UN54 - Rodinal vs. Diafine

Jerry,

That's great. Diafine is great for specific purposes, and some people are happy with 'compromised' negatives in the darkroom. But in the end, you wind up wasting a whole lot less paper and time in the darkroom if you get your negs perfect to begin with, so it's worth the struggle of refining technique, which is where something like Rodinal is simply more flexible and allows you a lot more control - once you learn how to.

As a first step in understanding developer dynamics, your comparison is useful.

- Thomas

Hi, congratulation on test being done!
I think you processing time for Rodinal is way too long. I did the same mistake with my first roll. Now i figured out that for me it's 10 min in Rodinal 1:50, 20C, film exposed at 100 iso.

I think Thomas nailed it. Until you've done testing on the developer/film combos individually, and learned what works (ie, personal film speed and negative contrast) for your end process (scanning, enlarging on VC paper, contacting on platinum...) with each you can't make a meaningful comparison. Learning what works first and then comparing negs developed to the same contrast will give you something to legitimately analyze. That said, there is always something to learn from any test or endeavor!

gorbas said:

Hi, congratulation on test being done! I think you processing time for Rodinal is way too long. I did the same mistake with my first roll. Now i figured out that for me it's 10 min in Rodinal 1:50, 20C, film exposed at 100 iso.

Click to expand...

Based on the results above it looks like the 16 minute development time worked really well! What do you see in the picture above to think that it was developed for too long? There are no blocked up highlights, and there is a beautiful crisp tonality.

I've added two images taken in Washington DC to see how the combination of UN54 and Rodinal looked "out in the wild" (as opposed to test shots in my front yard).

Both printed with 2 1/2 VC filters.

I personally like the one inside the Hirschorn.

The little Bessa-L with scale-focusing forces me to think a bit. In the case of the Hirschorn shot, I really stopped the lens down to where everything was in focus...and used that ledge and the camera's self-timer to hold the camera steady.

Jerry

16mins @1+50 seems way too long. Mine fell around 8:30mins with the same dilution but with two inversions @every 30s.