Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 20 of 20

Thread: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

  1. #11

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Flagstaff, AZ
    Posts
    1,496

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    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

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Flagstaff, AZ
    Posts
    1,496

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    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.
    Last edited by Jim Cole; 5-May-2008 at 10:49. Reason: Added second image

  3. #13

    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    London, England
    Posts
    253

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    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

  4. #14

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Flagstaff, AZ
    Posts
    1,496

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    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

  5. #15

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    South Carolina
    Posts
    5,505

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Cole View Post
    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.

    Jim,

    For your purpose Rodinal is, IMO, one of the worst choices. The sharpness of Rodinal is to a considerable degree extent based more on the grain itself than on acutance. Rodinal is considered an acutance developer, but not a high acutance developer. And in any event, acutance is based on adjacency effects, or border lines between areas of high and low density, and your scanner probably does not have enough resolution to discriminate these lines.

    I am sure tht someone will write and say that they have had excellent results developing in Rodinal and scanning, and I am sure they have. But I am equally sure that you can get much better results (finer grain and equivalent sharpness) with other developers, and I would include in the category Xtol, one of the staining developers like PMK or Pyrocat, FX-2, or even D76 for that matter.

    Sandy King

  6. #16

    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    London, England
    Posts
    253

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    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?
    Hi Jim,

    Perhaps I'm confusing you. The suggestion to start at 10 1/2 minutes is a mere suggestion for a starting point for your EI of 64 with a view to building up densities through personal experience to your own desired negative for printing media.

    It's been a long time since I used the Fuji Acros (rated ISO 80) with Rodinal 1:70. Perhaps the kind of image aesthetic which you are searching for, is best characterised by APX100 and rodinal combinations? Rodinal purists express its utility over a range of slow to medium ISO speed film which no other developer can offer: in this respect, getting to know Rodinal and using it in varying dilutions is one kind of film developing practice, rather than switching to Perceptol/Xtol for fine grain; FX39 or Tetenal Blue for high definition; HC110 or Microphen for speed enhancement or pyrocatechols for extended tonal range and home-made formulae for even finer tuning. Thinking about Fuji Acros, Fuji Artdol (and now Prodol) offer better complementary choices for Fuji Acros, being made by Fuji and a competing Microdol against Perceptol and Xtol seem to expand these options even further.

    Perhaps Sandy is trying to tell you gently that Fuji Acros' modern grain emulsion does not lend itself as beautifully to Rodinal dilutions as APX100, Adox 25, Bergger NP15 and other classical silver halide formulations.

    Cross-checking with the www.digitaltruth.com forum, you'll notice a huge variation in the recommendation with their given times. I'm not sure how to account for this, other than user variation and perhaps, using a compulsory presoaking stage and a minimum agitation cycle (less than 1 inversion per 5 minutes after a full minute of agitation).


    Jim - you could ask Sandy to impart his wealth of knowledge on semi- +/- standing development. For the kind of output which you wish for, FX39 seems to hold more advantages than Rodinal, even at standing development dilutions.

    Kind regards,

    RJ

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Flagstaff, AZ
    Posts
    1,496

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    Sandy,

    Thanks for the additional education on Rodinal. Like you said, there seem to be plenty of people who will argue that on films such as Acros, it is an exceptional developer. I guess this pretty much sums up the the old saying - "do your own homework".

    Also, as RJ suggested after your response, since I have a lot of exploration to do, perhaps if you have time you can point me in the direction of proper techniques on standing development.

    RJ,

    Thanks for the clarification. There really was no confusion except that I didn't know which dilution or agitation technique the suggested 10 1/2 minute starting point was aimed at. As with all suggested dev times, as you pointed out, there seems to be an incredible amount of variation which only adds to the mystery. I also appreciate the additional film recommendations. I seem to be stuck on Acros for now because I really like to use Quickloads.

    Everyone,

    So I've gained a quite a bit of knowledge as I always do on this forum and I have a lot of testing to do, but I still am not clear whether the grain I see in my initial test negs is typical of the Acros/Rodinal combination or whether there was a failure in my methodology. Seems like a lot of folks have suggested shooting Acros at ISO 64 and then doing a N-1 development. I'll put any more of these kinds of questions on hold until I finish my film speed and normal development tests.

    I have just shot 8 sheets of film to run my Acros film speed test and will do so as soon as my densitometer arrives. I am assuming that my developing methodology is good enough to get the clean results needed on these test sheets.

    Thanks again to everyone and if anyone else has anything to contribute I would be most welcomed.

    Jim

  8. #18

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    South Carolina
    Posts
    5,505

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Cole View Post
    Sandy,

    Also, as RJ suggested after your response, since I have a lot of exploration to do, perhaps if you have time you can point me in the direction of proper techniques on standing development.

    RJ,

    Jim
    The most thorough discussion I have ever seen of stand and other minimal agitation procedures took place on Michael Smith's AZO forum back in the late summer of 2004. You can learn a lot by reading through the several threads on the topic. Check out the Developoing Film threads from that period.

    A year or two later Steve Sherman published a couple of articles in View Camera magazine on his semi-stand technique. Try to get a copy of the two issues and read what he has to say.

    I use Fuji Acros only with medium format, and develop it in Pyrocat-HD, which is a staining developer, with minimal agitation.

    Sandy King
    Last edited by sanking; 5-May-2008 at 16:55.

  9. #19

    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Posts
    2,955

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    Jim, a while ago, getting back into photography after a 25 year absence, not knowing most of the current emulsions or developers I did some tests.

    I tested a traditional emulsion, FP4, and a T-grain emulsion, TMX, with D76, XTOL, HC-110, Pyrocat-HD and Rodinal.

    I was mainly interested in tonality, the appearance of grain, and sharpness. What I found was all of the above combinations worked well. There were visible differences in the negs, but when scanned and preped in Photoshop, the differences were minor or not detectable. The exception was Rodinal, where the larger grain was apparent, but not objectionable, except perhaps if someone intended to make eight or ten times linear enlargements.

    My favourite combinations were TMX with XTOL or Pyrocat or D76. HC-110 was formerly my favourite with intermitent agitation, with rotary processing I didn't like it as much as the others.

    I ended up choosing XTOL for ease of use etc.; but I could be just as happy with Pyrocat or D76.

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Flagstaff, AZ
    Posts
    1,496

    Re: First Acros Develop w/ Rodinal - Shadow Grain

    Sandy,

    Thanks for the references on standing development. I'll check out the AZO forum, and I just started a subscribtion to View Camera a few weeks ago, so I'll see if I can reference the articles on their website, or buy the back issues.

    Ron,

    Thanks for your suggestions. I'm taking all of this in and I find it interesting that in your experience, the film/dev combo didn't seem as important when scanning and adjusting in Photoshop with the exception of Rodinal. Looks like I may have to give up on Rodinal (I'll make a few more tests first) and use one of the other developers suggested on this thread.

    Jim

Similar Threads

  1. Rotary Processing Rodinal
    By ic-racer in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 26
    Last Post: 6-Jan-2018, 11:02
  2. xtol dilutions
    By false_Aesthetic in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 19-Dec-2007, 08:48
  3. Acros in Rodinal - disappointment
    By butterfly in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 1-Jun-2007, 02:46
  4. Acros 100 tray developing in Rodinal
    By Dawid in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 6-Dec-2005, 21:51
  5. To Develop With Stock or Diluted
    By Jay Staton in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 18-Jul-2005, 06:39

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •