First time rotary processing B/W film : Success..

[alexn]

After last weeks processing failure, doing a semi-stand development of Fomapan 100, this morning I tried rotary processing 6 sheets in my 2520 drum... The negs came out beautifully, lots of density in the highlights, nice deep shadows...

I did a bit of googling and found a post on APUG outlining a standard development for fomapan 100 in Rodinal 1+50 of 8:30 @ 20°C. My tap water here was 25° so I went with 5:13 @ 25°C with rotary development in my home made roller setup (soon to be a water tempered rotary processing system)

I will hopefully post results from the scans later tonight or tomorrow but at this stage I'm happy to say that I feel like I've found something that works well for me with Fomapan.. The only thing I might do is next time drop it back just a little to get a little less strength in the highlights but I will wait until I scan the film before I make any serious judgements on that.

[Leigh]

Very good. Congratulations.

Note that Rodinal is a compensating developer when used with minimal agitation, per the instructions.

When using it in a rotary processing system that compensation effect is lost.

The result is that for identically-exposed negatives, the rotary one will have slightly greater highlight density.

As long as you like the looks of the negatives, that's what matters.

- Leigh

[Daniel Stone]

FYI,
If your tap water is coming out too hot, freeze a few water bottles(filled 1/2way, and capped of course) and dunk one of them in your mixed chemistry(or the water before you mix it up) to cool it down. Have 3-4 of these "chiller bombs"(as I call them) ready before you get started processing, so you can temper you chemicals to your desired temperature.

Just a suggestion recommended to me a few years ago, and I've found it to be really helpful in warmer climates.

cheers,
Dan

[alexn]

Thanks guys, Daniel - Good tip... Sounds like it will work well.. :)

Heres the first scan of the 6 negatives...

112635

[Huub]

Looks almost perfect to me, beautiful picture... Do you still have some shadow detail in the darkest parts of the negative?

[Lenny Eiger]

+1 on the comments by Leigh. I would also give Xtol a try. Rodinal is a special purpose developer that articulates grains. You will have less than perfect scan results if you ever decide to do scanning...

Lenny

[alexn]

Thanks guys.

The negative shows substantially more shadow detail. This has been adjusted to how I want the details portrayed.

I have son xtol here but haven't mixed it yet. :)