Semi Stand Rodinal Disaster

[mikepry]

I have recently aquired a Leica lllc and thought I'd try to do semi stand development with Rodinal. I thought this would be a great way to get in the ballpark so to speak with 36 exposures/roll not always having the same lighting situations. I am coming from Large Format work in 8/10 where I use BTZS to expose each sheet individually for the given range of light.

Anyhow, I used Fomapan 200 rated at 100 (wanting to insure good shadows) exposure read with an incident meter and developed the film for 1 hour at 1:100. I agitated for 15 seconds initially and then 15 sec. at 1/2 hour. 70 degrees throughout. The result ...... impossible to print! These things are so contrasty that even after one full minute @ f/4 on my enlarging lens my shadows go to ink and the highlights don't even start to come up yet! So.......... thinking of the old adage, expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights am I safe to assume that I simply developed to long or perhaps should of been 1:200? Or maybe I should use the box speed of 200? I would appreciate any help anyone could offer. Inspecting with a loupe shows me good shadow detail so should I perhaps cut the time in development or rather just increase dilution?
Thanks in Advance,
Mike

 

[Trius]

From your description I'm wondering if you got the dilution wrong. Are you absolutely sure you diluted 1:100? It sounds more like 1:25 or ... 1:10? Did you miss a decimal point?

 

[mikepry]

10ml to 1000ml is what I used.

 

[Trius]

Mike: Thanks ... never hurts to ask, eh? If the dilution is accurate, then I would say yes, development is too long, and/or dilution of 1:200 might be more appropriate. Overexposing by one stop with this film should be OK.

One other thing ...you say you recently acquired the IIIC. Are you sure the shutter is accurate? If it were slow by a stop or more, that might be a factor.

 

[Niall Bell]

Mike,
Whilst I'm no expert, I have done a fair amount of partial stand development using Rodinal over the last few months. I used a range of Ilford films, namley delta 100, HP5+ and delta 3200.

I have always used a dilution of 1:200 and developed for what initially was 2hrs, but then 2.5 hrs. I agitated constantly for the first 30 sec, and from there 4 inversions over about 10sec every 1/2 hour. Each and every film has been developed such that they print without problem (the standard of picture might be questionable, but they're well developed!).

I wonder if your developer concentration might be too strong, which combined with the 1 hour time might be causing the high contrast. If you can be bothered, I'd try repeating with more dilute developer over a longer time period.

Regards,
Niall.

 

[mikepry]

Well.......... I just got through devoloping another roll I shot today and tried 1:200 @ one hour and have to say (here's the kiss of death) the negs look pretty darn nice. More to what I feel should print nice. I didn't want to change more than one thing at a time during this (sort of) testing but I did make two exposures of each scene ..... one at box speed (200) and one at 100. The box speed looks spot on. So we shall see how they print. And camera was given a CLA by Youxin so it's really accurate. I have noticed that the base fog is a little higher than I expected to see but I believe that to work in my favor. Thanks for the answers. Now, may I drop a bomb here .........

Being new to film scanning I have found that you can pretty much scan anything and get an acceptable image with Photoshop, etc , but to make a good print I think is a whole different thing, at least for me as I am not the greatest printer (with an enlarger). My stronger point is alternative/contact printing. So having said that and not to sound snobby, I am looking at images posted on the web using a film scanner with a whole different light. My question is this ....... do you view negative scans in a different way than prints?

 

[Trius]

Mike: In answer to your question, yes, I view entirely differently. I am not very well versed or experienced with scanning, but I find getting a good scan and the quality of a display image to be equal to my good optical prints, to be very difficult. Part of that is the different media; I personally think it's very hard to be a b&w optical print on fibre. OTOH, I process my b&w negatives exactly as if I were printing with my cold light enlarger. That may not be the best workflow for scanning, but that's my choice. I'd rather have a negative that is "good" for printing.

 

[titrisol]

I wouldn;t call it a siaster but a learning experience!

Why use semi-stand ?
I believe using 1+100 agitating once every 2 or 3 minutes gives you good comepnsation as well.
Fomapan T200 looks good in Rodinal and for the 1st time in many years you'll notice there ius grain in your pictures