Fast VS Slow development for 35 mm film

Hello everyone

I often shoot Adox CMS20 II, and as Adox rightly claims, "No other film is sharper, no other film is more finegrained, no other film resolves more lines per mm (up to 800 l/mm)." - Despite Adox's recommendation that I should develop the film with Adotech IV, I usually do it with Adonal/Rodinal, w/ a dilution of 1+25 for 8'. Despite respecting the ISO standard and the exposure, I notice that I miss a lot of details. It's a film that is already prone to big highlights and lots of contrast, but I'd like to know if increasing the dilution and development time would have a direct impact on the details of the film - it would make sense to me that by increasing these factors, and making the film develop more slowly, the negative appears with more detail afterwards, and less contrast.

Does it make sense? If not, what can I do to combat high contrast at the time of development?

I can’t answer your question about more diluted developer, but the solution is quite simple, use the developer that Adox makes specially for this film and use it the way Adox advices and you will be happy. There is a reason why they do not give times and dilutions for other developers.
Regards,
Frank

You are not entirely clear about what you mean with "I miss a lot of details". Do you mean, that the resulting negatives are unsharp? Grainy? Or that shadows or highlights don't render well?

fmariasilva said:

If not, what can I do to combat high contrast at the time of development?

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There are a few "soft working" film developers, but the simple solution is to use Adotech IV. In my experience, this developer provides beautiful, easy printing negs from CMS 20.

Rudeofus said:

You are not entirely clear about what you mean with "I miss a lot of details". Do you mean, that the resulting negatives are unsharp? Grainy? Or that shadows or highlights don't render well?

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I have a high contrast, with almost no shadows and or mid tones. And would like to know if I can do anything while developing to lower the contrast.

My thoughts about all this.

The film you are using is a quite high contrast emulsion. I worked with Kodak Technical Pan in the years when it was available and I had much the same problems you do. Cutting the contrast with these emulsions is possible, but you will have to work at it.

Now, an "it depends" comment. You may be underexposing and overdeveloping or you may be overexposing and overdeveloping. Consider the overdeveloping first. Both can throw your contrast completely off into the high ranges, and also affect image sharpness in some films. Meter your images carefully and start by processing your films for exactly the recommended time for mid-range contrast.

Longer, slower development allows you more control over contrast, especially in the mid-tones. Lightning fast development has its uses, but it generally pushes contrast to higher levels too quickly for my liking. You will have far more control in ten minute (or longer) development than in the two and three minute times some developers are famous for.

Initially work with the manufacturer's recommended development times. Learn how to use their developer(s) to their best advantages. A lot of information is available online about how those developers work. Figure out what works best for you.

Diluted development works (sometimes) to tame high contrast, but it's not always best for the results you may want. In my own case, I used Kodak D76 as 1:1 for two decades until I eventually worked out I get better results (those mid tones again) with full strength stock. A little more slightly visible (if you really look for it) grain in my FP4 and HP5, but grain is something I can live with and in fact quite like. So it suits me.

In my case, my two preferred developers are Kodak D76 (as mentioned above) and Thornton's two bath developer. I mix both at home from raw chemistry. D76 is available from photo shops or online. The Thornton's is excellent for cutting contrast. D76 also works well for this if you don't overdevelop your films.

We live and we learn. Enjoy the journey!

fmariasilva said:

I have a high contrast, with almost no shadows and or mid tones. And would like to know if I can do anything while developing to lower the contrast.

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If you are shooting at the box speed of 20, then shadow loss is inevitable. Even with Adotec developer, best results are obtained at EI 6. To get better shadows at EI 20, @Henning Serger recommended using fill flash. To prevent the highlights from blowing up, some jugglery with developer temperature is needed. So shoot at EI 6 and use Rodinal dilution 1:100 which IIRC is the second best developer choice according Henning who has done a lot of scientific tests on this film. There's a lot of useful discussion on this topic in previous threads that you might want to read.

This is what I used on Technical Pan:
**Kodak Technical Pan, EI 16 Rodinal, 750ml+5ml,13min, 68f, 30 sec initial, agitate normal(3inversions@each 3 min).

And this is the results:


https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=8178676@N04&sort=date-taken-desc&text=technicalpan&view_all=1