Tri-x at 1600. HC-110 and Rodinal Results

raytoei@gmail.com

raytoei@gmail.com

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I shot 2 rolls of tri-x 400 recently but developed separately in HC110 and Rodinal.

I have heard comments about rodinal not being a speed developer but I was curious about how the film would turn out.

There are 4 images below, 2 from each roll. Can you guess whether the top 2 pix were souped in rodinal or HC-110 and vice-versa for the bottom 2 ?





newspaper.jpg


bruno.jpg



kong.jpg


downstairs.jpg



My development times:

Tri-x HC-110H 8mins ei1600 at room temp of 30C
Tri-x Rodinal 9mins 1+50, ei1600 31C

cheers!

raytoei
 
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I'll guess the top two are HC110 ... the grain is more pronounced in the bottom two which seems to be a Rodinal characteristic!
 
The bottom two are developed to a higher contrast, which makes comparison less meaningful.

To my taste, they are all underexposed (but it depends on personal preference of course).
 
Hard to say for sure because the first three have very different contrast ranges than #4. But I'll guess that the top 2 are Rodinal. The clue is that the highlights are not blown in #1 and 2, but they are in #3. As a compensating developer (depending on dilution and agitation regime), Rodinal should attenuate this effect.

Edited to add: yes, Rodinal should be grainier, but no, I don't think that you'll necessarily be able to tell what's going on there from a scan, especially at this magnification. And anyway, when I'm trying to use a film at or above its rated ISO, I go with XTOL ;-).
 
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Both underexposed, Rodinal on top.

I expose Tri-X at 1600 (incident) in Rodinal (18ºC, 1+50) for 60 minutes! I guess the last minutes do nothing, but it's easy to remember the same minute one hour after...🙂

Cheers,

Juan
 
Wait!

31ºC?

C'mon... How could anyone be sure? I thought it was a normal 20ºC...

I never used HC-110 in my life, and I never used any developer at those temperatures, so I can't guess...

But I imagine 31ºC for Rodinal is too wild and could produce that bottom's tough contrast... But Rodinal is so permissive... I don't know...

Cheers,

Juan
 
At first I was going to guess TOP HC110 and BOTT Rodinal like Keith, but then I also discovered the extreme (to me🙂 temperature of 30-31 ºC so ... harder to guess. If agitation was low maybe TOP IS Rodinal and BOTTOm HC110.
The two bottom frames are definitely underexposed for this developing method to my eye.

Can't wait to hera the answer.

My Room temp. is currently ~33 ºC so I am thinking... C41!
 
Yes, zgeeRF... Some time ago I've been going to sleep late... Soon I should go back to a more normal timing... Sunset is here by 10PM on summer, so I try to use that late evening light and come home late... And then I just don't know how other few hours pass so quickly... And I sleep very few hours since I was a child, and once I open one eye, I don't like to be in bed anymore...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Okay, before I give the answer, a couple of apologies first. While I did nothing to the grains , I did mess around the contrast in ps as scanning negatives tend to product flat images.

The first 2 were developed with hc 110 while the bottom were souped in rodinal.
Hc 110 produces lesser grain while rodinal produces larger grains.
I also found that hc110 pix were less contrasty compared to rodinal. I am not sure if this is a result of the film characteristics or due to lesser development time in hc110. I try to be consistent in agitation, 30 seconds 10 inversions, and 2 inversions (5 seconds)every 30 seconds.

Frankly, I prefer the rodinal pix, it suits the gritty nature of the subjects better than the hc110 pix. Of course this is subjective, I guess I am into the araki phase rite now.

I will try to improve the hc110 shots (increase dev time) as well as replicate the rodinal look this coming week when I go to colombo.

Cheer!
 
My temp here is around 29 to 31c.

My rough rule of thumb is it is half development time of 20c (actually more than half).

This sort of gels well with hc110 where I use B development time at H dilution.

While choice of developer determines grain size, I find that longer development also increases grain size.

What I am not sure and perhaps someone can enlighten me is whether overexposure increases grain , same question for agitation, does it increase grain ontop of contrast.

Thanks much
 
raytoei@gmail.com said:
My temp here is around 29 to 31c.

My rough rule of thumb is it is half development time of 20c (actually more than half).

This sort of gels well with hc110 where I use B development time at H dilution.

While choice of developer determines grain size, I find that longer development also increases grain size.

What I am not sure and perhaps someone can enlighten me is whether overexposure increases grain , same question for agitation, does it increase grain ontop of contrast.

Thanks much
Click to expand...

I like your results with HC110, do you mind telling me how long you developed it for when pushing it to 1600?

Thanks
 
<re-posting for 3rd time>....

film: tri-x
ei: 1600
lens: 40mm summicron
developer: microphen
agitation: initial 20 inversion in 30 seconds, followed by 7 mins of 4 inversions every minute, and last 8 mins of 2 inversions every minute.
process: developed in Microphen 1+1 for 16 minutes at room temperature of 30C.
comments: this combination produces the best shadow details so far, but the highlights tend to get blown. I will reduce the amount of agitation next time, and may be shorten the development time as well.

microphen1600-a.jpg


microphen1600-b.jpg


microphen1600-c.jpg
 
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