Rodinal stand development

[ferider]

Tom, Vince,

this has really been confusing to me. Maybe you guys can help me out.

I develop for scanning. I expose and develop such that I get the widest histograms possible in my raw scans to get/show the maximum amount of information that the camera can capture. Then I use Photoshop for final adjustment, mostly of the exposure midpoint. While maybe "geeky" for you wet printers, in a way I consider this method a modern version of the zone system; a histogram shows you nicely Zones along the x-axis. My printing target is my ink jet printer. How the OP will print is not clear to me.

Vince, you commented as follows on my and Tom's pictures above:

If you look at the last picture above you can see the results I have mostly gotten with rodinal stand developing: a certain "loss" (I'm not sure that's the right word) of detail in the middle tones. Or loss of the tones themselves. Which is not true of the first two, which are medium contrast and have lots of middle tones (to my eye) and could even use their blacks popped slightly (very slightly).

Now there are some damn values. (I admire a man with values. I admire a b/w photo with values even more.) The reflecting surfaces of the window and hood plus the side panel of the car go from Zone II (at least) to Zone IX. Amazing and great. Perfect, detectable detail in the black on the side panel.

Yet, when I look at the picture histograms, I get the following:

Tom, don't get me wrong, yours is a nice picture, and the lack of grain is amazing. But to me this is clearly underdeveloped. I don't see much at all Zone IV and up .... wouldn't look nice on a digital printer, IMO.

What am I doing wrong ? Respectfully,

Roland.

 

[Clint Troy]

What am I doing wrong ? Respectfully,

Roland.

To me, two things:
-You stand-develop.
-You look at histograms instead of looking at the pictures. For instance, you say Tom's neg is underdeveloped while to my eye it's clear that his neg is well developed while your negs seem underdeveloped.
-Well spread values aren't necessarily a good thing. Each film has its own curve and stand developing basically kills that.

You are very pro-stand-development, which is ok. But It has yet to be proven good. I am not convinced. To each his own.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Here goes to show how useless web image posts are when it comes to discussion of development recipes. I seem to be the only one who does Photoshop level adjustment.

Carry on.

You're mostly doing it right. Scans right from the scanner are never good. Now the accuracy of my statement depends on the scanner and software you run it with, but in my experience with the Nikon 8000ED, using both Nikon Scan and Vuescan, the files you get from scanning BW negs are always VERY flat and MUST be adjusted in Photoshop (or whatever editor you like). The people who do not adjust the images in post process are the ones doing it wrong.

I say you're mostly doing it right because levels adjustments aren't enough. They lighten the lightest tones and darken the darks but do not have a lot of effect on midtone contrast, and midtone contrast is what needs the most work on film scans. Curves adjustments are needed for best tonality.

Here is my scanning info, with examples of scans before and after curves adjustments:
http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/scanning.php

Here is a tutorial on using curves:
http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/curves.php

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Yet, when I look at the picture histograms, I get the following:

Tom, don't get me wrong, yours is a nice picture, and the lack of grain is amazing. But to me this is clearly underdeveloped. I don't see much at all Zone IV and up .... wouldn't look nice on a digital printer, IMO.

What am I doing wrong ? Respectfully,

Roland.

Roland, Tom's histogram looks fine. The image doesn't need a lot of light tones because the subject doesn't have them. The histogram does NOT need an even distribution of tones....editing an image to achieve that will f--k it up BAD if you have a subject that is mostly light (eg. a man in a white suit standing in front of a white wall) or mostly dark (Tom's photo).

 

[ferider]

Thanks for posting, Chris. Then again, it doesn't need a good Zone distribution, either, correct ?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Bromide drag doesn't happen when using Rodinal - there is no bromide in Rodinal.

Actually Rodinal DOES have bromide, and has had it for a long time. I have in front of my a 10 year old bottle of Rodinal. The label lists the ingredients:

Water
Potassium Sulfite
Potassium Hydroxide
p-Aminophenol
Potassium Bromide


I have another bottle of Rodinal that is a couple yrs old and it lists the same.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Thanks for posting, Chris. Then again, it doesn't need a good Zone distribution, either, correct ?

No. What you need is the image's tones to fall in the right places. If the thing you photograph has no white or bright objects, then you may not have anything fall on zone VIII, for example. Lets say you photograph a black guy in a dark suit in front of a dark gray wall. There will be only small areas of light tone (specular highlights, his eyes, etc.), and that's ok. Same goes for a photo of a white guy in a white suit in front of a white wall. There may not be ANYTHING in that photo that would need to fall on Zone III. Those are extreme examples, but I find a lot of things do not have an "Even" tone distribution.

 

[skibeerr]

I have had good results with t-max 100 and 400 at 100 and 400, Adox chs50 and tri-x all with Rodinal 1:100 20C 60min. Acros didn't work well.

I am now trying Acros in a combo of x-tol and Rodinal. Works well on low contrast scenes. High contrast scenes give very dense negs, reducing the initial agitation helped a little.

As I am printing on a condensor enlarger my aim is for les contrasty negs. I will keep on testing Acros as I have seen superb prints made with it. If I don't succeed it's back to Rochester.

Maybe I must keep in mind that stand isn't the Alpha and Omega and certain scenes demand other methods.

 

[sparrow6224]

Tom's picture doesn't have enough light tones (thin area of the neg? or thick? I can never get that straight) by AREA to make an impression on your histogram but they are exactly where they are supposed to be in the scene and fantastically well differentiated. The sun, the chrome around the window, the reflective areas, the white card in the windshield -- I'm seeing three zones there but maybe I'm not experienced enough to know it's less. All above IV btw. At the same time the only loss of detail at the bottom is a bit beyond the back tire on the right and that wedge of black next to the tree on the left. Even these, looked at in the darkroom and not on a screen, might have detail that can be brought out. So it only stands to reason, as Chris said, that if you try to even out a picture like that according to the requirements of standard histogram, you'll not do it any favors, which I think is how he put it.... As for me, I don't make prints yet. I'm not good enough to waste the paper and chemicals on. Someday. I scan too much of it, fix in PS what I think is worth working on, occasionally run off a small print on my Canon 990 Pixma ($159 I think, several years ago), just to look at, but I don't seriously print. I think though, when I do, that I will relate to the process visually, experiment and judge with my eyes, because that's where the growth is, and where ultimately the art is, the singular vision controlled and expressed.

 

[sparrow6224]

Chris -- regarding the white guy in the white suit -- his shoes better fall on Zone III or IV or else I'm not hanging out with him. The white suit is bad enough.

 

[ferider]

Tom's picture doesn't have enough light tones (thin area of the neg? or thick? I can never get that straight) by AREA to make an impression on your histogram but they are exactly where they are supposed to be in the scene and fantastically well differentiated. The sun, the chrome around the window, the reflective areas, the white card in the windshield -- I'm seeing three zones there but maybe I'm not experienced enough to know it's less. All above IV btw. At the same time the only loss of detail at the bottom is a bit beyond the back tire on the right and that wedge of black next to the tree on the left. Even these, looked at in the darkroom and not on a screen, might have detail that can be brought out. So it only stands to reason, as Chris said, that if you try to even out a picture like that according to the requirements of standard histogram, you'll not do it any favors, which I think is how he put it.... As for me, I don't make prints yet. I'm not good enough to waste the paper and chemicals on. Someday. I scan too much of it, fix in PS what I think is worth working on, occasionally run off a small print on my Canon 990 Pixma ($159 I think, several years ago), just to look at, but I don't seriously print. I think though, when I do, that I will relate to the process visually, experiment and judge with my eyes, because that's where the growth is, and where ultimately the art is, the singular vision controlled and expressed.

Thanks for the response, Vince. It feels like we agree that the tonality of a picture

1) depends on motive (like Tom's car)
2) depends on the photographers desired output.
3) for final assessment, should be looked at in print, whatever your workflow is (mine has an inkjet as back-end).

That being said, I showed my pictures to show the grain and edge contrast of vanilla 1:100 rodinal stand development of Arista Premium 400, because that's what I read you asking for. You might not like my pictures; also some might like a Rolls Royce better than a Great Grey Owl - and that is totally cool.

But I don't understand how you detect "loss of detail in the middle tones", or "loss of the tones themselves". I also don't understand, as per Clint, why my negatives were underdeveloped. They, in fact, were thick and silvery.

The contrast in the animal pictures is mellow because that's what I considered fitting the motive. The goal in the cathedral was to get more details in the dark tones than in other cathedral pictures that I've seen. And just for the records, I'm not "very pro-stand development" (as per Clint). Here is a DDX 1+4 / Superia 1600 picture, that I quite like from last year:

Note that here, the histogram is not evened out.

My post #8 responded with an example to answer your question in the OP. And I get a bunch of judgements back that one simply can not make with nothing else but a posted JPG file and development recipe. Knowing the printing target and the post-processing that was applied (as all of us do when scanning and displaying here) are fundamental to judge tones and grey shades.

BTW, the same applies to Tom's picture. I look at grain and sharpness, not at the tones, because I do not know how the respective negative was post-processed. And with respect to grain and sharpness it looks great, although a larger picture would help me admire it even more.

----

In closing another TriX/1:100 stand example just for you and Clint:

🙂

Have a great evening.

Roland.

 

[Tom A]

The Shooting Brake shot (that was what the Rolls Royce woodies were known as) has a bit more detail in the shadows. I have printed it some years ago and the loss of detail is mostly in the deep shadow behind the front wheel. The Deep shadow on the hood has details with the "air vents" showing fine as a print.
But again, it is what you want in a print. I tend to print down a bit, with the blacks deep and the highlights quite bright.
The PCK works well with stuff like this, not very subtle but it pulls stuff out of TriX/Arista negs well.

 

[Tom A]

For many years one of my standard developers was Rodinal 1:100 for 19-20 minutes. Normal agitation (every 60s). It works particularly well in situations like this - high contrast with bright reflections.
New York, 1990, TriX, M2, Summicron 35f2 vIV.

 

[Tom A]

Another variant of stand and semi stand development. This is 1:100 at 25 minutes with a flip at 5/10/15 minutes.
M2, Nokton 50mm f1.1 @ f1.1, Kodak Double X rated @ 320.

 

[sparrow6224]

I love that last one. I suspect Tri-X at 800 would require a few more minutes...

 

[zsas]

Tom - many times PanF in say bright day can be a bear to tame, any thoughts on PanF? I've my first bottle of Rodinal coming and wonder if you or anyone have some PanF+ thoughts?

 

[Tom A]

I usually process Pan F in Beutler. Looked on my Flickr and only found one shot with Pan F (20 years old!) in Rodinal stand development 1:200 for 120 min (one flip/shake at 60 min).
You should be OK with Pan F at 40 or 50 iso and Rodinal stand development 1:100 for 60 min. but I recommend that you do a test and bracket for 25/32/50 iso.

 

[newsgrunt]

25/32/50 iso.

next shot should be all your lenses stacked on top of each other like a tower 😉

 

[Tom A]

Hmm, limiting factor is the 16 ft ceiling height in the living room!

 

[sparrow6224]

Be... still... my..... heart.....