Rollei Retro 80s

[jpa66]

Since this film was brought up a few times in another thread, I thought that I'd start a new one, as I have a few questions for others who use this film.

I've been using it for most of this year, and have not yet gotten the development where I want it. Either the film is under-rated at EI 80, or the development time of 14 minutes ( in Rodinal 1:50 ) that I've been using ( also tried 13 and 12 minutes ) is too little. I think this because every time I develop this film, it's either under-developed or under-exposed. If it's being under-exposed by me, then both my hand-held meter and the internal meter of my Bessa R4M must be off, as I routinely check with both, especially on the last roll I just developed. If the development time is too little, I'm wondering how much more it needs.

If anyone who has experience with this film could share their development times and/or other information that they've discovered using this film, it would be greatly appreciated. I really like the film, but I also need negatives that aren't as thin as I've been getting ( usable, but have to fiddle around a lot when printing ).

Thanks,
Jan

 

[andredossantos]

I shot a couple rolls of this and had the lab develop it...they use Xtol 1:1. I like how it turned out!

EDIT: Since I cant embed from Flickr anymore here is a link to some examples:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=rolleiretro80s&w=9286123%40N04

 

[lawrence]

You can easily lose a stop when you develop in Rodinal. Try another developer such as Xtol or D76.

 

[Freakscene]

I used Rodinal 1+50 for 14.5 minutes shot at EI40. I didn't have any data when I got my 80s, so I figured this out from trial and error. The Agfa-Photo products routinely had development times that were much too long for my liking (and gave a CI of 0.6-0.65!!!) but the Agfa-Gevaert times don't seem to be over. Perhaps they were meant to be for printing with high paper contrast for aerial photos?

You can lift the speed of films developed in Rodinal and retain the tonality by adding 4 g/L calcium ascorbate. If you get fog, add 1 g/L borax, but your times will increase.
http://www.unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rodinal/rodinal.html

Marty

 

[Mablo]

Those few rolls I had I exposed at EI80 and developed in Rodinal stand for 1h (20C) because I couldn't find any better recipe at the time. I like the sharpness of the film but all in all it didn't blew my hair back then. I might try again though.