Rodinal 1+50 and Tri-x EI 200

P

Peter S

Guest
Hi guys,

Decided to give Tri-x in Rodinal a shot. Have rated my Tri-X at EI 200 (based on past experience, ages ago I have to admit). Surfing the net I thought I would give a 1+50 dilution a try as people are very happy with the tonality they get and I kind of hope it will produce very scanable negs.

Anyway I came across following development times : 9 minutes at 68F/20C ; 10 seconds agitation every minute. How does that sound ?

I realize I will need to experiment before I reach my own optimum setup, but of course I would like to start with something that seems to make to sense to a lot of others out there.

Please let me know what you think of the dilution/developmenttime and please do not hesitate to throw in your own Rodinal adventures with Tri-X rated at 200.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Peter
 
Give 1:100 a try. I use 18mins at 20C, agitate for the first 30 seconds, then 10 seconds every third minute. The city farm sheep pictures in my gallery got this treatment. This is at 400, for 200 I'd knock off 3 to 5 minutes, maybe agitate every other minute. Gives smooth tones and surprisingly little grain. This is tuned for a condenser enlarger, though, for more contrast give longer and maybe a little more agitation. You may want to search the archives for some of Merciful's Tri-x/Rodinal stand experiments. I tried 1:50 on a few rolls but couldn't get used to the grain.

Mark
 
Mark,

I will have to give the 1:100 dilution a try. I have been using 1:50 and have been mostly pleased, but sometimes I get that ugly grain clumping, and it always seem to appear on the wrong negative. BTW - I sent you a PM regarding the 'cron images in your gallery.

- robert
 
Thanks Mark and Robert for your messages and trying to lead me to the path of even higher dilutions. Understand that both of you have used 1+50, what EI/temperature and developing time did you end up with. I do look grain, so I will definitely give the 1+50 a try and just see what happens.

Regards

Peter
 
In the previous please substitute " look" with " like" .
 
Peter: I think your time in your first post is probably close enough as a starting point, but I would recommend much less agressive agitation. I haven't done controlled experiments, but a lot of folks have noticed grain increases with agitation.

I seem to remember from the distant past that for 1:50 ~9min is correct. And I also consistently rated TX at 200 for both Rodinal and HC-110.

Within limits, of course, I don't mind the grain developed by Rodinal with TriX. The tonal scale and separation is lovely.

Earl
 
Peter,

I have had the best results by rating the Tri-x at 320 and developing in 50:1 Rodinal for 12 min @ 20c. (30 sec. agitation, then 5 sec. per 90 sec.). I am currently trying a roll rated @ 250, which I plan on developing in 2:1 XTOL.

Below is a recent example of 50:1 rodinal:
 
Trix Rodinal 1+50 the sequel

Trix Rodinal 1+50 the sequel

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your wise words. I would like to have your comments on following picture:

Trix rated at 250; Rodinal 1+50 9 minutes 20 C

Scanned with Vuescan (procedure that I found on the web, see here below), minor level adjustments in Photoshop.

I think I probably should have rated Tri X at 200, seems underexposed to me.

Pleased to hear what you think.

Regards

Peter

Vuescan
I honestly do not recall the source of this information, would not be surprised if it is from a fellow RFF member; I apologize for not being able to give credit to the author


Here goes:

First off, it is better to scan your black and white, or color negs, as slides. The scanner and Vuescan will utilize every ounce of their potential when in this mode. It makes a difference! Set to "slide film" as apposed to "image".

Set the optical resolution/pixels to the highest the scanner is rated for optically, as apposed to having it interpolate the data. Set it for the highest bit depth available, but you will not benefit from the RGBI setting (though I don't think the Dimage has an infrared channel, so that option wouldn't likely appear). You can leave the preview res on auto. I'd leave the number of passes at one, and not use the long pass option. You may benefit slightly from them on a poor (very poor) exposure, but they are generally not needed, and can cause softening of the image.

This is where it gets important! Go down and set the "Lock Exposure" option. After doing so, the box below "RGB exposure" will have a value in it. If it isn't "1", you'll need to set it to that value. This will give you more options and control. "Exposure clipping" I always keep at zero, which is probably best. Down below that, you'll want to check "Lock film base color", and "Lock image color", so you'll have more control over the histogram and within the color options tab.

After setting these options, you should be fine to do the preview scan. Once complete, go to the "Preview Hist." view, and the color tab. From there, set the film base color for all three, red, green, and blue, to zero. From there you can use your mouse to move the three colored triangles for both the white and dark points. I never bother to use this for the actual white and black point, but rather to get the scan as nuetral as possible. You can do this by aligning all three channels to meet directly where they touch the bottom of the scale. Do this for both the right and left sides of the histogram, and the image will scan almost perfectly grayscale.

This method is the best for insuring you get the most possible information from the neg and into the computer, where I assume you'll be further editing it. I always hit channel mixer in PS and check the monochrome box and hit okay. That removes the slight color casts that you will always have. Next, I use curves to flop the image into a positive; just pull the top right corner down to the bottom, and the bottom left up to the top, and you're in business. You can complete other edits as you normally would.
 
second attempt

second attempt

I might have had some settings wrong in Vuescan. This one looks a lot better, but still am of the opinion that it is slightly underexposed. It remains very grainy - partially due to the max resolution of my scanner (Coolscan IV), but maybe I also did agitate too much. First 30 secs and then 4 inversion (8 secs) every minute.

Honus I am very much impressed by the tonality in your picture, how did you scan and with which scanner/software ?

Next roll - if I can be patient enough to wait for your replies - will be Tri X at 200; Rodinal 1+50 for 9 minutes at 20C but with less agitation.

Must say I enjoy all the experimenting and wish I had more time for it.

Regards

Peter
 
Peter: Whew, the second scan is much better! I don't think exposure is off much, but rating it at 200 won't hurt and is as much as you'll need. I would still reduce agitation and perhaps the time a bit. Note the highlights on the man's lower left sleeve are a bit hot. Without seeing the negatives, it's hard to discern what's there and what is due to scanning and post-processing.

The "real" way to do this is to use a structured method of testing. I basically use the method presented in Zone VI Workshop, but there are other books that have similar methods of reaching proper exposure and development for your materials.

Earl
 
Wow, Peter! I've never gotten grain like that in any of my Tri-x scans. I've not used Rodinal yet, though I usually shoot Tri-x quite fast. When pushed in T-Max dev, the grain isn't this bad. When I develop in Diafine, up to 6400, I still have better looking grain. Mind you, I like grain, so perhaps I'm just interpreting bigger grain as more pleasing to the smaller grain of the above examples.

I am the one who shared my Vuescan technique, by the way, that you've pasted above. The copyright infringement police (yeah, they exist) will be arriving at your door any second now! ;)

I've since revised my technique to set the film base colors for all channels to one. That is the same as 0 (nuetral), and can be adjusted if need be either up or down (rarely if ever necessary for monochrome).

But back to the picture: It looks to me more like the grain was seriously enhanced by improper (to my eye) sharpening. I'm finding that grainy images require a larger radius and smaller amount, for my eye. For example, just looking at one of my files that was souped in Diafine, I get similar grain when using Amount = 500, and Radius = .3.
 
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Close encounters of the grainy kind

Close encounters of the grainy kind

Thanks guys. I agree with you that I need to improve my scanning techniques. I did not apply any sharpening; I really wanted to keep them as un-postprocessed as possible.

I use this plastic Paterson tank with room for two reels and id does not feel as good as my very old one reel Jobo tank. I would not be surprised if the agitation is simply too rough. Next one will be Tri X at 200 and Rodinal 1+ 50 at 9 minutes 20C and will be agitating less and more gently. Let's see what that does.

A question though on the dilution; AGFA says you need minimum 10ml stock per roll of film; in my case it is 6ml stock with 284ml of water; could that be causing the very apparent grain ? I like grain, that is why I am exploring the Tri-x Rodinal path, but somehow I am far from getting things right.

Schmoozit, let me start with a late thank you for the Vuescan technique. Could you maybe explain me why you are now setting the film base coulours to 1?

With the copyright police ringing my doorbell constantly, I better stay inside and soup up some film. The next one will be Cuban Tri-X at 200; just back from holidays and very curious what will come out. Must say found it difficult now and then to move in closely (speaking only a couple of words of Spanish also did not help). The man in the street in Cuba has a very hard and unhappy life that he tries to smoothen with rum and music, I saw some "nice" shots which I passed on because I felt I owed the people in it their right to some dignity. Beautiful country with friendly people, but if you stray from the beaten track you see how hard and tough their daily struggle really is.

Anyway " la lucha continua " in Cuba and in my (semi digital)darkroom.
 
The copyright cops can be nasty. Don't underestimate them!

Setting the base colors to one and zero are the same thing. They are both considered nuetral; neither plus or minus, that is. Zero is also neutral. Technically, Hamrick shouldn't allow a value of zero because it doesn't really make sense.

Anyway, you won't need to adjust anything for monochrome. If you are doing color, however, you may find that adjusting the film color base in either direction could be beneficial. Of course, if you were to think of only zero being neutral, it'd not make sense when you add only .012 and the levels go off the chart, and that not in the direction you'd expect. That's how I eventually found that one is also neutral. I was pulling my hair out for a little while over that. I thought I was going from neutral to plus .012, but in reality I was going from neutral to minus .988, which is a long way in the opposite direction.
 
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Peter: I've never had problems with 6ml of stock in the dilution. If you ever have insomnia, go over to APUG and read the multiple threads on Rodinal and dilutions.

Earl
 
Gentlemen,

I think I am going in the right direction. TriX rated at 200, Rodinal 1+50, 20c 9 minutes. 20 secs gentle inversions and then 2 gentle slow inversions every minute (10 secs for 2 inversions).

I found that I did not have to do any levels/curves adjustments in Photoshop. The attachments are basically unprocessed (apart from inverting).

Still not 100% happy, but getting there. What is your opinion, should it be possible to improve or should I stick with this workflow and see how the other rolls come out.

Thanks for your time

Peter
 
Peter S said:
Gentlemen,

I think I am going in the right direction. TriX rated at 200, Rodinal 1+50, 20c 9 minutes. 20 secs gentle inversions and then 2 gentle slow inversions every minute (10 secs for 2 inversions).

I found that I did not have to do any levels/curves adjustments in Photoshop. The attachments are basically unprocessed (apart from inverting).

Still not 100% happy, but getting there. What is your opinion, should it be possible to improve or should I stick with this workflow and see how the other rolls come out.

Thanks for your time

Peter
Click to expand...

That is certainly a lot better. I like the separation of the midtones and high values. This particular scene is mostly in shadow, so the lighting is pretty diffuse. It looks a little low in contrast, BUT that it is probably very faithful to the scene. Now I would go out and make some exposures under a variety of lighting conditions, but be sure to include a higher contrast scene. One of the advantages to Rodinal is that the different dilutions give you good control over contrast.

We usually stick with 1:25, 1:50, 1:100, but there's nothing stopping us from trying 1:40, 1:125, etc.

Earl
 
Guys,

It's me again. First of all thanks for all the advice sofar.

I just developed the second roll of TriX at 200 at 20C in Rodinal 1+50 for 9 minutes. I increased agitation: first 30 secs and then 2 inversions every 1 minute (10 secs, but rougher inversions than previous roll). The result has again good tones but still lacks in punch. The contrast is rather flat, which does make the negs very scannable but I can not increase contrast in Photoshop with a satisfactory result. Final conclusion: I need increased contrast in the negs.

What should my next step be ? Decrease time, decrease dilution but maintain same time, developing film in a cocktail shaker?

Thanks

Peter
 
Peter S said:
The contrast is rather flat, which does make the negs very scannable but I can not increase contrast in Photoshop with a satisfactory result.
Click to expand...

This doesn't make sense to me. What scanner are you using? Are you scanning 48 bit (16 per channel)? If so, you shouldn't have any trouble getting the contrast right in PS. I hope you are using curves to adjust the contrast.
 
Peter S said:
I just developed the second roll of TriX at 200 at 20C in Rodinal 1+50 for 9 minutes. I increased agitation: first 30 secs and then 2 inversions every 1 minute (10 secs, but rougher inversions than previous roll).
Click to expand...

Peter: one thing to consider is the quality of the water you are using. I have found Rodinal to be sensitive to local Ph. I once was working for a newspaper in a place with very hard water (loads of extra calcium -- lots of limestone in the aquafer). Rodinal was useless to me there. Try developing a control roll using distilled water to mix your developer. It may make a difference.
 
Thanks replies. Am using a Nikon Coolscan IV ED, at highest resolution/bitdepth with Vuescan Pro and used curves in Photoshop to increase contrast. I definitely did not need the usual smooth S type curve for contrast, but something a lot more agressive.

Water is relatively soft here in Amsterdam, so I do not think that is the problem.

Any other ideas how I could get a little bit more punch in my negs?
 
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