How to get big grain

silvercloud2323 · Apr 5, 2022

Hello all,

For some photos I really like the appearance of expressive ,big coarse grain.
So I like to ask all of you how to get it.
I shoot Black and white. And use Rodinal as film developer.
Thx

StevieB · Apr 5, 2022

I have gotten that type of grain by under exposing the negative a little bit, and developing normally, and using a wide angle lens so I enlarge my negative a little bit more when using 35mm film. I have also gotten that type of grain by over exposing the film and over developing it (giving more development time ). The film is very usually very dense and is larger than 35mm and requires contact printing.

Horatio · Apr 5, 2022

Try Foma/Arista Edu 400 in Rodinal. It worked for me.

mshchem · Apr 5, 2022

Go back to the 70's and buy a bunch of Tri-X

I would start with 400 speed film and push, push, push. Any ordinary developer will give clumps if you develop long enough. Rodinal, D-76 HC-110 etc.

mshchem · Apr 5, 2022

StevieB said:
I have gotten that type of grain by under exposing the negative a little bit, and developing normally, and using a wide angle lens so I enlarge my negative a little bit more when using 35mm film. I have also gotten that type of grain by over exposing the film and over developing it (giving more development time ). The film is very usually very dense and is larger than 35mm and requires contact printing.

Shooting wide and increasing enlargement is a great idea.

BMbikerider · Apr 5, 2022

Under expose, over develop, and use a paper developer at a higher temperature. The negs may be a bit difficult to print but that wasn't your question.

MattKing · Apr 5, 2022

I wouldn't under-expose the film.
I would over-expose it, and over-develop it, in Rodinal.
The highlights won't look great, but they will be grainy!

pentaxuser · Apr 5, 2022

Given that most recommendations involve Rodinal I hope that a combo of under/over exposure works. I wonder if we may have underestimated how much bigger the OP needs grain to be

OP show us your best attempt at grain with Rodinal then we can judge how much bigger, if any, we can get your grain

pentaxuser

Paul Howell · Apr 5, 2022

Use Delta or Tmax 3200, Rodinal 1:50 + 30% increase in time for a push, shoot with a zoom, bracket with the zoom, wide to normal, then crop into each frame wide to normal until you get the amount of grain you like. Last if you print rather than scan and really like the grainy look, invest in a enlarger with a point source head. I converted a old enlarger to point source for my negatives from the late 60 to early 70s I shot for newspapers, it was really too much for my taste.

Patrick Robert James · Apr 5, 2022

Unfortunately for those of us who like grain film has been improved too much. Either use one of the 3200 speed films or use a smaller neg. I went all the way down to a Minox to get the grain I wanted. All of the development tricks don't really work much anymore since the films have changed so much.

I really wish someone would make a regular 400 speed film without all the "tricks" to get it fine grained. Just a nice old fashioned malleable film. I mean if I wanted fine grain I'd just shoot digital because that is what it is good at, ya know?

gone · Apr 5, 2022

Rodinal at 1:20 will give you some grain, I do that now and then w/ 35mm. Agitate it like crazy, have the temps 10 degrees too hot, you'll be fine. Tri-X, Foma 100/400, there's lots of films that will work w/ that.

Craig · Apr 5, 2022

And if you want to go to a hybrid workflow, I find scanning B&W film really accentuates the grain too.

StevieB · Apr 5, 2022

MattKing said:
I wouldn't under-expose the film.
I would over-expose it, and over-develop it, in Rodinal.
The highlights won't look great, but they will be grainy!

I have never used Rodinal and have no desire to use it. Those things are what I did, even with Tabular Grained Film, and it gave me nice plentiful grain. The film I described that is over exposed and over developed is always quite dense, and it always has plenty of highlights and grain that look very nice, they require contact printing and a bright light to get to them. Under exposing this film at the printing stage won't give you anything but an image that looks like a Worholesque bleached white portrait.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 5, 2022

StevieB said:
I have gotten that type of grain by under exposing the negative a little bit, and developing normally, and using a wide angle lens so I enlarge my negative a little bit more when using 35mm film. I have also gotten that type of grain by over exposing the film and over developing it (giving more development time ). The film is very usually very dense and is larger than 35mm and requires contact printing.

You are on the path to success.all you needow is a hgh-speed 35mm film!

Bill Burk · Apr 5, 2022

On eBay right now, there is a seller with 2 available, bulk rolls of 35mm 100ft Kodak Recording Film 2475.

Certainly a candidate for big grain!

otto.f · Apr 6, 2022

Apart from Rodinal, Kodak TMZ 3200 is also foolproof, doesn't matter so much which developer

radiant · Apr 6, 2022

Horatio said:
Try Foma/Arista Edu 400 in Rodinal. It worked for me.

Didn't work for me. There is a long discussion and testing here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/my-fomapan-400-is-broken.184658/

radiant · Apr 6, 2022

And what is "big grain" or "grainy" anyways - it is pretty subjective. Some people cannot use HP5+ because it is too grainy.

I found out that only way to have actually big grain you have to do it while enlarging. Modern films are too good.

radiant · Apr 6, 2022

Patrick Robert James said:
I really wish someone would make a regular 400 speed film without all the "tricks" to get it fine grained. Just a nice old fashioned malleable film. I mean if I wanted fine grain I'd just shoot digital because that is what it is good at, ya know?

Welcome to the club https://www.photrio.com/forum/groups/pure-photography.159/group We have some coffee and cookies ready for you!

Craig said:
And if you want to go to a hybrid workflow, I find scanning B&W film really accentuates the grain too.

For example Epson V600 cannot resolve modern film grain at all, so it is just digital noise. For sure the noise is increased but one can add digital noise in photoshop too. It doesn't still look like grain clumps.

250swb · Apr 6, 2022

The King of Grain is Ralph Gibson, look him up if you haven't heard of him. And his recipe is Tri-X rated from 100 to 400 (so normal or over exposing), Rodinal mixed 1:25 at 68F for 11 minutes with 10 seconds agitation every one and a half minutes, and if it makes a difference he rolled the tank on it's side. Taken from 'Darkroom' by Lustrum Press. He got pretty normal exposure times for his negs (minus dodging and burning of course), and went on to print them on Brovira grade 4 and 5 so making the grain pop by avoiding those annoying mid tones.

Most film scanners, Epson V700, Plustek, Nikon 9000 etc will easily resolve film grain, but at the same time add digital noise on top. It's a skill in itself to process negatives that suite a technique of scanning at low contrast to help in some measure avoid digital noise, but if you want to show authentic grain and don't have a darkroom I'd recommend going down the camera route for film 'scanning'.

Craig75 · Apr 6, 2022

underexposed isn't way to go.

I don't even think overexposing will do much - you will get extra grain (and loss of sharpness) but you have to go a good few stops over to do it in my experience and then your highlights can turn to sludge.

Over develop a lot, hard crops from ultrawide lenses, 16mm enlarger lenses, submini cameras etc.

radiant · Apr 6, 2022

Craig75 said:
Over develop a lot, hard crops from ultrawide lenses, 16mm enlarger lenses, submini cameras etc.

That is correct, few examples:

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/ballet/

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/by-the-fence/

Craig75 · Apr 6, 2022

radiant said:
That is correct, few examples:

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/ballet/

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/by-the-fence/

That ballet picture is excellent - has lovely sense of ethereal movement with the grain. Very effective

radiant · Apr 6, 2022

Craig75 said:
That ballet picture is excellent - has lovely sense of ethereal movement with the grain. Very effective

Thanks. It is actually very rare photo for me, totally pre-visualized / planned to be printed that way - embracing the grain and using it as effect.

Horatio · Apr 6, 2022

radiant said:
That is correct, few examples:

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/ballet/

http://kuvau.tuu.fi/by-the-fence/

Now that’s grain.

How to get big grain

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