I am joining Church of Rodinal

Roger Cole · Sep 28, 2011

vpwphoto said:
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....

What the heck is a "thin emulsion developer?" All modern films are thin emulsion films. Adox may be selling some from old enough formulae to actually be considered thick emulsion but I'm not even sure of that.

Rodinal is not a fine grain developer, and in the old days at least was often recommended for slow films like Panatomic X and Pan F, seldom for Tri-X and HP5. Some folks used to add sulphite to it for fast films.

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

@ Roger... It's what I picked up right or wrong for Fred Picker who ran Zone VI... he is dead now so he is not able to defend himself..

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

Roger Cole said:
What the heck is a "thin emulsion developer?"
.

Here you go..

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=009Eo5

Roger Cole · Sep 28, 2011

Ok, he was using "thin emulsion" incorrectly, but that wasn't anything unusual for Fred. Tech Pan may have been "even thinner" but all modern films are thin emulsion, see Ansel Adams' The Negative for numerous references to negs shot "on the old thick emulsion" film and such.

What he meant was an ultra-soft working developer. Films like Tech Pan were originally meant for copying line art, very high contrast. The grain size is much more even than in conventional films, and this tends to result in a given light level either affecting all the grains or none of the grains = very high contrast, not a problem for line art and in fact wanted, but not what you want for pictorial applications. I recall the article in the old Pop Photo in, I believe, the late 70s when someone finally worked out a developer that worked well for Tech Pan at normal contrast, after many had tried. It caught on enough that Kodak came out with their own Tech Pan developer.

Pan F really isn't anything like those films. It's more like old Kodak Panatomic-X. I think it tends to be contrastier but I haven't used either in more than 15 years and didn't use much back then. I do have a couple of rolls of newly acquired 120 Pan F in the fridge now to try out.

Sirius Glass · Sep 28, 2011

I believe in XTOL and Rollo Pyro so I will not be attending your services.

vpwphoto · Sep 28, 2011

@ Roger... I'll have to post the 2 paged typed letter Fred sent me... perhaps I should not as he can not defend himself. I have it filed away... he really dished on my liking the work of Arnold Newman, and said I was a hack for even using a 35mm for any serious work. Oh well...

Roger Cole · Sep 28, 2011

Not unexpected. Fred was a character. The world needs more characters and they often do useful things (Fred did) but don't take most of them literally.

artonpaper · Sep 29, 2011

Not a church, a cult.

michaelbsc · Sep 29, 2011

artonpaper said:
Not a church, a cult.

Is there really a difference?

Smudger · Sep 29, 2011

Got a call today from an old friend ,clearing out a 'Deceased Estate ' : " I found two 500ml bottles of Rodinal ,still in the original packaging, can you use it? ".
What should I reply ?

Rick A · Sep 29, 2011

Smudger said:
Got a call today from an old friend ,clearing out a 'Deceased Estate ' : " I found two 500ml bottles of Rodinal ,still in the original packaging, can you use it? ".
What should I reply ?

Test it on an unimportant film, should be good.

semi-ambivalent · Sep 29, 2011

Smudger said:
Got a call today from an old friend ,clearing out a 'Deceased Estate ' : " I found two 500ml bottles of Rodinal ,still in the original packaging, can you use it? ".
What should I reply ?

If it's *that* old I'd put one on Ebay. It would be an interesting experiment to see what this item's cult value is. In dollars, not hyperbole.

s-a

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 29, 2011

Smudger said:
Got a call today from an old friend ,clearing out a 'Deceased Estate ' : " I found two 500ml bottles of Rodinal ,still in the original packaging, can you use it? ".
What should I reply ?

An unopened bottle of Rodinal will last a very long time. Decades. So use it! Or give it to someone that appreciates it at least. Be a shame to let it go to waste.

mono · Sep 29, 2011

<Got a call today from an old friend ,clearing out a 'Deceased Estate ' : " I found two 500ml bottles of Rodinal ,still in the original packaging, can you use it? ".
What should I reply ?>

Send them to me!

Vaughn · Sep 29, 2011

Just don't drink the Kool-aid...

pgomena · Sep 29, 2011

Rodinal is great stuff, and it has its own particular characteristics, just like any other developer. If you test it carefully and use it consistently, you will get good results. I find it to be a very clean, low-fog developer in normal use. It is a bit touchy in that it will quickly overdevelop highlights if you don't mind your time, temperature and agitation. So will any other developer used inconsistently. Read the highlighted articles posted above. The low-fog characteristics will disappear if you use it to push a high-speed film like Tri-X to 1600, however. Normal use and gentle agitation are key.

Peter Gomena

Franswa · Oct 1, 2011

A frame from my first time using rodinal...new to tri-x as well. I like this combo! 1+25

Ronald Moravec · Oct 1, 2011

Roger Cole said:
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.

D76 is easily made at home. Chems, scale, and hot water. 1/8 the price of Kodak package and you can make a liter at a time. Don`t worry about Kodak.

DD_X is simply superb for Delta 400. Work better than anything else by a wide margin except for Xtol which loses by only a little.

My bottle of Rodinal was put into glass bottle in 1998. Last years test proved it to be 97% good as fresh. I still liked the brown glass bottle with rubber membrane cover + plastic cap and you took out what you wanted with a hydermic syringe. Now I make do with a transfer pipette and 10 CC grad cylinder. Seems to work ok.

I finally threw away that last 8 oz bottle which I kept refilling. The price tag was 89 cents from Altman Camera in Chicago. Altman was the B&H of Chicago. They sold everything photographic that was made.

semi-ambivalent · Oct 1, 2011

Franswa said:
A frame from my first time using rodinal...new to tri-x as well. I like this combo! 1+25

Franswa,

It's probably just my monitor but I don't see a single true black in that image. I see this over and over again in "Rodinal images" with some kind of crazy secretive stand development at mystery dilutions. Perhaps it's just the scans, or my eyes.

I've begun to use Rodinal and Tri-X just to see what it can do for me but I think there's some kind of limit to the amount of tonal compression an image can take before it begins to look a little, I don't know, skewed. I remember shooting tech pan and its extended red sensitivity always gave me images that were just not quite right to my eye.

In any case, enjoy the experimentation and congrats on the fine first effort. (What is that edifice anyway?)

s-a

modafoto · Dec 9, 2011

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

I am fine, but isn't that active when it comes to analog photo :-(

I have just developed a few rolls and went in here afterwards. Great to see that I'm remembered.

Jerevan · Dec 9, 2011

Cool to see you around, man.

NB23 · Dec 9, 2011

There's a lot of BS and misunderstading flying around the net about rodinal.
Like this magical 1:100 stand thing.
First, 1:100 stand with hc110 is just as effective. As a matter of fact, hc110 is even more forgiving and flexible then rodinal. And why on earth do stand development? In the name of laziness?

Rodinal is good but so is just about any other developer.

billkoe · Dec 9, 2011

Rodinal has a special place in my heart. I was first inspired to become a photographer partly because of this brew. Just about 40 years ago I was in a friend's darkroom who had shot some photos using Rodinal to process his Tri-X. As I inspected the image closely I could see the "stuff" of the print - the beautiful sharp grain revealed in the print by the negative. For me it was a real moment.

I've used Rodinal off & on mostly for personal work. Some of my clients found it made my prints a bit grainy but liked the look. Others didn't care for it. I'm mostly shooting digitally these days but Rodinal was instrumental in getting me into a vocation that I continue to love.

Enjoy your Rodinal, baachitraka... and try a bunch of other combinations of film & developer. I'm just glad it's still being discovered.

billkoe · Dec 9, 2011

Ronald Moravec said:
I finally threw away that last 8 oz bottle which I kept refilling. The price tag was 89 cents from Altman Camera in Chicago. Altman was the B&H of Chicago. They sold everything photographic that was made.

Holy Smokes, Ron! There's a name I haven't heard in a while... Altman Camera. The friend mentioned above worked at Altman in Chicago. I still miss it. I remember the top floor was darkroom stuff. I'm pretty happy with Calumet though.

Enough old guy talk...

M. Lointain · Dec 9, 2011

Rodinal is one of the classic developers. It was the first developer I ever used and still is my main developer. It is practically foolproof unless you do stand developing (sorry). Looking back over all of the images I have made with it over the last two decades I have found that it produces the best negs at 1+25. I even recently started using it with 4x5 at 1+50 rotary processing in a Jobo and the negs are great. That is after years of using various Pyro formulas that are long on promise but short on delivery. If Rodinal is a cult then I am definitely a member.

I am joining Church of Rodinal

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency