Tri-X in Rodinal - where to start?

I shoot at box speed and develop with the 1:50 dilution, 11 min. @ 20 deg C. I use the normal 30 sec. initial, 5 inversions every 30 sec. agitation scheme.

I question the conventional wisdom of gentle agitation with Rodinal. I've found more vigorous agitation is necessary to prevent uneven development. This does have the side effect of making the grain more pronounced, but that's why we use Rodinal, right? Because we like grain!

As charjohncarter warned, be careful with stand development. I finally threw in the towel on it because I couldn't get perfectly even development, no matter what I tried. Especially with Tri-X. I had better luck with APX100.
 
I think (but I might be wrong) that more than for less grain -grain is lovely- I use gentle inversions to be aware of uneven development...

Every tank/reel(s) design drives its chemicals streams in its particular ways, and intense or too constant agitation can accentuate those streams and produce uneven results. Specially with long developing times...

Any gentle inversion is enough to renew fresh developer on the film surface...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Yeah, as Tom, I'm part of the Rodoholic' Anonymous club as well. Rodinal is very forgiving as long as you expose correctly. I rate Tri-X at 320asa.
I use 8cc/roll in a Paterson tank. I agitate (flip upside-down) first 30seconds, then gently tilt once every 30 seconds, all for 10 minutes.
You can vary the time based on the contrast, but 10 min works for me 90% of the time.
Best wishes!
 
I should qualify my earlier statement about uneven development a bit. For scenes with a lot of detail (street or architecture stuff, for example) I never noticed any issues. But with even skies, forget it.

I tried gentler agitation, more vigorous agitation, different dilutions (1:100 vs 1:200), pre-soak, no pre-soak, immersing my reels in boiling water to clean them prior to use so that no chemical residue was present, etc. But I never could get perfectly even skies, especially not with Tri-X. Neopan 400 and APX100 seemed better in this regard. No idea why.

I use Hewes stainless reels. I've read plastic reels are more likely to give uneven development, although I have no personal experience to back that up.

Anyway, I finally decided it wasn't worth it. I'd rather babysit the film for 10 minutes or so then worry about negs that require tedious post processing to correct.
 
charjohncarter said:
If I were going to start with TriX in Rodinal I would use 1+50 at a specific time, etc. The enclosed sheet with your Rodinal has good times that to me seem accurate. There are plenty of problems with stand development, one with TriX is with roll film; not all the lighting is consistent so you get a flattening of the tones on some frames, then there is bromide drag, uneven development, and probably more (plastic reels). Many people use stand and get great results (even I have) but it is much more rewarding to have something that works almost every time when you are starting out.
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agree entirely. Stand development is a novelty for certain applications, but certainly not for general use IMHO. Can lead to nasty artifacts that cannot always be predicted. I prefer something much more 'normal' to be sure of good results every time.
 
As many good people here wrote, 1+50 for 11min (20°C) is my suggestion as well.
I like my negs to be more contrast, so I agitate initially for one minute, them 4 gentle swivels every minute.
That is a good starting point.
The rest of my advice is to keep a record of your actions for every roll you develop,
examine your results and compare them to earlier results you get.
A starting point is really only a starting point.
Once you are there, let your taste lead you, and don't forget to experiment.
As someone said in a movie:
"Life's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get" 🙂
Good Luck!
 
Stupid Question!

Stupid Question!

So I got a bottle of Rodinal and I am about to make a batch to start developing and here is my Q...

How do you mix this? You take 2oz of rodinal and add in roughly 100 oz of water to the one gallon containers, to make 1:50?
 
How do you mix this? You take 2oz of rodinal and add in roughly 100 oz of water to the one gallon containers, to make 1:50?
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Only with powder chemicals is there a need to prepare everything at once; with liquids there's no need to pre-dilute out all the stock. Mix the amount needed just prior to developing- so for 1:50 in my developing tank I would add 8 mL to 400 mL water, and leave the remainder in the bottle. There is no need to worry about oxidation etc.; Rodinal is extremely shelf-stable.
 
I would go metric!!!!! It is much easier to calculate. If you do a gallon of "stock" - unless you use it all you have to throw it out as Rodinal does "die" quickly.
Just get a small measuring graduate - able to do up to 30-50ml in 5ml increments. This way you only have to mix up what you need.
 
napoleonesq said:
So I got a bottle of Rodinal and I am about to make a batch to start developing and here is my Q...

How do you mix this? You take 2oz of rodinal and add in roughly 100 oz of water to the one gallon containers, to make 1:50?
Click to expand...

Pretty much, although I've never seen the formula by weight. For example, two milliliters of Rodinal added to 100 millilieters of water gives you the 1:50 ratio.
 
From an old post of mine: Kodak Tri-X, Rodinal 1+50, 13 mins. with very careful agitation (5-10 sec per minute) using only the agitation stick with my old Paterson tank:

214953428-M.jpg


Scanned on a Nikon Coolscan IV-ED.

Good luck. Enjoy!

Jarle
 
rodinal and trix result in very graphic looking images that IMHO lack smooth long mid tones like those you would get in D76/Xtol/DDX, but certainly look great for certain subjects. Provides what I would call a graphic/charcoal look and I do not mean soot and whitewash, though rodinal is very strong at the two extreme ends of teh scale and less strong in the middle. I recommend it in flat/average conditions and would personally use a dev with a 'S' curve for high contrast situation rather than rodinals long straight line.
 
^^^ except if you use 1:100 with little (3 gentle inversions every 3 minutes) or no agitation. Then in a high contrast scenes you get wonderful tonality throughout the curve. Just make sure the shadow values get adequate exposure.

One experiment I want to try is water bath Rodinal: higher contrast scene in Rodinal 1:50 for ~ 7 minutes, then ~10 minutes in a water bath. Those are starting points by guestimate, try at your own risk, no liability assumed.

😀
 
Trius said:
^^^
One experiment I want to try is water bath Rodinal: higher contrast scene in Rodinal 1:50 for ~ 7 minutes, then ~10 minutes in a water bath. Those are starting points by guestimate, try at your own risk, no liability assumed.

😀
Click to expand...

I would recommend a "harsher" mix for a water bath trial. 1:25 for 2 min, then 2 min water, 2 min in Rodinal, 2 min in water. As you will dilute the Rodinal with each water submersion it will go more dilute for each water bath and take on the characteristics of a more dilute Rodinal.
The 10 min post waterbath would not affect it enough as the Rodinal would be diluted quickly as well as being exhausted from the initial bath.
Ok, this is all hypothetical as i haven't tried it either - but it sound intriguing enough that I will.
 
Trius said:
^^^ except if you use 1:100 with little (3 gentle inversions every 3 minutes) or no agitation. Then in a high contrast scenes you get wonderful tonality throughout the curve. Just make sure the shadow values get adequate exposure.

One experiment I want to try is water bath Rodinal: higher contrast scene in Rodinal 1:50 for ~ 7 minutes, then ~10 minutes in a water bath. Those are starting points by guestimate, try at your own risk, no liability assumed.

😀
Click to expand...

It depends what you like. Dilute rodinal does produce a very distinctive look no matter what and I personally dont find it condusive to high contrast scenes where you want to introduce nice smooth midtones. sure it handles the highlights fine and the shadows if properly exposed are full, but its not the ends of the scale that I find displeasing with rodinal in high contrast scenes, its the middle bit. Your aesthetic preferences may well differ, but there is no doubt about it, the look is very different to Xtol 1+2 or DDX 1+9 gently agitated. The curve remains more linear and the mid tones less smooth and well separated. In my personal view, rodinal is wonderful for producing incredible blacks and beautifullly separated highlights, but mid tones are quite distinctly rodinal, which may or may not float your boat. The overall look is still somehow 'colder' or 'more graphic' irrespective of actual overall contrast i.e. I would make the same comments about a low contrast print. This is of course all personal...
 
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