First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

[Jim Cole]

I just entered into the world of B&W developing with the help of the members of this great forum. After many days of reading and research I decided my first trials of Acros 100 4x5 film would be with Rodinal 1:50 (I know of the wide ranging opinions on this developer with respect to grain). Two sheets were exposed at ISO 100 and ISO 64.

Chemical Mixing Ratios (JOBO 2500 Series tank needs 560ml):

Rodinal 1:50 - 12 ml Rodinal + 600 ml water = 612 ml
Kodak Indicator Stop Bath - 10ml solution + 625 ml water = 635 ml
Ilford Rapid Fix - 120 ml fixer + 480 ml water = 600 ml
Photo-Flo - 3 ml solution + 600 ml water = 603ml


I performed the following process at 20 degrees C and timings were done with an Omega Darkroom timer:

1) Allow tank and chem bottles to sit in water jacket for 10 minutes
2) 5 minute water presoak while on Beseler roller
3) Develop 7.25 minutes and flip Jobo 2500 tank on roller every 30 seconds
4) 1 minute Kodak Stop Bath
5) 30 second wash
6) 5 minute Ilford Rapid Fixer
7) 2 minute wash with 1 liter water (Repeat 5 times)
8) 1 minute wash with distilled water and Kodak Photo-Flo 1:200 dilution


Results

1) Subject was an X-Rite Digital ColorChecker SG card shot in daylight and almost full frame
2) As far as exposure and tonality the both negs look good with the expected differences of the ISO settings and the film used
3) I was expecting a bit of acceptable grain from the Rodinal and it looks fine in the dense area and midtones, but it is very, very ugly in the less dense areas of both negatives.

Question

Before developing new sheets, I am trying to isolate the reason for the grain issue in the shadows.

It's possible I did not mix the stop bath and fixer quite thoroughly and since I ran the fixer for the long end of Ilfords recommended time (2-5 minutes) I think it may be related to the weakly mixed and too long time of the fixer, rather than any developer issue, but since I am a newbie I don't have a clue. Of course it may be over agitation, but I doubt it with so many using the Unicolor or Beseler powered rollers.

Could anyone shed a little light on this grain in the shadows issue?

Thanks,
Jim
www.jimcolephoto.com

Edit: I added a cropped section of the scanned and inverted image.

[Bruce Watson]

The proof of graininess is in the printing. That is, it's difficult to nearly impossible to properly evaluate graininess by looking at the film itself. Print it, or at least a small section of it, at your maximum print size, and evaluate the resulting print. The printing process itself, whatever that might be, stamps it's own character on the graininess of the final print.

[sanking]

The proof of graininess is in the printing. That is, it's difficult to nearly impossible to properly evaluate graininess by looking at the film itself. Print it, or at least a small section of it, at your maximum print size, and evaluate the resulting print. The printing process itself, whatever that might be, stamps it's own character on the graininess of the final print.

I will second Bruce's comment about the printing process. Not only is is difficult to evaluate graininess by looking at a negative, the look of grain is also highly output specific. That is, you may get an entirely different look if you print the negative on silver paper, and the look may be different on VC and graded papers, especially if you develop with a staining developer.

Also, if you scan to print digitally the type of scanner you use, how you scan, and whether or not you use grain noise reduction software, are all capable of a dramatic impact on the final look of grain.

Sandy

[Marko]

Hi John,

I develop FP4+ in Rodinal 1+50 and fix it in Ilford RapidFix and I couldn't be happier with the results. Here are the differences, aside from the film itself:

1. Intermittent agitation in an HP Combi tank rather than constant agitation on a roller. I do one inversion every five seconds for the first minute, then one inversion every minute.

2. Two successive 30-second water baths instead of the Stop bath.

3. Regular water with PhotoFlo, approximate dilution.

12ml of Rodinal should be enough for 4 sheets of 4x5, so you have enough developer and even if you didn't, the issue wouldn't be in the shadows but in the highlights.

Your developing time sounds about right for rolling base - mine is about 12 minutes for intermittent agitation.

I don't believe fixer is causing your problems either, because it would manifest itself differently. I mix mine right before usage in the same proportion as you do and never had a problem.

So, here's a few questions:

1. Did you test your ISO?

2. What is the temperature of your wash (you mentioned that you keep your developer, stop bath, fixer at 20 degrees)?

3. Did you try exposing two sheets identically and developing them using the same developer but different agitation methods, with times adjusted?

Rodinal is sensitive to agitation and I suspect that that might be the most likely cause of your problem. It is also the easiest to check, especially with individual sheets. I know that many people use it for rotary development, but IMO, I get more control and more tolerance with manual inversion because the developing time is longer and also because I can easily adjust the agitation routine (make it slower or faster, make it more or less frequent). Too much agitation also reduces the adjacency effects, which is one of Rodinal's main features.

I hope this helps at least some.

Marko

[Jim Cole]

Bruce and Sandy,

Thanks for your input. I appreciate the help.

I agree that printing will be the ultimate test, however I scanned the neg on my Epson 4990 @ 2400 dpi (No NR or sharpening) with SilverFast Ai in grayscale using only the green channel after confirming the excellent quality of scanning this way on 4x5 negs developed in Xtol at the local lab.

I attached a small crop of the inverted scan to my original message. It is very obvious in the scan. I know grain is more obvious in thin areas, but this seems excessive.

Jim

[Bruce Watson]

...I know grain is more obvious in thin areas, but this seems excessive.

I don't agree. In my experience graininess is least obvious in thin parts of the negative. Why would this be true? Because density is created by the development of metallic silver -- where there is less density there must also be less silver. Just the laws of physics. It follows then that where there is more density there is more silver. And more silver means bigger grain clumps (which are overlapping grains) which we see as an increase in graininess.

Tim Vitale wrote a very interesting paper on film grain which he updates as he learns more (currently at version 9, March 2006). This paper will tell you more about what grain actually is, how it's formed, where there's more of it and less of it, etc. than I could ever squeeze into a tiny posting to a thread like this. I especially like the five photomicrograms on page 17 which illustrate exactly what I'm talking about here.

[Jim Cole]

Bruce,

You are absolutely correct as to how it should be and I will tackle the paper you referenced. I made an error in my statement and I don't really know why I said that. Even with all my experience shooting transparency film the same is true. I know I am making mental mistakes of flipping highlight and shadow areas when looking at negatives

My question remains then as to why my test samples show, at least to my newbie B&W eye, such exagerated grain in the thin areas? It seems counter intuitive. Sorry I cannot post a larger sample image here as it's hard to see on the posted sample.

Thanks again for your valuable input,
Jim

[Jim Cole]

Sandy, PViapiano and Ron,

I was really anxious to use Rodinal because so many people seem to love it and I was looking for the highest accutance for scanning and making prints up to 20x25 on my Z3100 printer. I want to see if I can actually figure out what happened here, or if this is just normal Rodinal behavior. I don't want to give up on this just yet. I am also going to try HC-110 and then possibly Xtol given that the results from the local lab were good.

The sample I posted is from an original 2400 dpi scan which yielded an image of 29x37 at 300 dpi. The image was rescaled to an 8x10 and then cropped, rescaled to 650 pixels and saved as a jpeg to fit the upload requirements. Too many alterations me thinks.

I have posted here another smaller crop (a 2 1/2 inch strip including a black, a 50% gray and a white chip) from the original full sized file which was reduced to 650 pixels and then saved as a jpeg. Much easier to see.

The frame on the color checker card is actually smooth and with the new attachment, you can see the grain clearly in the black chip and what I would call my expected grain levels on the gray and white chips. I'm just having a hard time getting my head around just what happened.

Thanks to all,
Jim

Edit: Also added an image from scanned negative before it was inverted.

[RJ-]

Jim,

Higher dilutions of Rodinal at 1:70 and 1:100 dilution with Fuji Acros may be worthwhile considering. A baseline around 20C for 10.5 minutes if you prefer the high acutance approach, or pushing for a standing development approach for even higher acutance. By the time you reach standing development in Rodinal at 1:200 - 1:300 dilutions, the acutance is superior than anything which can be discerned at 1:50 dilution, that is, if Rodinal is the only developer which you wish to use.

Switching to a metol developer like Xtol creates a completely different aesthetic and appearance of the printed negative, coupled with dissolution of the grain (and acutance/adjacency effects) which may not be comparable to the acutance effects of Rodinal which you seem to wish for.

Again, choosing an energetic developer like HC110 may only achieve a slight resonance of effect comparable to the acutance of Rodinal at dilution H or greater without the pure metol subtlety of X-tol or Perceptol.

Alternatively, if it is the acutance and high definition appearance which pleases you most, then Paterson FX39 may be the one of the highest definition proprietary developers currently left on the market; neither does it possess the grain-enhancing acutance features of Rodinal and its definition is at least as high as Rodinal.

Kind regards,

RJ

[Jim Cole]

RJ,

Thanks for the contribution.

I think I will try the 1:100 dilution of Rodinal and see how that works. Is your reference of 10.5 minutes at 20C for the 1:100 dilution with constant agitation on the roller?

I had been planning to start with HC-100 tests at dilution H. Thanks for the confirmation on that one. I'll make a note on the Paterson FX39 which I have read absolutely nothing about yet but will very soon.

Also, not being familiar with the term "standing development" I would guess that it means simply imersion with no agitation?

Thanks,
Jim