Rodinal Newbie-- TriX 400 advice????

[icamp]

Juan
i am suprised about your "agitation has some relevance"comment.Agitation is what controls the highlights together with dilution,Time is only what you need to arrive at your chosen density 🙂.
Develope a film for 10 mins with No agitation,try 20 mins with agitation every 30 secs,agitation has a greater influence on highlight than time, that is how stand and semi-stand work.The time in my experience is of least importance, too much agitation will also increase the grain .
Every one has their own taste in how they want their film and prints to look,
do your homework to get the results you want,i used 7 rolls of acros to nail the EI and contrast for my methods .
Thanks

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

icamp,

Not only did I say agitation has some relevance... If you extend development and rise temperature, guess where your highlights will go...

And don't forget developers are different... Apart from their differences in grain solvency, some of them are more compensating than others, and some are less aggressive...

But the facts I talked about are not new: that's what's been done by thousands of photographers since 19th century, and that's what you can read in books and what you can learn in any photography class. When I teach photography, proper metering, exposure and development in different ways for different contrast scenes is a homework I control carefully on my students evolution. And they feel as much gratitude as I felt when I was well taught.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[palec]

Juan, with Rodinal one thing is also important and that's volume of concentrate / total volume of working solution in tank. 4 ml will not have the same effect as 10ml even used with same ratio (1+50 for example). How much you use for these times?

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

8 ml + 400 ml of water for one 35mm roll.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[icamp]

Juan
you said "AGITATION HAS SOME RELEVANCE, BUT A LOT LESS THAN THE 3 MAIN THINGS;EXPOSURE, DEVELOPEMENT TIME, TEMPERATURE.

I was not talking about the qualities of different developers.

Iwas not trying to say that what works for you is wrong or commenting on your teaching skills.

My comment about "Homework"was a general one .
Thanks

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

icamp,

Don't worry... This is what public forums are for: to read others' opinions... What are your times for sun and overcast with Tri-X?

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Ronald M]

Rodinal is made for low speed films. However you may like what Rodinal does to Tri X.
Do some tests. 12 exposures of your house, car, best friend or anything else handy will get you zerowed in.

1:50 is a good starter dilution. 5 mm to 250 water. Waste any excess. Use a transfer pipette and 10 ml graduate to measure it out. Proper dilution is key to uniform results.
You must use proper measuring technique. Trying 5 ml in a larger grad is totally inaccurate, just basic chemistry lab. Measure to the bottom of the meniscus, again standard practice.

Decades back I used 1:75 for Plus X. 3.5 or 3.7 ml was all I ever used. Their recomendation of 10 ml per roll is based on the excessive gamma they claim to be correct. That gamma has no photographic application.

Agitate10 sec every minute. Control contrast with time, nothing else.

If you do not like 400 speed, expose Tri X at 200 and reduce development 20%. You will get more shadow detail, sharper negs, and less grain. Works for any film

If you don`t like Rodinal with Tri X, use it on a slower film like Delta 100 or T Max 100.
Agfapan 100 and Rodinal was a gem. 1:50 around 12 min is about correct.

I will warn you massive development chart time are always way long for me. For D76, the manufactures times are dead on for me.

 

[charjohncarter]

Hi Peter,

My enlarger is condenser and diffuser... I feel really surprised at people who say "for x film, development is y minutes"... That just doesn't exist... When I cursed my career on photography, the first year of B&W is dedicated to calibrate one single film per student and learn to expose and develop for direct sun and for flat light... Those are two different universes... How can you say developing Tri-X for 25 minutes, exposed incident at ISO 200 on overcast days, at 18ºC is "overcooking it"? Go do it... You'll see your negatives are perfect even before printing... Only pure whites on scenes reach levels just below highest density on negatives... Why overcooked?

Of course for direct sun the story is a totally different one... Just 14 minutes with three inversions every third minute, and at 18ºC... That's treating a film in the best possible way... I tend to print my direct sun negatives on grade two, and my overcast negatives on three, to give my scenes the last bit of help when printing... I understand what lots of people do: they develop a film at just one development time, they include sunny and overcast scenes(!), and they end up with too contrasty sunny negatives and too flat overcast negatives, and then they abuse filters or photoshop, and anyway their sunny images have too dense shadows and their overcast scenes weak tonal separation.

Overcast scenes require a lot more development than sunny ones, and not just a bit more: they really need a tough development so their flat tonal range becomes separated on negatives... And as sunny scenes require a lot more exposure to fill the shadows with rich detail closer to human view, they need a lot less development than overcast ones to control their much higher natural contrast and the huge exposure...

Again: when I develop a sunny roll, and then an overcast roll, and I place both of them on a light table, both show a precise and identical use of the whole tonal range negatives can give, with whites clearly differentiated from high grays. And as I don't use autoexposure and don't mix different contrast scenes, my contact sheets show 36 perfectly exposed and printed frames. This is what real LF black and white photographers do: developing each scene depending on its contrast, and not using "one single development time for everything".

Recommendation: shoot a roll of Tri-X on overcast scenes metered incident at ISO 200. Develop it in Rodinal 1+50 at 18ºC for 25 minutes with three inversions every minute, and come back and tell me how your negatives came. What can you lose, a roll? You can win a lot.

Cheers,

Juan

I agree with this. I went though a testing phase that had too many false paths. In California it is pure sun most days, probably over 300 per year. So I very rarely use my overcast times. I thought about using one camera for sun and one for overcast, but gave up because I never finished the overcast roll. So basically, if I don't have something specific to do on an overcast day, I use my sun times. On overcast days I use my transparency film.

 

[icamp]

Juan
😀 no problem.
I dont use Tri-x anymore, but when did...200 asa,D-76 ,1+1, 20c, 12 mins,with reduced agitation. 🙂
Thanks

 

[icamp]

juan
Overcast is with more agitation,same time.

 

[bwidjaja]

@Juan, since i am not a volume shooter nor dedicated camera/film combination for sun vs overcast, I tend to mix the exposures in 1 roll. Any suggestion what is the best compromise solution? If not, any suggestion to ensure each roll is dedicated to sun or overcast if I cannot finish the whole roll in one shooting.

Thank you
Berhen

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Hi Berthen,

I started mixing scenes in the same roll when I was a teenager... Then, as soon as I studied Ansel Adams' books and bought my LF camera, I saw the benefits of a good development, so I tried to develop 35mm film in the best possible way... I spent years changing the roll: that simple... If after one day of shooting under direct sun I had 16 shots done, and I picked my camera the next day on overcast, I used to rewind, and put another roll: I had with me two things always: that thing used to take out the negative again from a roll, and a permanent marker to write on every roll the number of the last frame used and if it was a sun (S) or overcast (O) roll, so I could develop it in a near future...

Those days I generally used the same film for both kinds of contrast scene: Tri-X... Soon I started to carry one camera for changing B&W rolls and another one for color film... Then, some days I added a third camera so I could use two bodies for back and white without the need of changing rolls: one body for sunny places, and the other one for soft light... Third body for color.

But the set was not perfect for me yet: I was using ISO 100 for sun and ISO 400 for overcast, with ND filters for shooting wide open when I wanted to... The problem was that sometimes ISO 400 film was not fast enough... I started to avoid color and use a third body for low light B&W, loading it with Neopan P1600 or pushed Tri-X... And some months ago I use TMax 3200 on my third body.

Honestly never in my life had I felt this free and comfortable. A lot better than any other set I've used, and even a lot easier than digital: those shooting digital seriously, know it requires as much precision as film, and they know we need to set our digital camera, just like using different films and developments, depending on contrast: if not, we get dull or burnt files...

It's a real pain being on the street with a big DSLR changing settings every time you point towards sunny or flat scenes, trying to use a different ISO and contrast / saturation setting... I've been there, and I hate it. I felt I was slave to my machine...

Now I have one or two small and light rangefinders hanging, with small and light lenses, and a third small camera inside my jacket pocket, and I'm ready to shoot anywhere... I go out walking on a sunny day shooting by the beach with my ISO 100 camera... If I walk by narrow streets in the shadows I use my ISO 400 camera, and if I go into a dark place, I use my 3200 camera. I carry all of them even stopped down and set for emergency use if necessary...

I always wondered why so many photographers used to have two or thee cameras with them, and sometimes all of them hanging from their neck and shoulders... Well, now I think the reason is, that's the easiest way to get the best results...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Trius]

Just perfect for wet printing... Both negatives show exactly the same range on a light table... I've done it for many years...

Cheers,

Juan

Depends on whether you are using point-source, condenser, diffusion, or cold light enlarger.

 

[mathomas]

Oren,

Sorry you asked yet?

🙂

 

[vicmortelmans]

Nobody talked about the compensation effect during stand development yet? I've not used it much, but from what I heard, the effective developer dilution becomes extinct at highlight area's on the negative, so development is stopped in those area's, while it goes on in shadow area's. If you don't agitate, of course!

@Juan, Wouldn't this effect (to some extent) take care of smoothing the contrast difference between sunny and overcast shots on the same roll?

Anyway, my current Tri-X setting (but still in the process of fine-tuning) is

rod 1+25 12' 1x/'

Groeten,
Vic

 

[Peter S]

Juan and SebC thanks for the replies. Juan with overcast I assume you mean thick clouds not allowing any sun to come through ? Your are right nothing wrong trying it with 1 roll.

 

[charjohncarter]

@Juan, since i am not a volume shooter nor dedicated camera/film combination for sun vs overcast, I tend to mix the exposures in 1 roll. Any suggestion what is the best compromise solution? If not, any suggestion to ensure each roll is dedicated to sun or overcast if I cannot finish the whole roll in one shooting.

Thank you
Berhen

I've thought about this one too. My best solution has been to shoot TriX at 250 for most shade, half shade, indoor shots, and if I go outdoors in fun sun to boost the ISO to 400. You definitely lose something with the 400 full sun shots (shadows). But they are still better than anyone else's, and you get good flat lighting exposures. You will HAVE to find your own times but that is life. I'm embarrassed to bare my soul about this, but when you are on vacation you have to improvise.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Depends on whether you are using point-source, condenser, diffusion, or cold light enlarger.

Hi Trius,

What depends on your type of enlarger, is the general contrast of ALL your negatives... Those are relatively small differences to me... Another source of difference in the general contrast required on negatives is the enlarging lens: Nikons require flatter negatives and Schneiders require more contrast in general...

But no matter the enlarger or the enlarging lens, hard light and soft light scenes must be treated in a VERY different way.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Nobody talked about the compensation effect during stand development yet? I've not used it much, but from what I heard, the effective developer dilution becomes extinct at highlight area's on the negative, so development is stopped in those area's, while it goes on in shadow area's. If you don't agitate, of course!

@Juan, Wouldn't this effect (to some extent) take care of smoothing the contrast difference between sunny and overcast shots on the same roll?

Anyway, my current Tri-X setting (but still in the process of fine-tuning) is

rod 1+25 12' 1x/'

Groeten,
Vic

Hi Vic,

Stand can help, but just a bit: it will help to make highlights less pronounced on sunny scenes... But that's precisely what you don't want for the flat scenes in the same roll, because you need to get more contrast for those... And the different treatment for sunny/overcast scenes is not just the development time, but also the exposure... You should give sunny scenes more exposure than usual, so the shadows receive some light too: if you expose just for the zones under the sun, no matter if you use stand, the shadows won't have much detail because the silver received too few photons to become active.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Juan and SebC thanks for the replies. Juan with overcast I assume you mean thick clouds not allowing any sun to come through ? Your are right nothing wrong trying it with 1 roll.

Hi Peter,

Light can be of two kinds: hard and soft.

It's hard when the source is a point and there are dark shadows. (Sun, light bulbs, direct flash).

It's soft when it's ambient light without shadows. (Overcast, shadows: zones -on a sunny day- without sun beams, window without direct sun, available natural light inside home, lightbox in a studio).

Hard light generates high contrast scenes because of the shadows, and soft light generates low contrast scenes because there are no dark shadows.

For hard light, you should expose for more light to fill the shadows, and develop for a short time: this way you reduce that high contrast and your negative can hold all your scene's range.

For soft light you need to separate a naturally flat scene, so you develop for a long time to extend that originally flat range so it's placed on the whole negative range and not just in a small part of it.

All B&W films behave the same way... When the scene is a high contrast one I give two stops more of light: one for filling the shadows and another one for the yellow filter I use under direct sun. And I develop for some minutes less.

Simple...

Cheers,

Juan