Cheapest B&W 120 film available in USA?

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John Wiegerink

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NICE!

Tmax 400@400 in Parodinal, 1:50, 20.C, 10 minutes
Times in rodinal must be the same

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You might have had to pay through the nose for that film, but by the looks of those shots you are certainly getting you dollars worth. If you have a fairly contrasty scene shot with Fuji Acros try stand developing it in you soup for 1 hr. I took a shot of a black steam locomotive with a Rollei and Acros and developed it in Rodinal 1:100 for one hour and was amazed. No grain and sharp as a tack.
As for the Chinese film? I have tried some ERA film in 4X5 and it really was good stuff, but can't get it anymore.
 

Gerald C Koch

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Ok, good to know. Well, I still want the new formula haha. But I want a LOT of formulas like all of the E6 ones... I want to make my own... I digress...

There was a LONG thread on the Rodinal formulas. Which one corresponded to the original formula and how it has changed in the years since then. I don't think that there was ever a consensus on these points. Of those responding Ian Grant had the most information.

What's better than a patent is a trade secret. Jerry
 

luizjorgemn

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You might have had to pay through the nose for that film, but by the looks of those shots you are certainly getting you dollars worth. If you have a fairly contrasty scene shot with Fuji Acros try stand developing it in you soup for 1 hr. I took a shot of a black steam locomotive with a Rollei and Acros and developed it in Rodinal 1:100 for one hour and was amazed. No grain and sharp as a tack.
As for the Chinese film? I have tried some ERA film in 4X5 and it really was good stuff, but can't get it anymore.

Some day I'll try stand developing with paRodinal. Thanks for the tip.


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StoneNYC

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Some day I'll try stand developing with paRodinal. Thanks for the tip.


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I've never tried the PA version, but Rodinal stand develop 1:100 for one hour seems to develop just about everything, including C-41 film with really beautiful tones, it's like the answer to everything :smile:

However most of my B&W work I use it 1:50...


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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IRodinal stand develop 1:100 for one hour seems to develop just about everything, including C-41 film with really beautiful tones, it's like the answer to everything :smile:
However most of my B&W work I use it 1:50...

Another convert to the Church of Rodinal! Glory!
 

FL Guy

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Wow, that pricing is a Bi*ch

Stop complaining about film prices in USA. Here in Brazil we pay 15 dollars for Tri-x 120 and 10 dollars for Acros. We dont have Rodinal or any other developer except d76, which costs 25 dollars a gallon pack.
The cheapest way to buy film here is getting from eBay from USA, paying 50% more as import taxes.

BTW, all chinese films sucks. I only use TMAX 400 and Acros 100 in 120 and Tri-x, double x and acros in 35mm.

I think Stone said something about tmax and dd-x, Now I'm souping Tmax in parodinal getting good results.


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LuisJorge:

Those costs for film are unbelievable, I feel for you. Your image "pre-visualization" skills must be highly developed.....

BTW, great pics you posted, very nice results!

Stay safe

FL Guy
 

StoneNYC

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Another convert to the Church of Rodinal! Glory!

Haha hey your the one who gave me the stand 1:100 advice for C-41 and it worked like a charm :smile:


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk
 

noacronym

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Stone, will you please elaborate on your use and result of Rodinal? I say this as someone who tried some in 1974 and threw it away indignantly. A dastardly concoction which did nothing but destroy a picture with the ugliest big grain I ever saw. Now here you praise it. I'm open to hear more, as long as I never see grain again like that time in 1974. Remember, you're talking to a Microdol 1:3 man basically. Thank you.
 

rawhead

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It's simple: Rodinal, 1:100, stand (30s agitation in the beginning only) or semi-stand (30s @ beginning, 30s at half way) for 1hr. Develops pretty much any B&W film properly. Yeah, even pushed/pulled ones :LOL:

I use it with 4x5 when I want a pleasant amount of small but sharp grain, and when I have multiple rolls of 120 that I can't be bothered to develop each one separately & differently. Never really fails.
 

noacronym

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So you're saying just pour it in at 1/100 agitate for 30 seconds and go watch a re-run of Route 66, come back, and any 120 film will be done? Or will I have just made a big job of fiddling with polycontrast filters and test strips later? And what about that god-awful Rodinal grain? Remember, I sat here and read that Caffinol hoax a few weeks ago.
 

rawhead

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noacronym

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Thank you. I'd have rather not followed the link to see for myself. (but I did) Too much information; I'm on information overload here. I'm craving credibility. I'm a procedural thinker and do-er more in the form of PE the EK man. I'm a guy who read and followed published Kodak instructions as fastidiously as the Kodak guy with the clipboard in the Kodak paper sample swatch books when I was a teenager in the 70's. And it always seemed to work when my equipment was dependable. But it sure would be nice now that those days are gone to just be lazy and expect a good picture from any jiunk film I get my hands on these days. In other words, I might actually buy another bottle after 40 years and give it a go. I'm just too old to waste my time and money burning gas to go out on a picture expedition and end up with some crazy experiment that makes nightmares at the enlarger. Thanks again.
 

StoneNYC

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Thank you. I'd have rather not followed the link to see for myself. (but I did) Too much information; I'm on information overload here. I'm craving credibility. I'm a procedural thinker and do-er more in the form of PE the EK man. I'm a guy who read and followed published Kodak instructions as fastidiously as the Kodak guy with the clipboard in the Kodak paper sample swatch books when I was a teenager in the 70's. And it always seemed to work when my equipment was dependable. But it sure would be nice now that those days are gone to just be lazy and expect a good picture from any jiunk film I get my hands on these days. In other words, I might actually buy another bottle after 40 years and give it a go. I'm just too old to waste my time and money burning gas to go out on a picture expedition and end up with some crazy experiment that makes nightmares at the enlarger. Thanks again.

There will be many opinions on GRAIN ...

I think the 1:100 stand development DOES produce a lot more grain, but then I've only used it on C-41 films ...

Naocronym... you should become a subscriber, then you could view my gallery, a bunch of my images were shot and developed in Rodinal recently. I don't like posting my images on the public side much, I've already found stolen images in other places recently and kind of annoyed me and made me a paranoid idiot. However for the C-41 in Rodinal thread... go here...

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Look at post #8 for results ...

As far as Rodinal on actual B&W films ... I want to point out something obvious no one is talking about... it depends on the format... I really only shoot 120 in 6x6/6x7 format... I don't shoot 645 at all and 35mm rarely... (however the link above... that's all 35mm). and the grain difference between 35mm and 120 is a big difference, and the grain difference between 120 and the link the previous poster showed you with images that were 4x5 or 5x7... well of course there's little grain to be seen, but that's deceiving.

After listening to one of the more famous photographers on here, at first I didn't like what he said which was to change my agitation technique, and then, I decided to compromise, and he was right, or I was partially right and he was partially right, anyway what I do now ... Rodinal 1:50 agitate the first minute VERY gently, not fast but slow and then every minute thereafter only 2 inversions and again really gentile inversions, it made the images look much smoother and helped with grain too, I don't know why, but it did. I used to like to hear the splash/splooosh sound as the water funneled when I flipped it, I liked knowing it was flowing, but now I've learned I get better results with less agitation and slower agitation, seems to make a HUGE difference. (however I still bang my tank just as hard to dislodge bubbles (3 times in a row ever inversion cycle).

This is certainly information overload but I wanted to be thorough since you're hesitant. I do have to say I really only used Rodinal in the finer grained films, the only non fine grain film I used it in was HP5+ and even that wasn't really so bad... the massive dev chart is a bit off in the Rodinal department, I always add one minute to the time, but again, that's my style for the look I enjoy.

wish you could see my gallery... fine here...

Efke100, HP5+, Tmax400, Acros100 all in Rodinal 1:50
 

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StoneNYC

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AND to give you a better example of the kind of grain you'll see with Acros100.... this is a 30-60 second night exposure I did, ignore the streaks a car went through but I wanted you to see the grain... this is the area I cropped to show you a 1:1 at 3200dpi scan of the little amount of grain i have... Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 2.40.48 AM.jpg

and this is the cropped image... Acros100-Rodinal50-13min-3200-06.jpg

Not too bad...

EDIT: Looking at this, I realized the amount of area I've selected is probably about the surface area of a 110 film surface area... it's so tiny... maybe 35mm rodinal will work just fine :smile: will have to try sometime, though I can't imagine when I'll be shooting 35m but you never know...
 
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rawhead

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Well, as the thread was about 120, I figured 120 is the format in question; I personally wouldn't recommend Rodinal stand for 35mm... but that's because I don't shoot 35mm. When it comes to 120, I'm fine with Rodinal stand with any B&W film I use. Granted, the highest speed i'll usually shoot is TriX 400.

Here's a TriX 320 shot freshly dev'd in Rodinal semi-stand (1:100, 1hr)

Scan-130320-0002.jpg

And its 100% crop

Screen Shot 2013-03-22 at 2.59.05 AM.jpg

This is a straight-up scan with my V700 @ 2400dpi, no noise/grain reduction etc., and no PP.
 

StoneNYC

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Well, as the thread was about 120, I figured 120 is the format in question; I personally wouldn't recommend Rodinal stand for 35mm... but that's because I don't shoot 35mm. When it comes to 120, I'm fine with Rodinal stand with any B&W film I use. Granted, the highest speed i'll usually shoot is TriX 400.

Here's a TriX 320 shot freshly dev'd in Rodinal semi-stand (1:100, 1hr)

View attachment 66110

And its 100% crop

View attachment 66111

This is a straight-up scan with my V700 @ 2400dpi, no noise/grain reduction etc., and no PP.

Hmm stand seems to have a softening effect, even on B&W, I wasn't sure if it was because I was doing it with 35mm C-41, but I guess it's the cause of the stand... it's still very nice, just not as "Sharp" so to speak... anyway, thanks for adding to the info, good to know.
 

noacronym

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Thank you, both you gentlemen. You've made up my mind, as it was in 1974--stay away from the Rodinal. "A lot more grain", says StoneNYC. I was rather well afraid based on my experience 40 years ago that the little bottle of over-potent salt-and-pepper would turn my 120 Plus-X into 35mm Royal-X, and it sounds like it would. I'm afrain it's back to bread-and-water D-76 for me, now that Microdol is gone. Thank you for clarifying. I'm not sure of how to be a subscriber, but for me if it involves money, my daily life is already making me old before my time on that.
 

Pioneer

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Thank you, both you gentlemen. You've made up my mind, as it was in 1974--stay away from the Rodinal. "A lot more grain", says StoneNYC. I was rather well afraid based on my experience 40 years ago that the little bottle of over-potent salt-and-pepper would turn my 120 Plus-X into 35mm Royal-X, and it sounds like it would. I'm afrain it's back to bread-and-water D-76 for me, now that Microdol is gone. Thank you for clarifying. I'm not sure of how to be a subscriber, but for me if it involves money, my daily life is already making me old before my time on that.

Rodinal will introduce grain compared to standard development in D-76. I use a lot of Rodinal as well as a fair amount of D-76. There are ways to reduce the amount of grain you will get by developing in Rodinal but it will still be there to some extent. Personally I usually don't mind grain so I use a bunch of the "salt and pepper", but if I need to print big, and don't want grain, I stay away from Rodinal.
 

StoneNYC

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Good luck to you. But even in the HP5+ example it wasn't SO bad.

Anyway the point is with the t-grain films the grain seems very small and really my much different then in HC-110 or even DD-X sure it's noticeable but with the gentler agitation it seems to cut down HIGHLY on grain issues.

Give ONE roll a try, heck Rodinal is only $10...

Best of luck!


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk
 

noacronym

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Not to mean to beat this thread to death, but there's still a disconnect I'm not getting here. According to StoneNYC, Rodinal at 1/100 gives more grain than the standard recommended dilutions (which are unacceptable). Now, Microdol straight is said to be a grainy mess pf a developer, yet 1/3 is the nectar of the gods on grain, sharpness, tonal range, film speed... So why does Rodinal go grainy when superdiluted and Microdol goes finer? All this brings me to my point in question. How would D-76 do as the hour-long forget-about-it method? I'm only guessing, not knowing the Rodinal formula, but I speculate it's probably something akin to D-76. So what would D-76 do as this lazy trick for all films, if you diluted it a bunch too?
 

StoneNYC

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Not to mean to beat this thread to death, but there's still a disconnect I'm not getting here. According to StoneNYC, Rodinal at 1/100 gives more grain than the standard recommended dilutions (which are unacceptable). Now, Microdol straight is said to be a grainy mess pf a developer, yet 1/3 is the nectar of the gods on grain, sharpness, tonal range, film speed... So why does Rodinal go grainy when superdiluted and Microdol goes finer? All this brings me to my point in question. How would D-76 do as the hour-long forget-about-it method? I'm only guessing, not knowing the Rodinal formula, but I speculate it's probably something akin to D-76. So what would D-76 do as this lazy trick for all films, if you diluted it a bunch too?

Remember I've ONLY used C-41 films in Rodinal 1:100, and only SEEN others post images that appear from far away to have more gain but I can't be sure as no one ever posts the full image just a smaller web-ready version of the image, so I have nothing to compare, I'm strictly talking about the C-41 appearing more grainy. but the tones are super nice. I think you are pixel peeping a bit honestly, any modern film from kodak or Ilford will not have any super terrible grain the way old tri-x used to have ... totally different films.. I can't speak for the other film companies I haven't played enough with their films.
 

noacronym

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Thanks. I had to google "pixel-peeping". I have no access to the photos on APUG, aside from those that appear as attachments. You've clarified--your experience is apparently much more concentrated to salvage color films as b&w than I initially gathered. So you've pretty well shut me up on the matter. I've just never been jumping for joy on D-76. I know Kodak called it a "general-purpose fine grain developer". And it was the standard stuff in any darkroom I ever was in. Like ketchup as the standard condiment on every table. I'm not a D-76 fan, but I can tolerate it, since that's about all Kodak has any more. Rather bland though. Bread-and-water for the prisoners.
 

StoneNYC

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Thanks. I had to google "pixel-peeping". I have no access to the photos on APUG, aside from those that appear as attachments. You've clarified--your experience is apparently much more concentrated to salvage color films as b&w than I initially gathered. So you've pretty well shut me up on the matter. I've just never been jumping for joy on D-76. I know Kodak called it a "general-purpose fine grain developer". And it was the standard stuff in any darkroom I ever was in. Like ketchup as the standard condiment on every table. I'm not a D-76 fan, but I can tolerate it, since that's about all Kodak has any more. Rather bland though. Bread-and-water for the prisoners.

Why don't you look at Pyro-HD or is it Pyrocat-HD ... something like that... it's apparently like Rodinal but finer grained, but it's a two chem mix, you mix the two before a run, I haven't tried it but I hear (and see) very good things. Don't be so disheartened, like I said, I've still used Roidnal 1:50 in standard B&W films Across100,Tmax4000,HP5+,PanF+,Panatomic-X, all with amazing results, I just haven't stand developed them 1:100, I've only stand developed 1:100 for C-41 ... so you can still consider Rodinal for regular development even if you don't want to do Stand... but as I said... get a CHEAP roll of something .. a cheap 35mm of foma 24 exposure is like $3 and a bottle of Rodinal (Adox Adonal) is $11-$13 ... get these and give it a try, fact, shoot 10 shots, then take 4 blank shots, then take the rest, in the dark cut the film in half, and develop one in stand and the other half normal 1:50 and see the difference, it can't hurt to run one roll through.... you can't be THAT poor.

The best way to learn is just to DO IT yourself... everything else is someone else's opinion...
 

John Wiegerink

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I agree with StoneNYC in that Pyrocat-HD might be something for you to look into. You can get a kit from Photographers' Formulary or make you own with the chemicals. If you use Propylene Glycol for the stock it will last forever. It has two parts and is mixed 1:1:100 with the 100 being H2O so you can see it will go a long, long way. I have and still am using it and it seems to be a very forgiving, fine grained, high acutance developer. I'm still a rookie with it, but I have a feeling it will be my go-to developer in the future. Very nice negatives! I do know that if I had to pay the prices you pay I'd be looking for a good developer that lasts forever and goes a long, long way. Rodinal and Pyrocat-HD are my two top choices with Diafine running close.
 
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