Tmax400 w/Rodinal - massive grains inevitable?

[Classique]

I am having a lot of fun shooting TLR and recently used rolleikin to shoot vertical 35mm.

I developed Tmax 400 shot at box speed in Rodinal 1:100 stand for 1 hour with initial agitation for 30 sec and 3 inversions at 30 min mark. I scanned the negatives today and am shocked by how much grain there is. Is this normal? Should I shoot it at 200 for less grain?

Following are some shots from the roll to show the amount of grain:

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Those are grainy because the film was underexposed. You can tell by the appearance of the dark shadow tones. Look at the first photo: The front of the Rollei has no texture in the leather covering, and the man's hair is the same...empty grainy area with no detail. Underexposure greatly increases grain. Note that Tmax 400 in Rodinal is not a 400 speed film. Try 200 or 250, but yours look more underexposed than that.

 

[Clint Troy]

Stand development? You too, got hyped by people that don't know but who think they do. This slouchy and poor technique is definitely one of the reasons for your bad negs.

 

[KM-25]

Try HC-110, dilution B. It will be as economical as it is pour in, mix as needed but will not give nearly as much grain as Rodinal. I also agree with using stand development being a big part of the problem, more dilute developers enhance the grain effect and you just don't need to do that with TMY since it has such a great tonal scale to begin with.

I also agree that your negs might be thin. Finally, scanning versus wet printing always seem to on average, double the effect of grain, consider that. TMY is a great film in HC110, Xtol 1:1, D-76 and Tmax developers. Rodinal 1:100 is about the last thing I would soup it in...

 

[charjohncarter]

There is no question that Rodinal will increase grain over many other developers. The uncontrolled approach of stand development (which would be appropriate only for your last photo which is a high contrast subject) will lead to unrepeatable results. When I use Tmax400 with Rodinal 1+50 and careful control over development procedures, I still get an increase in grain but it is acceptable even in 35mm. If you want my advice; I would follow Chris' post and carefully develop using 1+50.

This is 35mm:

 

[redisburning]

I agree with changing your developer, or your film.

I don't think rodinal and TMax mix, which is odd given how well I think it works with other t-grained films; actually I thought Delta 400 in rodinal was great.

Stand developing... yeah I don't do that either. Maybe if I shot a roll of 3200 at 100 by accident.

 

[Classique]

Thank you for the good advice everyone.

I always equated grain with rodinal to be proportional to the amount of agitation but I guess I was wrong. However, the negatives are not thin so I think underexposure wasn't the big issue here.

Next roll, I'll try 1:50 non stand with Tmax 400 shot at 200. I did have good experience with medium format film at 1:50 non stand.

 

[charjohncarter]

Thank you for the good advice everyone.

I always equated grain with rodinal to be proportional to the amount of agitation but I guess I was wrong. However, the negatives are not thin so I think underexposure wasn't the big issue here.

Next roll, I'll try 1:50 non stand with Tmax 400 shot at 200. I did have good experience with medium format film at 1:50 non stand.

You can still minimally agitate with 1+50 to get some compensation and lesser grain. I will not go longer that 4 minutes between agitation cycles with Rodinal. By comparison I do 5-6 minutes with HC-110h or 1:125.

 

[Fotohuis]

Although Rodinal is a speed loss developer and not fine grain you can get reasonable good results with TMY-2. Indeed shoot the film on E.I. 200 and use a 1+50 dilution. Minimize the agitation, first 30s continuous, then every 30s 1x slowly.
Rodinal 1+50 with minimum agitation will give sharper and better negatives then a 1+100 Rodinal stand development.

 

[Dana B.]

Why so so many RFFers seem to be stuck on Rodinal?

 

[Fotohuis]

Because it is cheap, it has an increadible lifetime. A lot of cubical type slow and medium speed films are doing very well in it:
APX100, Fomapan 100, Pan F+, Efke 25-50, Ortho 25.

For the rest it is maybe between the ears. Rodinal/R09 magic.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Because it is cheap, it has an increadible lifetime. A lot of cubical type slow and medium speed films are doing very well in it:
APX100, Fomapan 100, Pan F+, Efke 25-50, Ortho 25.

For the rest it is maybe between the ears. Rodinal/R09 magic.

Exactly.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Dana B.]

Thanks. I've got some Fomapan and Efke; I was considering developing it in D76.