Choice of 400 film to push to 1600/3200

Hi all,

tomorrow I will need to shoot at 1600 or 3200. I will use 120 film and develop in Rodinal.

I can use either Tmax 400, Delta 400 or HP5+.

Which one is best for the purpose?

Thank you.

Joao

They all do as well as can be expected with an underexposure of that magnitude.

They would probably do better with a faster developer like DD-X or Tmax.

The biggest problem I see for you though, and I know because you are asking, is that you haven't tried so you don't know your limits; you don't know where you will reach a point where there will be a failure.

So, pick one right now (does not matter which), go to a dark place in your house (maybe a garage) where there is a similar lighting level to what you will deal with tomorrow, Take a model if its people you'll be shooting, meter like you will tomorrow, shoot a full test roll starting at maybe 4 stops under (6400) and working up to 5 over (12), develop and have that roll hanging to dry inside 60 minutes, 120 minutes from now try printing from the frames shot at 3200 and 1600. 3-hours from now you'll know where the limit is.

Rodinal is not the best choice for pushing. I would suggest Acufine or Diafine and then any other Phenidone or Dimezone developer such as Xtol or HC-110. It is also better to use a faster film such as Ilford Delta 3200 or Kodak Tmax P3200.

Previous comments all good but what are you shooting and what result do you want? Tri-X in diafine at 1600 would be good but has a look that is distinctive. Mostly I would not use Rodinal to push but then again if you want evident grain and more contrast it might be exact the look you're after...

That being said I favor HP5 at 800 in Rodinal but certainly not at 1600 or 3200.

Tri-x at 1600 and T-Max developer, my combo for pushing film!

I've seen people get some very good pushed results from Rodinal with long stand or semi-stand development, even though it's a speed-losing developer in general.

It's also very different from most other developers, which means other people's experiences may not translate well. Personally, I don't like the t-grain films much, but have had good luck getting HP5+ up to 3200; that was with PC-TEA (which works very much like Xtol) and a witches' brew concocted by one of the other posters here, though, and neither bears any resemblance to Rodinal.

Mark Barendt's advice above is right on the mark, I think. Whatever you're using, test it first!

-NT

Thank you all for your comments.