Bellini RDL B&W One Shot Film Developer

John Wiegerink · May 2, 2023

I went to purchase a bottle of Adox Rodinal from Freestyle, and it's "out of stock". Fact is, I can't find it anywhere. Then I notice that Freestyle had the Bellini clone and thought I'd try that. Has anyone here used the Bellini Rodinal clone? It's said to be made on the formula of the original Agfa Rodinal.

koraks · May 3, 2023

On the other hand, the original Rodinal formula (from 1896 or so?) has been in the public domain for so long and to the best of my knowledge has long ceased to fall under any form IP protection.

Arcadia4 · May 3, 2023

Adox acquired the rights to use the Rodinal name in the US, not the formulas per se. There is a thread where mirko explains the history.

RODINAL! You lucky Americans..

..are allowed to purchase "properly labeled" RODINAL again! Whilst the complex situation with the Rodinal trademark in Germany still leads to no one being able to use the name, the USPTO was more flexible in this respect and based on the "if you don´t use it you don´t deserve it" rule we got...

www.photrio.com

The current adox version is based on the last one made by Agfa, or at least the ex agfa chemists recollection of it, but there is also copy made by a former Orwo company sold by compard etc. Bellini make their own chemistry. They should all give similar results, a bit like d76 vs id11.

halfaman · May 3, 2023

Arcadia4 said:
or at least the ex agfa chemists recollection of it

That seems to be just a legal "euphemism" from Mirko as long as they can't say they copied the receipe without the risk of being sued for it.

John Wiegerink · May 3, 2023

Well, I pulled the trigger on the Bellini Rodinal clone, so I guess I'll find out just how good it is. I was going to make my own homemade Rodinal, but for the amount I use I thought it's better to just buy the 100ml bottle from Bellini.

Arcadia4 · May 3, 2023

halfaman said:
That seems to be just a legal "euphemism" from Mirko as long as they can't say they copied the receipe without the risk of being sued for it.

Yes i was keeping with the euphemistic wording. That version was also sold by Compard for a while when it was available in bulk and later reverse engineered for them, when the original supplier ceased production.

Tsubasa said:
"Yes but we are the only company producing Rodinal acording to the orignal Rodinal recipe used by Agfa in the end."

Adox also sold a version to the older recipe under the Aph 09 name which was the ‘original recipe’ before it was changed in the 1960s under agfa-gevaert. Calbe, of orwo heritage was the main supplier of the ‘original version’

Ian Grant said:
A difference is the Calbe RO9 contains more p-Aminophenol and no excess Hydroxide while the later Agfa formula uses less p-Aminophenol at a higher pH and there is excess Hydroxide to give that pH increase which makes it more efficient. The Agfa Gevaert version was cheaper to make, I have published the figures in the past for the two versions.

Ian

However none of this makes a huge difference to the user.

ADOX Fotoimpex said:
and it is different from all others but I am not saying that the others are in any way bad nor that the differences are huge.

Its good that we have companies like adox and bellini keeping these products available.

foc · May 3, 2023

Are there any differences in the shelf life/keeping properties of the various Rodinal based developers?

relistan · May 6, 2023

foc said:
Are there any differences in the shelf life/keeping properties of the various Rodinal based developers?

I’ve had a few of them from different manufactures and keeping quality seems the same to me. There should be no difference between the ADOX stuff and the original in this regard at least.

John Wiegerink · May 16, 2023

I just processed 4 sheets of 4X5 ShanghaI GP3 in BELLINI RDL Ordinal equivalent and it worked just fine. It wasn't a technical test so I can't come to any concrete conclusion yet, but I think it might just have a little more punch than standard old fashion Rodinal. I'll check grain structure when the negatives dry.

DeletedAcct1 · May 18, 2023

John Wiegerink said:
I just processed 4 sheets of 4X5 ShanghaI GP3 in BELLINI RDL Ordinal equivalent and it worked just fine. It wasn't a technical test so I can't come to any concrete conclusion yet, but I think it might just have a little more punch than standard old fashion Rodinal. I'll check grain structure when the negatives dry.

Results?

John Wiegerink · May 18, 2023

So far I've developed Shanghai GP3 and FP4+, both 4X5, in Bellini RDL and they both came out just fine. Since I don't us Rodinal for 4X5 and then only used it at 1:100 60min. stand(semi) for 120 film I can't really compare grain between the two. I will say that RDL at 1:25 or 1:50 is very kind to FP4+ and GP3's grain structure. Nice , tight grain that doesn't look like basketballs. I really think that Rodinal might have a very, very slight edge in the speed department, but I have done no side by side comparison to know for sure. All in all I like the developer. I wish someone else who has tried RDL would chime in and give their experience with the developer.

Bellini RDL B&W One Shot Film Developer

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency