Overdeveloping with Rodinal: Acutance Question

[BLKRCAT]

Hello All,

I do post a lot of questions here and as I venture through the world of film photography little nuances pop up every now and then that I think I can explain but maybe need a little guidance.

I was processing a roll of expired plus-X last night in Rodinal at 1:50. First problem is (and I'm aware of this one) that I'm using the "approx" scale on my beaker to measure out my water and a syringe to measure my developer. I have a feeling its possible that the water wont be consistent or entirely accurate this way.

The neg came out chunky, maybe a little thick. I shot the roll at 100 to compensate a little for the expiration (expired 2011). I made the assumption that that are likely overdeveloped because of a slightly higher dilution ratio. But not entirely unusable.

Skimming through the images there was one in particular that stood out to me. Not necessarily for composition or any "artistic" merit, but because of some weird blurring artifact.

You may need to click on the image and work through flickr to view an "original" that shows the effect Im talking about.



The face should be entirely within the DOF. Yet his chin area is soft.

I took the shot at 1/500, f/5.6 with my rigid summicron. It should be quite sharp.

Is it possible that the high acutance of rodinal can cause these artifacts in high contrast, high detail areas when overdeveloped and actually soften areas of an image?

Does overdeveloping effect sharpness the same way severe overexposure would?

Another example here the guitar frets and his left shoe should be on the same plane of focus, but the frets and guitar seem soft or bloomed out or something.



Sorry for the novel, thoughts?

 

[DominikDUK]

Can't blame Rodinal for this. Have you done some wetprints or scans only. Also look at the negs trough a loupe. It's probably a scanner problem and not a Rodinal problem. Your guitar and chin problems seem to be at or nearly at the same height within the neg. So maybe you have smeard your lens (camera or scanner).
You don't need to compensate yet three years past expiry date is nothing, especially for low to medium speed film.

Also overdevelopment does indeed have an effect on sharpness but this would be an overall effect and not a very localized one.

 

[BLKRCAT]

That's a very good observation. I hadn't noticed that. I know the taking lens isn't smeared as I keep it pristine most of the time but the scanner is probable. I'll look at it and rescan if possible.

Scanner is an Epson V700 by the way.

No wetprints as I don't have space for a darkroom. I really should pick up a loupe for these instances when I'm in doubt. This is going to have to be my push to getting one.

 

[mllanos1111]

I don't know about others but I shoot a lot of expired film and after testing much of it out including Panatomic-X that expired in 1988 I shoot it at box speed.
It looks to me that possibly shooting the Plus-X it at the rated speed would be fine, I never noticed much change in speed, especially in B&W film.
I measure my Rodinal with a syringe as well and drop it into a measuring test tube and it seems to be pretty accurate.
I would be more concerned with the temperature and the agitation.

 

[BLKRCAT]

Seeing as the plus-x is rated at 125 I would end up shooting it at 100 anyways. It's what I would rate fresh FP4+ at as well.

Temp was 20* and I follow the massive dev chart for time. I believe it was 13:00. Seeing as its a bit long I do 2 gentle inversions every 1:15. I use the same agitation scheme for FP4+ with rodinal and get great negs.

 

[f16sunshine]

V700?
I'm blaming the scanner. I use one also and have had similar resulting blobs of softness.
Sometimes simply scanning again eliminates the issue.
Lately I only use the epson to do batches for preview and then scan keepers with a Nikon CS50.

The negs look good overall though. If it was me... I would not be concerned about your exposure or wet process.

Cheers!

 

[shortstop]

Erroneously some time ago I developed two 135 rolls tmax 400 iso considering the time for 1:75 dilution instead of the time for the effective dilution I did (1:50). Strangely the results were great. Now I develop with at least a 20% of time in excess. My reference time are massive development app. I print with diffuse light enlarger (laborator 1000).

 

[Elektrojänis]

If the center is not sharp when the edges are you could have film flatness issue either in the camera or in the scanning.

On the second image the wall behind the guy looks sharper than the guitar. Moving film closer to the lens in the camera would cause the plane of focus move away from the camera. If the problem is only in the center it would seem to indicate that the film is bowed towards the lens. If it would be scanning issue, the features of the wall behind the guy would blurr more too.

In the first picture the plane of focus seems to be on the left side shoulder. It seems to me that it is further away than the guys face, so it could just be misfocus... But then again the film bowing towards the lens could cause the same and there is not enough anything on the same distance to really make any kind of estimate if the film plane is flat or not.

I have never had a problem with film flatness on 35mm film. However I had a bit of a similar issue on 120 size film on a Yashica-Mat EM TLR. I resolved that by changing my habits to winding film only just before taking a shot. (I used to wind the film on to the next frame straight after every shot and on 35mm cameras I still do.)

Edit: Oh... I had to look the largest versions of the pictures available on flickr to see the issue you are describing.

 

[BLKRCAT]

Thanks for the input all. I'm going to give rescanning a go tonight. Perhaps they will be a little flatter and scan a little nicer.

I still think that there is a possibility that that summicron may be back focussing. Someone mentioned it and it is something thats constantly in the back of my mind.

Its good that others cleared up the overdevelopment or underdiluting of rodinal for me.
Very much appreciated.

 

[mfogiel]

Developing is not to be blamed - if anything, I'd say you have developed a bit on the long side. With Rodinal it's a good idea to rate the film at 2/3rd box speed and develop 15% shorter. As suggested, the sharpness issue is most likely due to film bowing while scanning. Ilford film tends to be flatter.

 

[teddy]

Could be film flatness on camera, or in the scanner. It could also be that your rangefinder is not calibrated. This could be a remote but possible reason. Also, have you checked if the lens is screw in all the way in the hellicoid? It seems that it's not focused properly. It might just be a rangefinder issue?!

 

[grandallj]

It seems that it's not focused properly. It might just be a rangefinder issue?!

This is my vote, as well. In both images, the sharpest part of the image is further away than the portions you describe as being of concern. I think your RF may be off (or perhaps your DOF estimates are overly generous).

 

[BLKRCAT]

I had everything checked yesterday quickly and it appears the rangefinder focused a little past infinity which would explain the back focussing. But also the summicron I am using has a bit of wobble that you can notice at infinity. Pushing up on the lens barrel puts the proper amount of angle to properly line up the rangefinder at infinity.

Some adjustments were made. Let's see how the next roll pans out. Thanks to all for input.