Kentmere in rodinal

After a long break in developing my own monochrome, it was recommended I give Rodinal a try in developing kentmere film. I'd not used this combo before and was a little disappointed with the resulting grain.

It may have been my technique. Any tips would be appreciated before I start on my third roll. Thanks

Which Kentmere film? If it's the 400, then there's nothing strange with it, it will be grainy. Generally speaking, Rodinal tends to give grainy, but sharp negatives with 400 ISO films. Many people find it objectionable.

Should have said kentmere 100 asa

I don't think your technique is to "blame." Although, it's always best to keep relatively constant temperature throughout, an easy thing to overlook.

Rodinal is known to accentuate graininess, but a lot of people live that gritty kind of look. The look is often emphasized through scanning. Graininess is less of a problem with wet printing; in fact, the prints from Rodinal negatives can look really beautiful. So if your workflow involves scanning, a fine-grain developer, such as D76, is preferable to avoid that gritty look.

I have used a fair amount of the Kentmere film and the best I have found was developing it in ID-11 @ 1-1

aparat said:

I don't think your technique is to "blame." Although, it's always best to keep relatively constant temperature throughout, an easy thing to overlook.

Rodinal is known to accentuate graininess, but a lot of people live that gritty kind of look. The look is often emphasized through scanning. Graininess is less of a problem with wet printing; in fact, the prints from Rodinal negatives can look really beautiful. So if your workflow involves scanning, a fine-grain developer, such as D76, is preferable to avoid that gritty look.

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Graininess is indeed no real problem with wet printing but it is relative to you format.
With 135 film you should be "safe" to
9x13,10x15,13x18 cm prints.
But beware of 30 x 40, 40x60 cm !
Therefore I don't love rodinal so much.
Exeption : 120 films with max. 20 x 30cm.

with regards

Are you kidding! Prints that small wouldn't be worth printing. I'm assuming you mean that's the biggest without discernible grain

derek andrews said:

Are you kidding! Prints that small wouldn't be worth printing. I'm assuming you mean that's the biggest without discernible grain

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13cm x 18cm is 5"x7". That's quite a decent sized print really.

My friend did this combo in 100 and 400. 400 had a nice grain pattern to it while 100 was pretty crisp and grain you had to have your nose to print to see only a very light grain on an 8x10.

He just shot it at box speed but maybe you could try shooting it at 50 and cutting developing time by 1/3rd and see where you are there?

How things have changed. When I used to 'do' printing back in the day when I was in a Camera Club and entering prints in competitions and exhibitions, the smallest size I would even think of printing would be 10" x 8" and would often think nothing of printing up to 20" x 16" on Ilford paper from Ilford FP4 negatives. The film would have been developed in an Ilford dev (can't remember which one now) and nobody commented on the visible grain. Looks like I may have to go back to an Ilford developer again.

Rodinal most certainly is not a fine grain developer, it has the properties of giving very sharp edge to areas of different tones 'and this includes the actual grain of the emulsion. Hence the obvious grain you have seen It is called the 'Sabbatier' effect. Rodinal was an 'acutance' developer You get very much the same situation with digital if you verge on over-sharpening an image. The pixels (AKA film grain) become more obvious on large prints and there is a tell-tale fine line around areas of different tone.

You should be able to achieve a 9,5x12 print without the grain becoming too obvious using FP4, and with Pan F, 12 x 16 is more than within it's capabilities. Just don't over develop.

You can demonstrate sharpening effect very clearly by taking a picture of pylons on a sunny day using a red filter, The cables from the pylon and the insulators holding them will have a very fine clear line around them. The effect is more pronounced if you use Rodinal at a high dilution instead of 1-25. One of the instructions that came with the original Agfa Rodinal was minimum agitation. 30 seconds continuous, then one inversion every 30 seconds until the time was up. This caused the developer at the edges of different tones, especially the dark ones where it was more active, to become exhausted more quickly and cause the sharpening effect. You can minimise this effect by using conventional agitation - 10 secs continuous at the start and every minute thereafter, but the effect will still be there only less obvious but with a slight reduction with grain and you will also have to modify the development times.

There was an Ilford developer, almost certainly a version of Rodinal called Hyfin, only available in powder form where the development was 18 mins for both Pan F and FP3 (in those days before FP4) and a stern warning not to use it with anything faster! It has not been available since the 1960's and oddly enough Ilford will not release the formula to the public or bring it back, which is a pity because it was a lovely developer. The sharpening was as good as Rodinal, but gave less grain

BMbikerider said:

Hence the obvious grain you have seen It is called the 'Sabbatier' effect

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Please check with google or wikipedia: Sabatier, Also note the frequent confusion between Sabatier effect and solarization.

when i first used rodinal years ago, i thought the same - "wow, grain." i dialed back my agitation and grew to love it!

Does anyone endorse 'stand' development I.e no agitation and just leave for an hour or so

derek andrews said:

Does anyone endorse 'stand' development I.e no agitation and just leave for an hour or so

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I always like religious questions .
One camp (which I find myself in):
Stand development is an interesting special purpose technique.
It can be used if you want to enhance edge effects, don't mind compression of mid-tones, and are willing to risk a certain percentage of your negatives to effects arising from uneven development and bromide drag.
Other camp:
It is the best thing since sliced bread, and it allows you to virtually ignore the film's ISO.
Anyone want popcorn ?