Adox CMS20 in Rodinal : How to get better result ?

[Sylvain]

Hi All,

First of all, sorry for my english, I'm French.

My question is about the Adox CMS 20 Developed in Rodinal.

I have made some test with a film exposed at 20 iso, 10 minutes in Rodinal 1+100 (*) at 21°C (70°F). I used my Jobo CPE2 processor at low speed.

The results are not so bad (no grain at all, great accutance, interesting tonal response ...). The constrast is of course very hight but my main problem
is that I miss a lot information in the shadows. Shots wich were a bit under-exposed are unusable (the negative is perfectly transparent !).

Now I'm wondering how I can get a better result without geting to much contrast.

My numerous ideas are :

- Expose the film at 10 Iso and use the same procedure.
- Develope the film for a longer time without changing anything else.
- Try 1+200 with a longer developement time or even stand developement.
- Try at a lower temp with a longer time.

As I don't want to try it all, I would like your opinion about it.

I don't want to use the adox developer any more because it's getting
expired too fast. I use many type of film and format and my adox developer was expired before I have made 2 films ...

I use want Rodinal (or R09) for all off my films in all size because It's simple to use and I can be confident with it ...

Thanks a lot for your help !

Bye,

Sylvain.


(*) : In fact, it's R09 at 1+80 but it should be the same.

 

[Anscojohn]

Your film is underexposed. Try the reduced Exposure Index. If the highlights get too high for you, reduce development time; or dilute developer even more; or lower temperature.

 

[Claire Senft]

I have shot perhaps 7 rolls of CMS20. I have shot about 300 ft of Kodak imagelink HQ in 35mm. I have not used Rodinal for either film. Here is what I would recommend. use 1:200 at 8 minutes...do a snip test. Use film speed of about 20 again. I would imagine that using a regular reel and tank and agitating 10 seconds the first minute and 5 seconds per minute thereafterwould be helpful as opposed to the constant agitation. . I have developed CMS 20 in both Pyrocat HD 1:1:250 and the Adolux developer. The Adolux developer is too expensive for my taste but works well with CMS 20. Pyrocat HD which works very nicely with Imagelink HQ is liable to give streaks with the CMS 20. I also do not care for the color sensitivity of the CMS 20...I very much prefer the regular pan sensitivity of the Imagelink HQ.

Be very careful in the way you use your meter. Both of these films do not like either under or over exposure. With an additional stop of exposure the gradation is much more adversely affected than a normal film. Even a harder paper will not cure the problem.

If you wish additional help email me directly.

 

[AgX]

Use a developer which is designed for that film.

In case that Adox developer you used was the Adotech, consider the datasheet (or altenatively in case you understand German the datasheet of the Spur Orthopan with Nanospeed UR developer); there it is described how to fill the bottle of developer concentrate with water to substitute for the used volume of concentrate and is given the volume of the now a bit less concentrated developer for your next processing run. That simple procedure should give the developer concentrate a longevity of about a year.

 

[Claire Senft]

My apologies. I did not remeber the name of the developer. I should have said Adotech instead of Adolux.

 

[Sylvain]

Thanks for all this answers,

Anscojohn >> OK, I will first try that.

Claire >> I don't think develope less would be a solution given that highlights are not to dense on the négative for
the moment. For the jobo, I'm OK with you but since I have it, I'm really lazy to do manual dev, I may try it ! ;-)

AgX & Claire >> I have 2 nearly full bottles of Adotech that can probably only go to the bin.
Even when refilling the bottle, Adotech is supposed to last 6 mounths and it is nearly 12 mounths
since I haven't used CMS20.
So, it would be Rodinal or nothing and with what I have obtained, I think it can be Rodinal.
I've 7 films left, if I can do something with it, I will buy some more, if I can't I won't.

In 135 Accros is not so "far" from CMS-20 (except tonal response) and I own 2 MF and a
4x5 view camera, so if I need "more" ...

One more time thanks for your answers,

Bye,

Sylvain.

 

[2F/2F]

I think you are experiencing two things. 1. Underexposure, and 2. Overdevelopment.

Your thin shadows are the clue to the underexposure. There is no need to use a lower EI as a blanket cure unless you simply don't have time to meter. If you test your film and find its working EI to be lower than 20, fine. But downrating your film as a quick fix won't really help you in the long run. In the future, meter the dimmest area in which you want to be able to see detail, and underexpose that by 2 to 2.5 stops. Then see what these areas are like when you print, and continue your trials adjusting as necessary.

Your high contrast is the clue to the overdevelopment. Did you remember to reduce your development time by at least 15% when using a rotary processor? If so, just reduce time by perhaps one to two minutes, and see how it turns out. If not, I would start by trying the 15% reduction.

The length of your development will not significantly affect your shadows, so trying your second idea won't help you. I would simply take your time to meter more carefully (or use the sunny 16 rule - IMO a poorly used reflected meter is worse than an educated guess), and reduce your development time.

 

[Claire Senft]

A film speed of 16-20 will work well with the film given the proper meter usage on a meter that is accurate. Going from a dilution of 1:100 to 1:200
and constant agitation to period agitation is a substantial change. This film is fussy about about the developer though. It may not work well with Rodinal whatever the development scheme. If it is used with the mother of all tripods it is capable of pretty nice results.

 

[Alan Johnson]

The Adox CMS 20 is a more contrasty film than Rollei ATP. With ATP I obtained good shadow detail under sun/shade conditions at EI 8 developed in Rodinal 1:200 15min 20c agitate 30sec then every 2 min.
In my test I found very little shadow detail at EI 8 with CMS 20 in Rodinal.
With this contrasty film one may be looking at very low EI in Rodinal.I actually gave up with Rodinal and used a phenidone brew but that was my conclusion.

 

[Sylvain]

2F/2F >> My meter is the one of my EOS 50, I can't say it never goes wrong but most of the time It does its job (inluding with Ekta).
What I'm sure is that it's a lot more constant than what I get when using Sunny f/16 with my MF or View Camera ! ;-)
Only a small part (5 or 6) of the shots are really unusable due to underexpose, on the other hand, none of them seem globaly
over exposed.

Contrast is what it is but I think it's mainly due to the film, I had the same kind of constrast when using Adotech. For info, the base
dev time given by the "massive dev chart" for CMS 20 and Rodinal 1+100 is 18 minutes at 20°C. Even when taking into accompt the
constant agitation and the 1°C more, I'm still a lot under this time.

Nota : I don't print, I scann with a dedicated 24x36 scanner.

Claire >> OK for that ! Don't worry, I have a good tripod but the main reason that make me use this film is its tonal response
and the total lack of grain. Sharpness and accutance is interesting but not my main goal.

Alan >> Thanks for these infos.


I think my first try will be to use the film at 10 Iso and develope it the same way.

I will keep you informed,

Bye,

Sylvain.

 

[olehjalmar]

2F/2F >> My meter is the one of my EOS 50, I can't say it never goes wrong but most of the time It does its job (inluding with Ekta).
What I'm sure is that it's a lot more constant than what I get when using Sunny f/16 with my MF or View Camera ! ;-)
Only a small part (5 or 6) of the shots are really unusable due to underexpose, on the other hand, none of them seem globaly
over exposed.

Interesting. I have been trying out CMS20 in my EOS 50 now in the winter, and I find that if I trust the evaluative metering in the camera, it consistently underexposes the film. (Most likely the snow is fooling it) If I meter the ambient light, or use the large spot meter of the EOS 50 and meter the shadows, it turns out all right. I expose at EI 25, and have used a variety of developers, all giving acceptable results, at least for scanning:

1. Fomadon Excel (an Xtol clone) at 1+10 with 1 g/l of sodium metaborate added, 12 minutes. This is the contrastiest of the bunch.

2. The low-contrast metol-bicarbonate developer from "The Film Developing Cookbook" also at 12 minutes. More contrast than I got from Tech Pan + Rodinal, but less than Fomadon.

3. A Stoeckler type two-bath developer with 5 grams metol and 25 grams of sulfite in the first bath. Anchell & Troop says two-bath developers does not work well with document films, but Agfa recommended it, I seem to remember, and it seems to give slightly better shadow detail than the first two developers. The A bath of this developer will develop film by itself, so time in the first bath does influence the results. I used 3-4 minutes.

 

[olehjalmar]

Just a quick followup. I have now also tried a very dilute Beutler developer with CMS20. 0.2g metol, 1g sulfite, and 1 g sodium carbonate. I developed for half an hour with agitation every three minutes or so. Contrast is a bit low, which indicates that I could have used a less dilute developer, but the shadows are OK. The attached image was exposed at 25 ISO at 1/125 and f5.6.

 

[Sylvain]

Hi all,

I have forgoten to do a followup here ...

In fact I finally tried to use the film at 10 iso and then I have
used nearly the same procedure for develloping (Rodinal 1+50,
21°C, 11 min).

The results are shurly improvable but it is a lot better than my
last tests.

I attache to this message one of my scans and a 100% crop (3200 dpi)

Bye,

Sylvain.

 

[darkosaric]

Hi,

I have used adox CMS 20 with rodinal 1+100 -> same (not very good) results as you. With Adotech developer - excellent results.

If you like slow films - try efke 25 and kodak TP in rodinal - I got very good results in rodinal 1+100 with efke 25 and TP (dev times from massive dev chart).

regards,

 

[rhineroo]

Just a quick followup. I have now also tried a very dilute Beutler developer with CMS20. 0.2g metol, 1g sulfite, and 1 g sodium carbonate. I developed for half an hour with agitation every three minutes or so. Contrast is a bit low, which indicates that I could have used a less dilute developer, but the shadows are OK. The attached image was exposed at 25 ISO at 1/125 and f5.6.

for 1 L Stock ?:confused:

Best regards, rhineroo

 

[jochen]

Hello olehjalmar, could you please tell me the composition of bath B of the Stoeckler 2-bath developer?

 

[Regular Rod]

Use the Zone System or at least expose as if using the Zone system. So if you want texture in your shadows, meter them and place them on Zone III. Make the exposure. Develop using a compensating developer, my preference with CMS 20 is OBSIDIAN AQUA but I'm sure 510-PYRO would also work, with a stand or (my preference) a semi-stand regime like this: http://freepdfhosting.com/a1e73b320a.pdf

RR

 

[Xmas]

Hello olehjalmar, could you please tell me the composition of bath B of the Stoeckler 2-bath developer?

http://www.barrythornton.com/
follow the two bath link in the site for formula, my brouser does not do pages...