Basketball grain and Rodinal on 35mm

[laingsoft]

I recently went through and developed a roll that I had taken in the mountains. I used Blazinal at 1:25 and Arista EDU 200. You'll have to forgive the composition and exposure, as I was a little tipsy when I shot these.

In this photo, it was overcast, but quite bright. The sun was shining through the clouds giving an exceptionally bright, diffuse light over everything. I was using the built in selenium meter in my Yashica Lynx 1000, which tends towards overexposure. The image came out super grainy.

Later on in the roll, there is this image

As you can see, the grain is way less apparent.

So my question is this: What exactly is the relationship with Rodinal and grain? I know that grain goes DOWN with higher dilutions, but is it fair to say that the grain will go UP with overexposure and DOWN with underexposure?

 

[Rudeofus]

Grain will go up with higher densities as soon as you are above D = 0.3. A very dense negative will be very grainy no matter what you do.

 

[MattKing]

Are these scans of prints, or negative scans?
In the top one, I see a whole bunch of digital artifacts.

 

[laingsoft]

Are these scans of prints, or negative scans?
In the top one, I see a whole bunch of digital artifacts.

These are scans of the negative.

 

[Lachlan Young]

These are scans of the negative.

Rodinal processed negs are a fairly tough test of scanner quality. They tend to make scanners with poor sharpness go a bit loopy on the granularity front, even if the negs will print fine in the darkroom or scan well on high end scanners.

 

[MattKing]

Can you show us backlit digital photos of the negatives themselves - preferably those two, side by side?

 

[laingsoft]

Rodinal processed negs are a fairly tough test of scanner quality. They tend to make scanners with poor sharpness go a bit loopy on the granularity front, even if the negs will print fine in the darkroom or scan well on high end scanners.

Interesting. I didn't know that. I've had extremely good luck in the past with rodinal + medium format and the scanner.

Can you show us backlit digital photos of the negatives themselves - preferably those two, side by side?

No... I don't really have a digital camera

 

[MattKing]

No... I don't really have a digital camera

You need to find a nearby teenager with a cel phone!
Do you have the opportunity to try a darkroom print of the negatives?

 

[laingsoft]

You need to find a nearby teenager with a cel phone!
Do you have the opportunity to try a darkroom print of the negatives?

Cell phone camera resolution isn't really going to show anything.

I'm planning on printing them, however my work bench in my darkroom tends to collect clutter.

 

[MattKing]

Cell phone camera resolution isn't really going to show anything.

I wanted to compare the appearance of the negatives - things like density of the highlights.

 

[mnemosyne]

My experience with Rodinal is indeed that exposure (or density) will strongly affect granularity. Results can be rather unobtrusive even with a traditional 400 speed film like APX400 and 1:25 dilution, as long as you expose it sparingly, which of course requires that you chose subjects and lighting situations that tolerate that kind of exposure in the first place. Grain will be present, but not as annoyingly so. I've did some comparisons recently with the same subject, lighting and film, and to my surprise the difference between Rodinal 1:25 and Xtol R in grain size is smaller than one might expect. But if you overexpose it, overdevelop it, use it for high contrast situations and/or subjects that include large uniform areas of higher density, the same film will appear as a grainy mess. It is really the question of choosing the right tool for your job. Also, I agree for hybrid users the scanning process and especially the light source of the scanner will have a big impact on how the grain appears in the scan.