Juan Valdenebro
Allowing Ads
Dear APUG members,
I’d like to share a recipe I’ve found (and really like) after a few weeks of testing, so here’s the story for those who have some minutes now for a post that’s not too short, and perhaps some more minutes in the future for a development that’s not too short either…
For those who have K400 & Rodinal at hand and just want to shoot and develop without reading any further, this is it: K400@800, Rodinal 1:50, 62°F (close to 17°C), 40 minutes, 4 slow inversions in the beginning, 4 slow inversions every tenth minute (so, at minutes 10, 20 & 30).
I’ve worked on this for a 35mm (format) lens: a 50mm one for f/2 shooting… The lens’ contrast is not too low nor too high, so for lenses being too soft or too contrasty, just increase or decrease a bit development time, and it’ll work perfectly fine for wet printing and scanning.
A few hows and whys for avid readers:
For precise metering I compared two cameras and a Sekonic incident meter (used for both incident and spot reflected light metering), and every time during this past month of testing K400 I wrote down notes for all types of common natural light: soft overcast light, direct sun, shades on a sunny day, and very low natural light indoors and outdoors.
Apart from real scenes, I also had a usual, constant, set scene: a double-page sized grays card -on a rigid support- I had digitally printed on matte paper. It goes from pure black to pure white, 11 strips in total, so 9 different grays, being the third darkest gray (strip #4) Kodak’s gray card’s tone exactly. Instead of being horizontal as the 11 strips, to the right there’s a stuck vertical strip: a real fragment of a Kodak’s gray card. This big grays card was my most used scene and main subject for calibration, but it was not what I metered: for metering I used a poster-size single gray tone matching Kodak’s gray card tone, made of four identical digital prints stuck on a rigid base too. I made it because in camera metering can sometimes be uncomfortable with wide lenses, as Kodak’s cards are smaller than they could be, so the poster is a lot easier to use: I just put it for an instant covering any scene, meter, and then take it away and shoot the scene… Very fast, accurate and reliable, as light seldom changes in a few seconds.
I write all data and comments on the scenes after shooting, not after metering, to work quickly and avoid light changes… I prefer not to meter my gray stripes big card because it’s not an absolute but indeed a variable contrast scene depending on the intensity of light… The middle gray poster is better for metering.
Caring about best possible exposure is underrated, but it’s as great for B&W as it is for slide film… Some people might consider it unnecessary for box speed shooting and for a bit more exposure than that, cases that require normal and short development times, and produce, in general, normal and low contrast negatives, and some other people feel it’s unnecessary also because of the increasing number of people taking a totally new, autoexposure, digital photograph of a negative (scanning), which can produce a somehow decent virtual image from a horrible negative: a digital image that can also be tweaked a lot in post…
I’m used to work the old way and carefully calibrate every new film I use (exposure & development) because I push most of my film (prefocused street at f/11 with a Double-Gauss 35, HP5+ @1600 in Microphen stock), so at 1600 and 3200, a stop or half a stop of underexposure means easily ruining a negative for wet printing (sometimes you can’t avoid a face is not receiving the best possible light), and even for the best materials I have tried for pushing (HP5+ and D3200 in Microphen stock), exposure precision is not a luxury, but a basic requirement for best tone, both for wet printing and scanning.
Only a short time ago I read K400 is made by Harman, so I immediately wanted to try it… It’s a totally new emulsion, and a very recent one if we compare all that's in the market... I was trying to decide these past months which film to use permanently for f/2 shooting, with a second camera ready for selective focus anytime, so highest ASAs were not required… I also read several comments on how beautiful K400’s grain is when wet printed: a lot smaller than some digital/scanning forums comment… It makes sense, I guess, as I imagine Ilford and Harman have not taken, fortunately, Kodak’s approach, which for the last decade seems to have been basing their film’s evolution on optimizing films for scanning, basically.
My first attempts were developing K400 with the great Microphen… After three different trials @200, 400 and 800, I concluded perhaps K400 was not as planned/designed for being great with Microphen as HP5+ clearly has… Possibly because of my way of doing it (surely K400 can shine other ways in Microphen), but even while checking negatives, I didn’t feel I was getting the clear, clean tone separation I get with my usual HP5+ in Microphen: it was all a bit weak… It was noticeable right on negatives, and I felt the same with real scenes and with my gray stripes' test shots, so I thought it would be a good idea to try get some more punch with… Rodinal.
When I discovered Microphen I was amazed: it produces the same sharp grain Rodinal gives, so I loved it, but it does it without losing speed and without bumping contrast: a dream… But this time it looked like I was needing a little more contrast, and as speed and pushing were not the goals, Rodinal seemed a natural option… I’ve used Rodinal for long, for more than 20 years, in all ways: from the vulgar “20-24°C constant agitation, high contrast, big grain, I don’t believe in the Rodinal Church development”, to the real thing: low temperature (16-18°C), little agitation, semi-stand, stand, 3ml/roll, 1:100, 1:50, 1:25 for soft light… Rodinal’s tone is beautiful always, not to talk about the beauty of grain that’s not been dissolved. Indeed I find it a wonderful developer not only for fine grain/low ASA films, as it’s often said. I’ve pushed Tri-X in Rodinal more than anything in my life (I have a past) and it can be well done… Besides, another advantage anyone can test is, very little agitagion, with Rodinal, produces higher acutance, visible even in scans and small prints, and there’s no doubt about it: years ago I did tests on it twice, with two different films, and the difference is clearly visible, not a small thing…
When I thought of doing K400 in Rodinal, my main intention was trying to get great tone, believing, maybe romanticly, a new emulsion by market leading experts had to be something… But, yet there were two big, relevant questions in the air: first, could K400’s often so called huge grain, be effectively very well controlled with Rodinal?, and second, would K400, a film that’s not as famous as others, lose lots of speed in Rodinal, ending in the same group of those eastern, low cost films good for 200 ASA shooting only? Well, both questions were soon to be answered happily…
Knowing Rodinal as a speed losing developer, and it is most of the times, I started testing K400 in it @200… It didn’t require that much light… Then @250… The same… Then @320… Must be film´s design is outstanding, but with all those lower than box speeds, and finally even @400, my grays card and even Kodak’s gray card were recorded in negative a bit lighter than they are, and that’s a lot to say… I find the film works great @400 even in Rodinal, at least with this development scheme, developing it for 30 minutes… Then I thought, with such clear dark grays, why not?, and went for @800, but with doubts, obviously… In the end, I settled in, because I prefer that tone better, doing K400@800 for 40 minutes… It’s a really mild push tone, very close to normal… @400 for 30 minutes is fine too, but a bit weak for common overcast light…
About temperature:
Rodinal grows grain when used at other developers’ usual temperature of 20-24°C… At 18°C and a bit below that, it behaves differently. I used 16°C for some years, but times are too long… This time I decided testing from the beginning at 62°F (close to 17°C), to keep grain beautiful and reduce times a bit. Only for low temperature with Rodinal I presoak, because my house’s temperature is 23°C, so I do a 2 minute presoak with water at 62°F: I use part of the bowl’s water at 62°F I put the tank in while developing, and after those 2 minutes everything in the tank is cold enough, then I pour back the water in the bowl and immediately pour the developer (at 62°F) in, with four initial slow inversions. This way grain growing is very slow from the beginning… Then every few minutes I check with my thermometer and if water temperature tries to start going up from 62°F, I place an ice inside the bowl’s water and move it slowly for some seconds to keep the water at 62°F. During winter, I use some drops of hot water instead of ice.
About agitation:
Low temperature from the very start, mixed with very little agitation, are the two things that matter here and give this Rodinal look that for some people, won’t look like Rodinal @800. After the initial agitation (four slow inversions), during the whole 40 minutes of development, only 3 different times the developer moves, every tenth minute (the same four slow inversions): this is a semi-stand, a safer way of developing than a stand, and yet it helps a lot for acutance/perceived sharpness, and also for small grain and highlights control.
This development produces a gray card on negative you can read a newspaper’s article through, as old times’ photographers and printers used to say… Reality’s pure whites are very well controlled on negative too (they make a darkish gray, but far from the darkest grays the film can produce), so contrast is nice for wet printing, and there’s yet plenty of latitude left on film for good recording of direct sun scenes in the same roll, and also for overexposure mistakes up to a stop without losing highlights detail… All film’s range is well used: blacks are recorded deep black, instead of medium to dark grays, so common while scanning… (Scans look basically ready without tweaking).
Grain is sharp and very tight, and it’s not big at all for a 400 ASA film. I’d call it small for 800… Grain structure is unobtrusive: dark, medium and light grays’ grain look pleasant, all around… Sorry if someone’s ways or equipment are slightly different: for sure with little time adjustment everything will work fine. This film’s a great one in my opinion!
Happy shooting, and Merry Christmas everybody!
J.
I’d like to share a recipe I’ve found (and really like) after a few weeks of testing, so here’s the story for those who have some minutes now for a post that’s not too short, and perhaps some more minutes in the future for a development that’s not too short either…
For those who have K400 & Rodinal at hand and just want to shoot and develop without reading any further, this is it: K400@800, Rodinal 1:50, 62°F (close to 17°C), 40 minutes, 4 slow inversions in the beginning, 4 slow inversions every tenth minute (so, at minutes 10, 20 & 30).
I’ve worked on this for a 35mm (format) lens: a 50mm one for f/2 shooting… The lens’ contrast is not too low nor too high, so for lenses being too soft or too contrasty, just increase or decrease a bit development time, and it’ll work perfectly fine for wet printing and scanning.
A few hows and whys for avid readers:
For precise metering I compared two cameras and a Sekonic incident meter (used for both incident and spot reflected light metering), and every time during this past month of testing K400 I wrote down notes for all types of common natural light: soft overcast light, direct sun, shades on a sunny day, and very low natural light indoors and outdoors.
Apart from real scenes, I also had a usual, constant, set scene: a double-page sized grays card -on a rigid support- I had digitally printed on matte paper. It goes from pure black to pure white, 11 strips in total, so 9 different grays, being the third darkest gray (strip #4) Kodak’s gray card’s tone exactly. Instead of being horizontal as the 11 strips, to the right there’s a stuck vertical strip: a real fragment of a Kodak’s gray card. This big grays card was my most used scene and main subject for calibration, but it was not what I metered: for metering I used a poster-size single gray tone matching Kodak’s gray card tone, made of four identical digital prints stuck on a rigid base too. I made it because in camera metering can sometimes be uncomfortable with wide lenses, as Kodak’s cards are smaller than they could be, so the poster is a lot easier to use: I just put it for an instant covering any scene, meter, and then take it away and shoot the scene… Very fast, accurate and reliable, as light seldom changes in a few seconds.
I write all data and comments on the scenes after shooting, not after metering, to work quickly and avoid light changes… I prefer not to meter my gray stripes big card because it’s not an absolute but indeed a variable contrast scene depending on the intensity of light… The middle gray poster is better for metering.
Caring about best possible exposure is underrated, but it’s as great for B&W as it is for slide film… Some people might consider it unnecessary for box speed shooting and for a bit more exposure than that, cases that require normal and short development times, and produce, in general, normal and low contrast negatives, and some other people feel it’s unnecessary also because of the increasing number of people taking a totally new, autoexposure, digital photograph of a negative (scanning), which can produce a somehow decent virtual image from a horrible negative: a digital image that can also be tweaked a lot in post…
I’m used to work the old way and carefully calibrate every new film I use (exposure & development) because I push most of my film (prefocused street at f/11 with a Double-Gauss 35, HP5+ @1600 in Microphen stock), so at 1600 and 3200, a stop or half a stop of underexposure means easily ruining a negative for wet printing (sometimes you can’t avoid a face is not receiving the best possible light), and even for the best materials I have tried for pushing (HP5+ and D3200 in Microphen stock), exposure precision is not a luxury, but a basic requirement for best tone, both for wet printing and scanning.
Only a short time ago I read K400 is made by Harman, so I immediately wanted to try it… It’s a totally new emulsion, and a very recent one if we compare all that's in the market... I was trying to decide these past months which film to use permanently for f/2 shooting, with a second camera ready for selective focus anytime, so highest ASAs were not required… I also read several comments on how beautiful K400’s grain is when wet printed: a lot smaller than some digital/scanning forums comment… It makes sense, I guess, as I imagine Ilford and Harman have not taken, fortunately, Kodak’s approach, which for the last decade seems to have been basing their film’s evolution on optimizing films for scanning, basically.
My first attempts were developing K400 with the great Microphen… After three different trials @200, 400 and 800, I concluded perhaps K400 was not as planned/designed for being great with Microphen as HP5+ clearly has… Possibly because of my way of doing it (surely K400 can shine other ways in Microphen), but even while checking negatives, I didn’t feel I was getting the clear, clean tone separation I get with my usual HP5+ in Microphen: it was all a bit weak… It was noticeable right on negatives, and I felt the same with real scenes and with my gray stripes' test shots, so I thought it would be a good idea to try get some more punch with… Rodinal.
When I discovered Microphen I was amazed: it produces the same sharp grain Rodinal gives, so I loved it, but it does it without losing speed and without bumping contrast: a dream… But this time it looked like I was needing a little more contrast, and as speed and pushing were not the goals, Rodinal seemed a natural option… I’ve used Rodinal for long, for more than 20 years, in all ways: from the vulgar “20-24°C constant agitation, high contrast, big grain, I don’t believe in the Rodinal Church development”, to the real thing: low temperature (16-18°C), little agitation, semi-stand, stand, 3ml/roll, 1:100, 1:50, 1:25 for soft light… Rodinal’s tone is beautiful always, not to talk about the beauty of grain that’s not been dissolved. Indeed I find it a wonderful developer not only for fine grain/low ASA films, as it’s often said. I’ve pushed Tri-X in Rodinal more than anything in my life (I have a past) and it can be well done… Besides, another advantage anyone can test is, very little agitagion, with Rodinal, produces higher acutance, visible even in scans and small prints, and there’s no doubt about it: years ago I did tests on it twice, with two different films, and the difference is clearly visible, not a small thing…
When I thought of doing K400 in Rodinal, my main intention was trying to get great tone, believing, maybe romanticly, a new emulsion by market leading experts had to be something… But, yet there were two big, relevant questions in the air: first, could K400’s often so called huge grain, be effectively very well controlled with Rodinal?, and second, would K400, a film that’s not as famous as others, lose lots of speed in Rodinal, ending in the same group of those eastern, low cost films good for 200 ASA shooting only? Well, both questions were soon to be answered happily…
Knowing Rodinal as a speed losing developer, and it is most of the times, I started testing K400 in it @200… It didn’t require that much light… Then @250… The same… Then @320… Must be film´s design is outstanding, but with all those lower than box speeds, and finally even @400, my grays card and even Kodak’s gray card were recorded in negative a bit lighter than they are, and that’s a lot to say… I find the film works great @400 even in Rodinal, at least with this development scheme, developing it for 30 minutes… Then I thought, with such clear dark grays, why not?, and went for @800, but with doubts, obviously… In the end, I settled in, because I prefer that tone better, doing K400@800 for 40 minutes… It’s a really mild push tone, very close to normal… @400 for 30 minutes is fine too, but a bit weak for common overcast light…
About temperature:
Rodinal grows grain when used at other developers’ usual temperature of 20-24°C… At 18°C and a bit below that, it behaves differently. I used 16°C for some years, but times are too long… This time I decided testing from the beginning at 62°F (close to 17°C), to keep grain beautiful and reduce times a bit. Only for low temperature with Rodinal I presoak, because my house’s temperature is 23°C, so I do a 2 minute presoak with water at 62°F: I use part of the bowl’s water at 62°F I put the tank in while developing, and after those 2 minutes everything in the tank is cold enough, then I pour back the water in the bowl and immediately pour the developer (at 62°F) in, with four initial slow inversions. This way grain growing is very slow from the beginning… Then every few minutes I check with my thermometer and if water temperature tries to start going up from 62°F, I place an ice inside the bowl’s water and move it slowly for some seconds to keep the water at 62°F. During winter, I use some drops of hot water instead of ice.
About agitation:
Low temperature from the very start, mixed with very little agitation, are the two things that matter here and give this Rodinal look that for some people, won’t look like Rodinal @800. After the initial agitation (four slow inversions), during the whole 40 minutes of development, only 3 different times the developer moves, every tenth minute (the same four slow inversions): this is a semi-stand, a safer way of developing than a stand, and yet it helps a lot for acutance/perceived sharpness, and also for small grain and highlights control.
This development produces a gray card on negative you can read a newspaper’s article through, as old times’ photographers and printers used to say… Reality’s pure whites are very well controlled on negative too (they make a darkish gray, but far from the darkest grays the film can produce), so contrast is nice for wet printing, and there’s yet plenty of latitude left on film for good recording of direct sun scenes in the same roll, and also for overexposure mistakes up to a stop without losing highlights detail… All film’s range is well used: blacks are recorded deep black, instead of medium to dark grays, so common while scanning… (Scans look basically ready without tweaking).
Grain is sharp and very tight, and it’s not big at all for a 400 ASA film. I’d call it small for 800… Grain structure is unobtrusive: dark, medium and light grays’ grain look pleasant, all around… Sorry if someone’s ways or equipment are slightly different: for sure with little time adjustment everything will work fine. This film’s a great one in my opinion!
Happy shooting, and Merry Christmas everybody!
J.
