I am joining Church of Rodinal

baachitraka · Sep 28, 2011

Ordered Rodinal(Adox Adonal) last week and it came today along with 5 Rolls of PanF+ and Delta 100 each.

marco.taje · Sep 28, 2011

Welcome amongst the Circle, Brother baachitraka

Roger Cole · Sep 28, 2011

Don't bet on it until you try it. I tried it years ago and couldn't manage to like it. I recently got some more to give it another go but I'm not sure what I'd hope to get out of it that I don't get out of T-Max RS (my current standard.) I suppose stand development for large compressions might be one thing, but I also stock Diafine and it's great for taming highlights so not sure I need that anyway.

But in any case, let us know how it goes.

Rick A · Sep 28, 2011

I don't know if I would call it a church, it's just another tool to make images appear. It has its place but not as a do all magic wand. There is a time and a place for everything. Personally, I only use it with high speed films when I cut the film speed in half(or more), that's when I find it most useful. I find that good old D-76 is much more useful as is Pyrocat-HD, and the reason my bottle of Rodinal lasted for years.

abeku · Sep 28, 2011

Welcome on board! I use Rodinal and stand development when it comes to medium and large format. True, there are many alternatives but why abandon something that works from time to time?

Necator · Sep 28, 2011

I find it very useful for Rollei Retro 100 (APX100), but prefer D76 for my HP5+ and whenever I push films.

mono · Sep 28, 2011

Welcome, brother!

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 28, 2011

Have fun! Rodinal is a very fine developer, used by greats such as Ralph Gibson. It's wonderful for when you want texture in your prints. Keep in mind that it is a very powerful developer, that will keep developing almost forever, evenly across the tone range.
Use 1+25 for beautiful sharp negatives with fantastic contrast and grit.
Use 1+50 for a bit smoother tonality from your negatives and slightly finer grain, but equally sharp.
Standing development gives a completely different result, which sometimes works, and other times doesn't. It's a useful tool, but I wouldn't use it for everything. It's like having two developers in one. I prefer 1+25 and 1+50 to standing development, but that's for you to decide.

baachitraka · Sep 28, 2011

I don't know how some experienced photographers will rate this article

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rodinal/rodinal.html

It says 5ml Rodinal + 500ml of water is sufficient enough. I will try to use this as starting point for PanF+ @EI 32.

-----

Further, has anybody tired to combine Rodinal with any fine grain developer. Just curious...

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 28, 2011

Ed Buffaloe's article is fine. Has some good information.

You can mix Rodinal 1+100 if you want. You'll get pretty much the same results as 1+50, spent more time developing, and save 5ml of developer. If time is your priority, 1+100 will be a detriment. If money is your priority, 1+100 will gain you very little. It's up to you, really.
What you can to at 1+100 dilution is to slow down your agitation pretty well, which gives you the ability to control the tone curve a little bit, and you can also get more shadow detail, because you're developing longer.

This article is profound: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

- Thomas

abeku · Sep 28, 2011

Thomas Bertilsson said:
Standing development gives a completely different result, which sometimes works, and other times doesn't.

Please, can you expand on what you consider to be a good result or not? Are there any other developers that you consider to be more suitable for stand development?
In my hands, Rodinal works beautifully when diluted 1+200 and stand developed for 90' (agitation every 20') - always happy with the negatives I get.
Just curious to hear you experience, Thomas!

removed account4 · Sep 28, 2011

Thomas Bertilsson said:
Ed Buffaloe's article is fine. Has some good information.

You can mix Rodinal 1+100 if you want. You'll get pretty much the same results as 1+50, spent more time developing, and save 5ml of developer. If time is your priority, 1+100 will be a detriment. If money is your priority, 1+100 will gain you very little. It's up to you, really.
What you can to at 1+100 dilution is to slow down your agitation pretty well, which gives you the ability to control the tone curve a little bit, and you can also get more shadow detail, because you're developing longer.

This article is profound: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

- Thomas

you're the man thomas !

- john

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 28, 2011

abeku said:
Please, can you expand on what you consider to be a good result or not? Are there any other developers that you consider to be more suitable for stand development?
In my hands, Rodinal works beautifully when diluted 1+200 and stand developed for 90' (agitation every 20') - always happy with the negatives I get.
Just curious to hear you experience, Thomas!

What developer gives good results is completely subjective. So that's for you to decide; I can't do that for you.

And you have to make your negs fit the paper you use, if you want to get the best out of it all. That's the main thing. Whatever prints how you see things without frustration in the darkroom is a good solution.

'Better' is always your decision, and you find out by looking at the prints.

- Thomas

Rick A · Sep 28, 2011

There are a few people out there who believe that Rodinal is a god-send, it is merely another tool that brings out a look that you either love or hate. Like any other developer, you must experiment to find the method of use for your personal tastes. You will also have to experiment with different films to find just the right combo that makes for your signature look. Using something the same way as someone else to try to get their outcome is a journey into frustration. I'm not telling you not to use Rodinal, but advising you to have an open mind and lots of note paper on hand so whatever process and combo "hits the mark" will be repeatable. That only gets you the negative, next we introduce an entirely new set of variables, paper choice. Whatever combo helps make the ideal negative may or may not look worth a dang on the paper of your choice, and frustrate you even more. Do not look for a magic bullet, be willing to do hard work to achieve perfection.

When you shoot a photo, you should know what paper you want to print on, and then choose the developer for the film to make that happen. Far to many people never give the paper a thought, only the film, then they rely on VC to pull off a mediocre print at best.

Rhodes · Sep 28, 2011

Welcome to the Rodinal Side!!!

Sal Santamaura · Sep 28, 2011

Roger Cole said:
...I recently got some more to give it another go but I'm not sure what I'd hope to get out of it that I don't get out of T-Max RS (my current standard.)...

Perhaps, if you like it, a product that will be available after Kodak ceases to exist?

abeku · Sep 28, 2011

Thomas Bertilsson said:
What developer gives good results is completely subjective. So that's for you to decide; I can't do that for you.

I completely agree with what you´re saying, Thomas.

cheers!

Jerevan · Sep 28, 2011

Welcome, brother!

I agree with Thomas that df cardwells' article is very good. I also agree that Hot Rod is just a tool and there's a lot of things going on until you finally can hang that fine print on a wall. But I do have a special thing for it, especially with Tri-X.

Colin Corneau · Sep 28, 2011

Rodinal with Pan-F+ is, in my experience, a terrific combination.

As Thomas says so well, this is a flexible and useful tool. It's definitely unique, and if you can make it fit into what you find useful, it's hard to use anything else.

Franswa · Sep 28, 2011

Got my first bottle in the mail today! :w00t:

MattKing · Sep 28, 2011

We haven't heard much lately from the "High Priest" of the church of Rodinal. I hope Morten (modafoto) is okay .

Roger Cole · Sep 28, 2011

Sal Santamaura said:
Perhaps, if you like it, a product that will be available after Kodak ceases to exist?

Well there might be that, but there's also Ilford DD-X and Freestyle's house brand "LMAX" claims to be a knock off of T-Max. Not sure what the magic juice is in the RS, though it is clearly a little different, but only a little. For most purposes I could get by fine with D76, or even self mixed D23. The exception might be pushing TMZ but if Kodak goes away that isn't a consideration either, and I'm sure DD-X would do fine for Delta 3200.

I didn't mean to knock Rodinal, really. Many people get fine results with it. I just meant to inject a dose of potential reality for someone apparently trying it for the first time not to expect miracles, or to assume they'll even like it. Certainly worth a try though. Heck, I know a lot more and have a lot more experience now than the last time I tried it so I got a bottle to have another go with it.

Jerevan · Sep 28, 2011

Yep, the High Priest has gone missing, I hope he's not run off and joined the Church of Blazinal, or something.

Rhodes · Sep 28, 2011

Jerevan said:
Yep, the High Priest has gone missing, I hope he's not run off and joined the Church of Blazinal, or something.

Ahahahhaha

At least there still are some shops here that sold rodinal with that name and not blazinal/adonal, etc in the bottle!

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

Pan F and Rodinal?!?! seems wrong to me... Rodinal is for Tr-x and HP5... I like two bath thin emulsion develpers for Pan F (old zone VI formula). Just my opinion....

I am joining Church of Rodinal

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