Finer grain Rodinal questions

Hi All,

I like a lot of Rodinal's characteristics, especially its shelf, life but am trying to get less grain with it on 35MM Tri X and Plus X. I have two questions.

1. Is the Pat Gainer variant of using 1 tsp of ascorbic acid, 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 20ml Rodinal per litre of water for 125% of the 1:25 developing time still considered the best route to finer grain with Rodinal?

2. If I mix up a litre of the ascorbic acid and baking soda solution to use 250ml at a time (for my sometimes as low as 1 roll per month shooting rate) what is the shelf life of this mixture in a partially full bottle?

Thanks in advance,

Jay L.

Simply reducing the agitation is the time proven method of getting finer grain from Rodinal.
15 seconds a minute, or every second minute, makes the developer more controllable.

DON'T over develop.

Adding stuff to Rodinal (sulfite, ascorbic acid) turns it into something other than Rodinal,
and changes the tonal qualities and flexibility that made Rodinal desirable for so many DECADES.

I agree with DF. I have added sulfite to Rodinal to dev the dreaded Forte 400, and it works, but if you're going to do that with TX & PX, just go to D-76 or something like it.

If you'd like a finer grain dev that has a GREAT shelf life, try HC-110. As easy to mix as Rodinal and as inexpensive.

I agree with Jim here. HC-110, while not my personal favorite, is a perfectly good developer for 35 mm work. It is fast working though, so you must take that into consideration. HP5+ gets 5 minutes in HC-110, diluted 1+31 from the gooey syrup that is sold here in the US, at 68 deg. F. That's fast. It can be diluted further, but don't count on being able to find extensive development data for the higher dilutions. The concentrate lasts a long time, maybe as long as Rodinal, but I'm not betting on that. I picked up a partially used bottle from someone who gave up her darkroom. She didn't remember how long it had been on her shelf. I still have it some two years later and it is still working fine.

I agree with the slower agitation method. To me, the difference between normal agitation and semistand where I agitate once every 5 minutes makes a definitely noticeable difference in grain! Try 1+200 dilution, 30 minutes, agitate continuously first 90 seconds and two gentle inversions every 5 minutes, 500ml per film, 70*F. With Plus-X it's a humdinger! With Tri-X it's excellent. But you will never get fine grain from Tri-X 35mm and Rodinal, no matter what you do.

HC-110 is a good choice for sure. WD2D pyro is supposed to be the cat's meow for 35mm, minimizing grain.

I hope that helps!

- Thomas

Let me just add something I found out quite recently, totally by accident.

I planned a roll of panf+ exposed at 50, developed in Rodinal 1:50 for the recommended 11 minutes. I do only 2 inversions per minute with this mix, I think folks call it semi-stand?


But the water temp was higher than the 20C. 22 to be exact. It's Summer, here...
From prior experience, I knew I had to drop the time by 1 minute, back to 10.


When I emptied the tank, I realized the clock still had 1 minute to go. Accidentaly, my mind did the "less one minute" and I had forgotten that I had already adjusted the clock!

Since this was one shot, I didn't have the developer anymore. So I decided to experiment.

I did a water stop bath with 15 inversions, then mixed up 300ml of rodinal at 1:100 and soaked the film in it for 5 minutes, no agitation whatsoever.

Then another water bath with 15 inversions, a stop bath and normal fixing.

The output was the lowest grained I have ever seen, and the development was spot on.

I don't know what happened and why, but I'm definitely going to try this with other films.

df cardwell said:

Adding stuff to Rodinal (sulfite, ascorbic acid) turns it into something other than Rodinal,
and changes the tonal qualities and flexibility that made Rodinal desirable for so many DECADES.

Click to expand...

That is speculation. When you know it to be fact, let us know.

It's actually a fact Gadget, if you add other chemicals it's no longer Rodinal. There are many published formulae using Rodinal (or the other manufacturers equivalents, Azol, Certinal, Kodinol etc) plus other chemicals, they don't claim to be the same as the original.

People add a chemical to Rodinal it's to effect a change in the developers behaviour, so the resulting solution is no longer Rodinal. A Kodak example is D19, add Thiocyanate it becomes D67, or add more Borax & some Boric acid to D76 and it becomes D76d.

Add an additional chemical and the Foumula has changed there's nothing remotely ambiguous about that.

Ian

When I added sodium ascorbate to Rodinal some years ago, I reported the results in Photo Techniques. I did not find any changes in the gradations of broad areas. Rodinal alone showed what appeared to be infectious development which can be seen as widening of the dark lines in a negative image of a resolution chart. This contributes to the sometimes touted artificial edge effect of Rodinal, but detracts from the resolution of fine detail. It also increases grain size. Adding the ascorbate evened out the resolution chart. Adding sulfite DID change the character of Rodinal. I would not do that myself.

The combination of ascorbic acid and sodium ascorbate is the same as sodium ascorbate + carbonic acid. The acid escapes as CO2. If you try this experiment, be sure to mix the ascorbic acid and baking soda in a little water and allow the effervescence to subside before adding it to the working solution. CO2 remaining in the working solution will change the pH. Also, the activity of Rodinal 1+50 with ascorbate is about the same as the activity of Rodinal 1+25 without ascorbate.

Try Rodinal Special aka Studional. Available from Freestyle. It's a fine-grain developer, and lasts a very long time as well. Opens up the tonal range, making it really something special. I discovered it in '94, and it became my standard developer for all things APX.

It also works beautifully with Tri-X and Plus-X, and I'll give it a whirl in '09 with Fomapan. So far, I've not been unhappy with Results of Fomapan in Rodinal 1:50 for 10min. But also, I gave up 135 altogether this past year.