium format negatives, Rodinal is my preferred developer now. It's versatile, and handles the highlights very well. One film I have never liked is TMax100. Off late, I have been trying to finish up a bunch of expired TMax100 I got for cheap. It was out by 8 years or so. Here is a sample with Rodinal at 1+50 exposed @ E.I 80.



Leigh, agree with on some films do badly in Rodinal. e.g. Delta 400.
 
I have more Acros 100, i hope to use those with Mamiya 7 in the future and see the results, but it seems it will be fine as long it is fine with GSW690, i tested Neopan 400 on my Hassy and developed by myself, it seems grainy, so not sure if my developing was not good or the film is tend to be grainy or the developer is not the best combo with it, but i hope to test Acros 100 and develop it by myself and see if i can get same lab-processed quality.
 
This is Acros 100 in Fujica GS645 (I think this is Stoeckler developer but might be Rodinal as well). It does not look digital printed on the real photo paper.
 
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