Nice thread - do I understand it correctly that you got sharp(er) negatives using rotary processing? T-grain film and Rodinal is an interesting combination - I've only did some few Tmax films in Rodinal and never got around to really nail it down.
Sorry if I am opening the ol' can o' worms ...
Have you considered Ilford DDX. It is their recommended developer for Delta (tabular grain) films. It might be a good replacement for TMax developer. It seems that by choosing Rodinal you are going in completely the opposite direction.
The thing that got me re-interested in this is Steve Sherman's work looks like the film curve is altered in an aesthetic way. The sharpness issue is probably of less concern with large format and more of a discussion with small format.
So, the question to answer for myself is how very dilute developer affects 8x10 sheet film in this process and how that might be different or similar to what Steve Sherman has posted with is developing tubes.
Again, this is a really old thread and the pictures are gone, but I don't think that I ever checked the resulting film curves with my senitometric equipment.
I'd like to pass on some books that might be if interest to members who have followed this thread:
PHOTOGRAPHIC DENSITOMETRY the study of tone reproduction by Hollis Todd and Richard Zakia. Morgan & Morgan. Studied under Hollis when I was at RIT. A classic.
DEVELOPING by C I Jacobson & R E Jacobson. Focal Press. Another classic covering probably everything you ever wanted to know about developing film
The Photographic Negative by W H Burbank 1888 reprinted by Lindsay Publications. Lot of historical info on developing.
EDGE OF DARKNESS by Barry Thornton. Amphoto Books "The art, craft, and power of the high-definition monochrome photography"
chapter on Formulae for Colour and Black and White Processing from the British Journal of Photography Annual 1972 great source of info. Also in the 1960s, tThe British Journal of Photography published a 7 part series of articles titled Notes on Present Day Monochromatic Emulsions and their Development. The British Journal of Photography has been digitized. The digital archive is currently available to colleges, universities and institutional subscribers via Proquest.
Perhaps other forum members can add on other reference books on Developing.
In my copy of the book picture 4 is definitely looks to be more sharper the Picture 5, but Picture 4 looks like it was printed on a grade harder paper. Since he states that both negatives were printed with the same settings, I think the difference has more to do with Picture 4's negative's higher gamma. In any case this thread encouraged me to pick up the Edge of Darkness and read it once again... thanks
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