Rodinal or FG-7?

fishtek

fishtek

Don
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I've spent some time experimenting with HC-110 for developing my Arista EDU 100 Ultra, with mixed results. Now, I'm going to do the same with Rodinal and with Edwal FG-7. Does anyone here regularly use either/or, and can you let me know your mixing specs and results?

Regards!
Don
 
Well, I haven't used the Edwal product, but I use Rodinal a lot. Usual dilutions are 1+25, 50, and 100. Higher dilution yields very slightly less grain, and better compensating effect. Can be used very effectively with stand development in the 2-3 hour range with nice but not overpowering edge effects.

What exactly are you looking for with these developers?

allan
 
Hi, Allan!

Mostly, I'm interested in minimal grain, and good mid-tones. Right now, I'm working with the Arista EDU 100 Ultra, but eventually will check out other film stocks, too. Sort of a lengthy self-education process...

Regards!
Don
 
I use Rodinal a lot, and HC-110, and I have used FG-7, though not lately. Rodinal's strengths are good sharpness and excellent, long tonal range. Regardless of developer, the price of high sharpness is more prominent grain, by and large. Still, Rodinal is one of the best developers I've seen for tonality and good edge effects. I use it at 1:50 or 1:100, but never 1:25; the higher dilutions are where it really shines, although the dev times do get long.

HC-110 is good, particularly at higher dilutions for low grain, but you pay a little in sharpness. My only experience with FG-7 is slightly odd and very specific. I had a client who requested that I run his HP5 in FG-7 mixed with a 10% solution of hydrogen peroxide. As I recall, the film looked really good, It had excellent tonality and good edge effects. The hydrogen peroxide seemed to contribute to the edge effects, but I don't know how it affected the grain. Development time was around 7 minutes, if you want to try it. It was my first experience with HP5 (a film I now use regularly) and my only experience with FG-7, which I have not used otherwise.

(BTW- the photographer was/is a Magnum photog., and the instructions came from his own processing, which he would occassionally farm out to me when he was really busy. He's been at this a long time, longer than me, and I trust that his addition of h.p. was not some complete wacko idea, but decent chemistry. Unfortunately, I never followed up on it, so I can't tell you much about why he would do it, or exactly what it does- can anyone here shed any light on the subject?)
 
I've used Rodinal exclusively so far. I've just recently gotten a scanner that can handle 120. I'll post a link once I get some of my 120 Arista Edu Ultra 200 scanned up. Here's a link to 35mm Ultra 200: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonthomas/tags/foma200/

I mostly use it at 1+50 except for 4x5 pinhole I use 1+100 stand development. My last couple of batches have been best, at 18min, agitating only every 5min. This worked great for rating the film at ISO 100, 200, and 400.
 
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Don,
Well, Rodinal won't give you minimal grain. No acutance developer will. They increase sharpness at the cost of increased grain. Foma 100, which is Arista Ultra, is a conventional film and often considered to be the closest thing to APX100 available. Rodinal is not a bad match in the sense that Foma 100 should be fairly low grain, fundamentally, and you won't end up with that much (certainly not like TXT with Rodinal, for instance, which has an inherently larger grain structure). But it won't be as low grain as something like XTOL or even D76 stock.

Just keep that in mind when considering developers. HC-110 is also an acutance developer, but, I believe, not quite as strong as Rodinal (which is itself not super strong, either).

allan
 
Both are great. I haven't used FG-7 in years, but when I did, I always used 1:15, I never really experimented with other dilutions. IMO, it's strength is fine grain, at the expense of ultimate Rodinal-sharpness, and tonality. Tonality is very nice, especially when you want a very slightly "softer" look. My memory is running on fumes wrt FG-7, so YMMV. Try it. Now I'm thinking I should get some.... of course, there's always the Harvey's 777 experimentation I've been contemplating ...
 
Thanks, Y'all!

Actually, I've ordered D76, Rodinal, and FG7, with the intention of doing a series of comparative processes. I've sort of leaned towards liquid concentrates, only because I don't particularly like mixing powders. I'll continue to post sporadic commentaries as this plays out...

Regards!
Don
 
Next to Rodinal as an acutance developer for 35mm B&W film I use D-76 1:1 with excellent adjacency results.

jtzordon said:
I mostly use it at 1+50 except for 4x5 pinhole I use 1+100 stand development. My last couple of batches have been best, at 18min, agitating only every 5min. This worked great for rating the film at ISO 100, 200, and 400.
Click to expand...
Jason,

What I don't understand is why you use Rodinal at 1:100 with minimal agitation as a LF pinhole developer ? What am I missing here ?

Best,
George
 
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George, I've only shot about 10 sheets so far. I only have a daylight tank for developing roll film, so I use the taco method. Stand development at 1+100 is supposed maximize on the compensation effect. Foma film has awful reciprocity failure, so it is quite hard to capture the full range and not lose the shadows or blow the highlights. I haven't tried much else, well anything else other than Rodinal 1+50 with my normal agitation routine, so I couldn't say how effective/ineffective it is compared to other techniques; it is a common technique, though. I actually unintentionally mixed it at 1+50 for stand development last time and blew the highlights to smithereens!
 
Thanks, Jason!

Thanks, Jason!

I also explored your tags, and got a look at the "Foma 100" pix, which is the same stuff as the Arista EDU 100 Ultra. I'm gonna have fun messin' around with the variables...

Regards!
Don
 
Yes, the reason I didn't link those was because they are digi snaps of the negs on the light table, from the pre-scanner days. :)
 
Jason,

Thanks for your reply. I shoot 8X10 pinhole snaps typically with a 10" bellows extension and an aperture of .023". My typical exposure is 1- 2 minutes in bright sunlight using Tri-X film. I tray develop in Rodinal 1:31 for 6 minutes with continuous agitation however I always use a 1 minute water presoak beforehand. I find that pinhole negs always lack any decent contrast, not to be confused with density. Pinhole negs look flat by comparison to using a lens but using a hard paper the prints can look very good. I love pinhole photography and using a large format negative contact printed has the real benefit of a good looking print. Far superior than a 35mm or 2/14 sq. enlargement. If I get a chance this week I'll scan a contact print and post it here. Anyway, I might try your processing method. Who knows, it might be right on target. BTW: What is your pinhole to film distance and film speed-exposure data ? Thanks again.

Best,
George
 
Jason: There appears to be some unevenness in the sky in those shots. Or is that just the scan?
 
Trius, I think I botched the development a bit. Too slow pouring out the developer. This is the only roll I've had issues like that with the Ultra.

George, I use the daylight tanks because I don't like to sit in the dark and I'm not confident my darkroom is light tight enough. The pinhole is about 0.2mm, I think, maybe inches. I can't recall. It's about 9 stops from f16. Pinhole to film distance is about 3". Sunny16 exposure is about 10 seconds give or take on the Arista EDU Ultra 100 and I multiply by 3 for every additional stop instead of the normal 2. I haven't yet got all my details completely how I would like as I haven't shot it too much.
 
Using Edu Ultra 100 in Rodinal, Lex got some good results here:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=4275
He used R09 which is equivalent to Rodinal.
I have been using Edu Ultra 200 (Fomapan) in R09 at 1+60, 11 mins. I am begining to think that the agitation is very important. I am down to one agitation cycle per minute or less and my negatives can still come out very dark.
Here are two samples, one in bright light and one in clouds.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=60290&ppuser=4275
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=59299&ppuser=4275
Warren
 
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Warren, I've had better luck cutting development time 20% with EDU Ultra 200. I had the same issue with published times being too dense.
 
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