Rodinal

[Wayne]

A friend just gave me a bottle of Rodinal. What difference should I notice using it with FP4+ as compared to my usual combo of FP4/Xtol (or occasionbally HC-110 )? I've heard Rodinal gives exquisite tonality, whatever the heck that means

[Doug Paramore]

Wayne: Rodinal can give great tonality and extremely sharp grain at some dilutions. It is not a fine grain developer, however. Seems everyone has a favorite dilution/time for Rodinal. A little experimentation might give you just what you want.

Regards,

[Andy tymon]

Wayne, I usually rate it at e.i.64 and process in rodinal at 1 to 50 for 8 mins at 68F. The results I get are great. Very sharp negs with lovely mid tones when used with FP4. Shoot some film and see if you like it. Andy

[pat krentz]

Exqusite: very lovely; fine; dainty; delicately beautiful; of highest quality. Sorry, I just could not risist the temptation. Pat

[Doug Paramore]

Just wondering...back when Rodinal used to be bottled in glass bottles, the stuff would keep forever, even after being opened. Does it have the same keeping qualities in the plastic bottles?

Regards,

[Kevin Crisp]

Not in my experience. I had a full plastic bottle in my fridge in the darkroom for about 6 years. (This stays at 35 to 37 degrees all year long.) I then decided (having obtained a densitometer) to run some film speed tests on Agfa 25 roll film. I was coming up with numbers like "5," finally figured out I needed fresh developer, bought a new bottle (how new is in on the shelf?) and reran the tests and came up with "17", so the old developer was costing me about a stop and half of film speed. The bottle I bought which was fresh is now a year old, and has been opened, and if I use it I get great results. So I guess it keeps for a while, but don't overdo it. It doesn't seem to go on forever like HC110 yellow syrup. The older stock had changed colors away from the sepia-ish color to more brownish.

[Wayne]

Has anyone tried 1:100 with FP4+ and if so, what dev time did you use (maybe stand develop for an hour??)? I'm contact printing 8x10 so grain isnt much of a consideration

[david clark]

Hi, I was just stand developing some Ilford Ortho Plus with Rodinal 100:1 for 30 min. and I got some blotching in the sky area. So, I don't know about stand developing at 100:1. I've done it before and it worked. I don't know what happened. This was a 12min exposure among buildings at night. Best, David