16 C - The best temperature for Rodinal?

Hello friends of self-developing b/w,

I recently read again in an old German book by J. M. Eder "Rezepte, Tabellen..." (from 1949) that Rodinal (the original formula) develops "best" at 16 Celsius (60.8 Fahrenheit) in contradiction to the 20 C standard. Unfortunately the book does not say what "best" does exacly mean, if it is the grain, sharpness, speed or tonality or all of them that then become(s) "best".

I did a little test with a very hard Ortho Film (FO5) in R09 1+200 and found no advantages of the colder Rodinal in comparison to the developing at 20 C. Maybe it is different with conventional or T-grain-films.

Has anyone got an opinion or own experiences regarding Rodinal´s temperature and the claimed 16 C optimum? Maybe also some of the many modernized Rodinal´s descendants have got a low optimum temperature...

Best regards,
Andreas

Try a regular iso 400 film in Rodinal:
1) 16C
2) 30C

and then you know the difference.

The grain will grow proportianal high over 22C.

So just for practical reasons: Try to develop between 16-20C for Rodinal.

Welcome to APUG

Well that's not an Agfa recommendation but it's a technique with some popularity in Germany to help prevent clumping. The lower the temperature the less the Gelatin swells, most developers aren't active enough at 16° C to be used that cold.

Back in 1949 films weren't hardened as much as they are today and variations in temperature would increase grain or even cause reticulation. So some in Germany used this way to get best performance.

In practice as long as you keep the temperatures of all stages close within +/- 1° C then Rodinal gives very fine grain with many modern films, I used if with 35mm through to 5x4 for nearly 20 years at 20° C.

Ian

RobertV said:

The grain will grow proportianal high over 22C.

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Thanks for the fast answer. Any ideas why? Is it the same with other developers? Should we perhaps accept that every developer has its own optimum temperature for improving a special negative quality (grain, sharpness, film speed, curve) and that 20 C is only a convention made to fit practical reasons?

Andreas

It's not the temperature itself it's variations in temperatures in the rest of the processing when the emulsion is softer causing sudden expansion or contraction of the emulsion, and grain clumping also called micro-reticulation.

In fact modern Rodinal is worse as it now has excess Hydroxide, and that softens films further. Some people get increased grain and even actual reticulation with Rodinal and Fuji Acros when they don't control the temperatures properly. Tmax 400 can also give increased grain

Every stage Dev, Stop, Fix & wash needs to be +/- 1° C, or as close to that as possible.

It can happen with any developer & film, but Rodinal is more prone to it because of the hydroxide which is not used in many other developers.

Ian

No, it's not with all developers. Some developers are even better on 24C then 20C (Tmax, CG-512, Finol).

It's the same with agitation. When having a strong agitation with Rodinal the acutance will become less and the grain will grow too.

I think this is typical for Rodinal. So for a best development: Inverse agitation, slowly, and develop around 20C or even slightly less.

Apart from the fact that Rodinal (para-Amino Phenol) is not a fine grain type developer so more suitable for slow-and medium speed classical cubical type films.
A good example is APX100/Rollei retro 100 in Rodinal, which is a very good match but also Efke 25-50-100 are pretty good in Rodinal.

But if you like pronounced regular grain, Tri-X 400 looks good in Rodinal but then it has grain.... but maybe it should be there.

In general you will loose also some speed in Rodinal, around 1/3F stop for most films.

Well the original stuff is from 1891 and still going which is remarkable at all. It's also the only liquid developer I know with a life span of over 10 years. It's crazy but even when it's black it will work.
In this way Rodinal is a bit magic. And sorry, your first post: Welcome to APUG.

Robert, back in the mid 80's Peter Goldfield found that Rodinal gave exceptionally good resuls with modern T-grain films like Tmax 100. Peter was the private importer of Agfa materials in the UK, after Agfa had pulled out, after Peter had built up good sales Agfa began distribution themselves again.

While Rodinal wasn't designed to be a fine grain developer back in 1891 it does give excellent fine grain with Agfa APX and Tmax 100 it doesn't compromise the inherent fine grain of the film emulsions themselves. Some of the highest quality prints off 35mm I've seen have been made with films processed in Rodinal.

Ian

I think when you want the best for a modern grain type film, Rodinal will not be my first choice however Acros 100 (Sigma technology) and Tmax 100 (Tgrain) are not bad at all. But if you look at Delta 400 it's a complete mis-match for Rodinal.

DD-X, Tmax dev., HC-110, Xtol (in general) will do better on modern type film emulsions.

But it always depends what you're looking for and of course which film format you're using.

You're talking about: micro-reticulation which should be a step before reticulation due to temperature differences within the processing. As I understand you point out that high pH developers have a more risk to get this problem?

RobertV said:

You're talking about: micro-reticulation which should be a step before reticulation due to temperature differences within the processing. As I understand you point out that high pH developers have a more risk to get this problem?

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Yes high pH can be an issue but Hydroxide softens gelatin more than Carbonate, and Borax etc even less. Modern Rodinal contains free Hydroxide and has a higher pH than the Calbe RO9 which has no free hydroxide.

Back to fine grain, I used Xtol alongside Rodinal from it's release mainly for TMY and found no differences in grain, tonality, or speed with either developer & APX or Tmax 100. However TMY was finer grained in Xtol.

Ian

I am only cracked my first bottle of Rodinal and and getting to know it with 135 and 120. I don't print over 11x14 often but I do like 400 speed films particularly TriX and LegacyProo400/Neopan 400. I've been using a 1+50 dilution @ 20c.

What is the recommended agitation regimen compared to my usual D76 or PMK. My usual is 4 inversions per 30 seconds.
I'm thinking I should back this off to 4 per 60 seconds unless I need the contrast.

If I use the DigitalTruth starting times will I be okay? (I realize I will see when I have done enough rolls)
I'm using a diffusion enlarger.

Thanks for any thoughts.

brucemuir said:

What is the recommended agitation regimen compared to my usual D76 or PMK. My usual is 4 inversions per 30 seconds.
I'm thinking I should back this off to 4 per 60 seconds unless I need the contrast.

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I also think this would be enough if your development time is not under 8 minutes and it will increase sharpness due to adjacency effects.

brucemuir said:

If I use the DigitalTruth starting times will I be okay? (I realize I will see when I have done enough rolls)

Click to expand...

Which type of Rodinal / Which manufacturer do you use?

A49 said:

I

Which type of Rodinal / Which manufacturer do you use?

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I have the Agfa branded stuff that I picked up from Freestyle about 6 months back.
I just recently switched to diffusion head and haven't really tuned in my processes.
Thanks.

LegacyPRO 400 and Rodinal 1+50 @ 20C is my bread-and-butter 35mm combo right now. I develop for about 8 minutes, gentle agitation every minute or so. I have found that this combo is very susceptible to reticulation and it is absolutely critical to keep processing temperatures within +-1 degrees C all the way through from developer to final rinse. If you do though, you get very nice, even grain and a nice sharp look. I use the Agfa branded Rodinal from Freestyle as well.

Yes I just yesterday received a shipment of the Legacy Pro 400 short date special they have right now so I will have the opportunity to dial it in . I love the look of this film and the price is outstanding.

I had read the reticulation thread with this combo so was shying away from rodinal with LP400 but the grain is very nice for a 400 speed so I figure when dialed in it will be superb. I've always been extremely careful with temperature regulation but come winter my wash water can be difficult to control. I don't have the option of in line thermo control so I have to watch things closely. Hopefully this issue doesn't rear it's head.

I think I'll ditch the acid stop for this combo also.

edit: I just checked the DigitalTruth and they are quoting 11 minutes for ISO400 1+50 @ 20c.
I rate LP400 @ 250-320 but it seems it can produce 400 if needed no problem ? ?
Thoughts on rating LP400 anyone?

NP400 in Rodinal: E.I. 250

The film is more sensitive for reticulation then you maybe can think for a pretty modern emulsion.

For a condensor system your Gamma should be around 0,55 but for a diffusion enlarger around 0,62. I have a Dunco which is a combination of two systems.

Perhaps 16 degrees was standard room temperature in the winter months before central heating.

Thank you for all the interesting contributions to this topic. I´d like to add one result I achieved yesterday from a small test. I shot a few pictures on Neopan 400 with the same scene and exposition. I developed a part of the stripe in 15 C Rodinal (R09) 1+150 for 50 minutes and another part in 20 C tempered R09 with the same dilution for 30 minutes. Thereafter I printed a crop of both, 10 times enlarged and compared them. A little bit disappointing: In sharpness no difference and only a small if even present advantage of the 15 C negative in grain. So small that it would not justify the effort of cooling the developer down. On the other hand the grain is already very small for the Neopan 400 as a result of the highly diluted Rodinal (1+150). At usual dilutions (about 1+50) cooling down might still be a good idea to improve the negative´s quality.