Ilford 3200 and Rodinal

Hi,

I'm new to this forum, and a complete beginner in the darkroom although I've been shooting film for many years now. My favourite film is Ilford Delta 3200, and I'd like to start developing it myself.

After doing a bit of research, it seems a lot of recommendations say to use something like Ilfotec DD-X or Tmax, and to specifically avoid Rodinal because it is not suited for faster films. Namely, the Ilford website, Wikipedia and a few random forum posts.

However, a quick search on flickr for "Ilford 3200 Rodinal" reveals that a lot of photographers are using exactly this combination, and more importantly, the results look like what I am looking for. That is, a gritty look with a slightly "aged" feel. (I understand that Rodinal is one of the oldest developer still in production. I like the sound of that).

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any advise on this. Should I definitely avoid Rodinal for Ilford 3200 ? If not, are there any tricks I should keep in mind while using it. (For example, I read someone's blog post advising to avoid Rodinal for Ilford 3200 because the high "acoutance" leads to halos around the high-contrast differential areas on high speed film. I don't know... a didn't see much evidence on this on flickr. Are people using some kind of technique to avoid this?)

Anyway, apologies if my question is out place. But I do look forward to some answers.

I usually expose the film at 1250 and use Rodinal 1+25 for 11 minutes, with agitation every 30''.

Although I prefer this combination (film + dev) with 120 film format, I like the results even in 35mm.

Advice? I expect you'll get loads of conflicting advice which is what usually happens.
I've never used Rodinal with D3200, not because I have heard good or bad things about it, I just never have.

My advice is that regardless what people say, you won't know for yourself until you try. You might love it or you might hate it. What anyone else says is fairly irrelavant on this one. Your perception is subjective and what other peoples perception of it, is theirs and not yours so how can we answer what your perception will be? We can't. Just try it.

RobC said:

Advice? I expect you'll get loads of conflicting advice which is what usually happens.
I've never used Rodinal with D3200, not because I have heard good or bad things about it, I just never have.

My advice is that regardless what people say, you won't know for yourself until you try. You might love it or you might hate it. What anyone else says is fairly irrelavant on this one. Your perception is subjective and what other peoples perception of it, is theirs and not yours so how can we answer what your perception will be? We can't. Just try it.

Click to expand...

+1

When you see advice of that nature, it will usually come in one of two flavours. Either with explanations, or not.

If the advice contains an explanation of why you should avoid a particular combination (e.g. Rodinal plus Delta 3200 exposed at its ISO speed of 1000 will yield low contrast but very grainy results) then you can evaluate the usefulness to you of that advice.

Try it, you may like it.

It is not like a digital camera, where you are stuck with the same sensor for as long as you own the camera.

Welcome to APUG !
I am Rodinal addict, but for delta 3200 I prefer Tmax developer.

Here are some examples:

Rodinal 1+10 with aggressive agitation (to get very big grain), print scan:
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Tmax developer, negative scan:
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D76 with aggressive agitation to get bigger grain than usual, print scan:
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Hi. Thanks for all your very informative answers. Much food for thought. I can see that I'll have to try myself and see. But it sounds like it's not true that Rodinal should not be used at all with Ilford D 3200.

darkosaric, thanks for your examples. I think you've understood the kind of look I'm looking for. I'll give Tmax a go as well.

If it is your first film I'd try Ilfords data sheet.

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/201071394723115.pdf

For 800 ISO

You may like that or not but only you will know that.

Make sure you fix it for more than recommended time that won't hurt it where as less will.

Go for it. It will be fine.

Unfortunately a lot of 'advice' is repeated parrot fashion without any testing.

Years ago I had trouble getting DD-X so I did extensive testing against Rodinal 1+25. The most noticable effect is Rodinal gives sharp grain vs. mushy grain with DD-X. The grain is about 5% larger (linear dimension) than DD-X (Checked under some expensive microscopes). Speed with Rodinal is the same (possibly a tiny bit faster than DD-X, but not enough to make a difference). Tonality is good with both developers, but a little different.

Delta 3200 is what I call a 'hungry' film. It like plenty of developer for the best results. For me dilutions weaker than 1+25 gave poorer tonality. It liked good aggitation (or rotary development)

Welcome .
Tmax 3200 in Rodinal I tried as well (not sure if Tmax 3200 is still available?):

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Some nice shots, darkosaric. Did you use 3200 for all the shots, was it a 35mm or MF camera and what was the size of the prints or if these are reversed scans of negatives what would be the size if it were a print?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Thanks . All are 35mm. From Tmax 3200: "Warsaw 61" is negative scan, others are print scan. Prints are 10x15 cm, or 13x18cm size. From Delta 3200 all from Milan are negative scan, others are print scan, print size 13x18 or 15x21 cm.

Thank you, darkosaric. My experience was that some scenes I took using D3200 would have been OK at 15 x21cm and might have been just about OK at 20 x25 but that was the absolute limit. For other scenes my limit was as small as 13 x18

However I suspect that I may reject grain at lower limits than others

pentaxuser

Thanks everyone. It seems to have worked really well just using the timings/temperature on the side of the Rodinal bottle. I'll try and send some samples in once I sort out my scanning.

This is going to be fun

I'm late to this thread, but I've done fine with Delta 3200 and Rodinal. As to what ratios, agitation, temp, and time I used, I no longer recall. But shot at 3200 and then dunked in Rodinal, it yielded shots like these. I'm not sure if this was the "antique" effect you were after, though:

But it sounds like you've got the results you were looking for!