Rodinal has been around for what, 100 years or so? I figure that if something has been around that long with minimal changes, the makers must be doing something right. Having said that however, I don't really think Rodinal is up to all the hype it gets from some users. Unless you are looking for that pronounced, very sharp grain effect, it is less than ideal for use with fast films. Typically you will see a decrease in effective film speed, thereby negating the reason you chose a fast film to begin with, and at high dilutions (1+50 or higher) the resulting negatives may very well be flat depending on the film. On the other hand, when used with slower films (ISO 125 and slower) which generally have more contrast, the results can be outstanding. My own experience shows that it works particularly well with, of all things, Kodak's TMax 100 and Ilford's FP4+. I've heard from others who have had spectacular results with APX 100, and the prints I've seen bear this out. Sure, the grain is more pronounced than it would be with something like D-76 or XTOL but these are inherently more fine grained films to begin with so it's not that much of a consideration. In the case of TMax 100, the more pronounced grain can actually be helpful. Even at 20x, the grain is hard to see on the baseboard and focusing can be a real pain. Like anything else, Rodinal has it's place. It is not a magic bullet that will give you perfect results every time. You can, however, count on it do do what it was designed to do every time even when it ages and morphs into something that looks like tar. For most of my film developing needs I use XTOL these days, but there are times when Rodinal is the right tool for the right job just as it has been for these many years.
