Fuji Neopan 100 Across - Rodinal R09 One Shot - Help

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I couldn't find a search bar to check of a question like this has been asked before so sorry if this crops up a lot.

I'm shooting with Fuji Neopan 100 Across in 35mm and 120 and developing with Rodinal R09 One Shot. I'm fairly new to B&W shooting and developing and I hear sometimes it's better to rate films differently and change developing times (e.g. rate Fuji Neopan 100 Across at ISO 80 and increase the developing times) . . .

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for this particular film and developer combination, or if there are better developers out there I can use?

I think the combination Acros/Rodinal has been discussed in several different threads. I enclose a link to one of them here.
As far as I know Rodinal will give you a crisp and well defined grain but a slightly larger such compared to other developers. As Neopan Acros in itself is a very fine grain film the increase in grain size is no problem. When I shoot Neopan Acros myself , I also rate it at 80 ISO. I find this is better for the shadow areas. Perhaps even 64 ISO would improve the quality, but I have´nt tried that yet. Normaly I develop Acros in X-tol , and that works fine.
Congratulations to choosing a great film and good luck with your experiments.
Karl-Gustaf


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

What you rate it at has a lot to do with now you meter the scene (or how your camera does it). I rate at 80 metered for the shadows with a spot meter and develop at 1:50 for 12 minutes with regular Rodinal and my prints are usually between grades 2 and 3 on a diffusion enlarger which is perfect for me. If I were using an in camera meter or an averaging incident meter, I'd probably rate my film a little lower just to make sure I get the shadow detail.

SkYpUp said:

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I couldn't find a search bar to check of a question like this has been asked before so sorry if this crops up a lot.

I'm shooting with Fuji Neopan 100 Across in 35mm and 120 and developing with Rodinal R09 One Shot. I'm fairly new to B&W shooting and developing and I hear sometimes it's better to rate films differently and change developing times (e.g. rate Fuji Neopan 100 Across at ISO 80 and increase the developing times) . . .

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for this particular film and developer combination, or if there are better developers out there I can use?

Click to expand...

Hi Skypup,

Welcome to APUG. When I shoot Acros, I develop in Rodinal diluted 1+100, in this case 10ml of rodinal plus 1000ml of water. I use 5ml of Rodinal concentrate for every 36 exposure 35mm roll, or every 120 roll. This works out to two rolls of 36 exp film or two rolls of 120 in a 1 liter stainless tank.

If you are doing 35mm film you should only develop 2 rolls at a time in a 1 liter tank and remember to use four reels, (two loaded with film, two empty) so you won't have the reels moving around inside the tank like a piston. If you try to develop four rolls of film in a liter of Rodinal at this dilution, your film will be underdeveloped.

I cut and pasted the following from another post of mine in another thread;

"I dilute Rodinal 1+100 and develop it (Acros) for 18 minutes at 70° F. I start out with thirty seconds of gentle inversions , Then 2 inversion per minute for the first 3 minutes, 2 seconds for each inversion, then 2 inversions every 3 minutes for the remaining time, followed by a 2 minute running water rinse and regular fixing, hypo clearing and washing procedures. When I get everything right, exposure, focus and printing, the results can be stunning., even with 35mm and a condenser head."

I rate the film at EI 80 for my in-camera meter, or EI 64 for my incident meter.


Hope this helps,

Mike Sullivan