Ronald M
Veteran
Dear all,
I have been following thisthread for a long time and finally I've gotten downto using rodinal to develop my film.
However i've been getting some sort of uneven developing, as can be seen in the below picture.
Apparently the right side is overdeveloped. Any ideas? I've followed the instructions exactly and i'm not sure what's going on. The whole roll is like this, and the previous one was also the same.
You risk all kinds of uneven development when doing stand. That is why NO film manufacturer will ever tell you to do it.
The rules are
on immersion, the wet dry edge needs to proceed across the film as quickly as possible with no retreat/ advance . I drop film into a preloaded film tank. You will get a line if you break this rule. The first 30 seconds are critical.
agitation needs to be vigorous and random so as not to leave any areas with unreplenished developer.
trying to be gentle here gives so called "surge marks". Internet BS.
Kodak instructions are 5/7 times in 5 seconds. I can do 5 before my arm fails, but it works.
Another method that works is a two reel tank, two reels, film on the bottom only. ONly enough developer to cover the bottom reel. Invert 2 times. This is vigorous and random and exactly how sheet film is done in a large tank without gaseous burst agitation. Same set up, but roll the tank 1.33 rotations and back. repeat one more time. The second PJ people wrote the rolling method up in Modern Photography around 1963 when I was in college. He is currently a RF member. This still works and gives excellent results.
Insufficient agitation gives bromide drag/streaking most easily seen from the sprocket holes, but if happens in high density areas also. If you don`t see it, you are not looking hard enough.
To cut contrast , skip every other agitation cycle during the last half of the development time.
Or expose at 50% box speed and cut development 20%. This gives beautiful negs with rich shadow detail and no blown highlights.
Grain clumping is proportional to time in developer and total wet time, mostly time in developer. Cut that time down and there is far less grain. Use Ilford wash procedure to cut that down and save water.
Skip prewash, short stop or rinse between developer & fix. All you do is dilute the developer with ss and defeat what you did with short development time. Develop, fix, wash is all I do. Sine I never reuse fix, there is no cost.
Flame away, but I will not get into an argument. After thousands of rolls and 50 years, I know what works and what does not. I present these ideas to open minded people not jaded by all the miss information presented on the internet.
