Little unscientific test: D23 vs Rodinal vs HC-110 in 35mm

[foc]

I am not sure how the depth of field may have changed between shoots but I can't rule it out either. Maybe the tripod moved ever so slightly between shots?

I am planning similar experiment with hp5 which is my other main film. Maybe I should consider stopping down more (I think I was around f4 here, did not want to go too low with the shutter speed as that camera has no mirror lock up).

I look forward to your experiment with HP5.
If I can make a suggestion, I would recommend that you use plenty of artificial lighting (because it is consistent) and shoot at least at f8 and with a shutter speed of at least 1/125.
I have done some tests/experiments myself in the past and I found that you always need more light than you think.

 

[halfaman]

I would try also Rodinal with 1+25. I think shadow detail would be better.

 

[baachitraka]

I just wonder even at the speed of 50, Rodinal at 1+50 is loosing lot of shadow details. :-(

 

[sterioma]

I just wonder even at the speed of 50, Rodinal at 1+50 is loosing lot of shadow details. :-(

As I mentioned in my opening post, I have made all the prints with identical settings, which had been tuned for the first print that I have made that is the one with D23.
What this comparison shows is that the Rodinal negative is indeed a bit thinner than the other ones. But it should not be taken to indicate that is "too thin".

A better print could be made with the Rodinal negative, there is enough shadow detail there. Rodinal is my usual developer with Fomapan and I had done some testing to establish that an EI of 50 would give me sufficient shadow detail.

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

D-23 is just as sharp - if not possibly moreso (solvency releasing iodide from some emulsions), but the granularity of Rodinal etc causes misleading impressions to be drawn at small/ very small enlargement sizes. In fact, the higher noise/ granularity level of Rodinal actually obscures fine detail resolution in a way that D-23 doesn't.

For the past few years, I have gone back and forth between D-23 and Pyrocat-HD. Honestly, my favorite prints for tonality and overall quality are D-23. Sadly, I think Pyrocat-HD looks a bit brittle compared to D-23. I have been experimenting with Beutler's (a D-23 variation with a carbonate accelerator) for improved sharpness and am very pleased with the results. FP4 in Beutler's is very sharp, with almost no grain to speak of, even at 16".

 

[baachitraka]

As I mentioned in my opening post, I have made all the prints with identical settings, which had been tuned for the first print that I have made that is the one with D23.
What this comparison shows is that the Rodinal negative is indeed a bit thinner than the other ones. But it should not be taken to indicate that is "too thin".

A better print could be made with the Rodinal negative, there is enough shadow detail there. Rodinal is my usual developer with Fomapan and I had done some testing to establish that an EI of 50 would give me sufficient shadow detail.

Perhaps adjusting the paper exposure could have matched the contrast with others.

Nevertheless, not a bad test.

 

[halfaman]

A better print could be made with the Rodinal negative, there is enough shadow detail there. Rodinal is my usual developer with Fomapan and I had done some testing to establish that an EI of 50 would give me sufficient shadow detail.

Have you ever tried 1+25 dilution? I use also Rodinal 1+50 with Foma films, in my case 4x5'' sheets. I wonder if 1+25 would give some more effective speed...

 

[sterioma]

Have you ever tried 1+25 dilution? I use also Rodinal 1+50 with Foma films, in my case 4x5'' sheets. I wonder if 1+25 would give some more effective speed...

I have only tried 1+25 with FP4, which i don't shoot very often and it was medium format. I got a lot of contrast, so I decided to try with 1+50 and since then I have only been using 1+50 any time I use Rodinal (other than some occasional stand development at 1:100 just for fun).
I am sure with some more testing it should be possible to get better results with 1+25 dilution than my early attempts.

 

[sterioma]

I have been experimenting with Beutler's (a D-23 variation with a carbonate accelerator) for improved sharpness and am very pleased with the results. FP4 in Beutler's is very sharp, with almost no grain to speak of, even at 16".

That's quite interesting, I'll add to my list of things to try, beside different D23 dilutions (I have only tested 1+1 so far).

 

[relistan]

I don’t know for sure, pentaxuser, but in my experience it isn’t really more negative or adversarial than it was, say back when I joined in 2010. Just as one coincident example, one of my first posts here was a comparison not all that dissimilar to what OP has undertaken in this thread (although it was supposed to be somewhat more “scientific” in methodology), and I was very quickly taken to task. I’m off topic but just some thoughts.

I lurked here for a long time before I joined and then a long time after mostly because there are so many voices here of people who are non-constructive, demeaning, or insulting. To be clear: you are one of the nice folks, I'm not aiming that at you in any way. I agree with you it's not worse than it used to be, but it really should be a lot better! And improving that situation takes the rest of us holding people to account who behave like that.

But since we haven't, I've recently decided for my own sanity to entirely avoid threads where people ask for help—as a means of not dealing with some of these regular "characters" here and have blocked a couple of folks as well (NB23 is a particularly egregious case). I talked about this in some private threads with a few folks including @pentaxuser. I suspect there are a number of voices not heard here at all for this reason. My "favorite" is when a new person asks for help and gets piled on insultingly. Way to grow the hobby and the community folks, well done.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I remember the time a Kodak rep started posting, and people shot it to pieces and that was the end of that. I was really pissed about it.

I didn't realise a Kodak rep had posted here, I must have forgotten. Also, I agree with your earlier comment wrt. behaviour on this forum, for one thing, there seem to be fewer discussion "photo-wars" conducted than in the past - although I still find the ignore list helpful and do make new additions to it.

 

[sterioma]

I look forward to your experiment with HP5.
If I can make a suggestion, I would recommend that you use plenty of artificial lighting (because it is consistent) and shoot at least at f8 and with a shutter speed of at least 1/125.

I have just finished developing my tests for HP5 (rodinal 1:50, rodinal semi-stand, hc-110 dil H and D23). I managed to shoot at f8 this time, but the max speed I could achieve was 1/30 (I don't have strong enough strobes, I have a beginner's kit I got from Amazon; maybe I need to use flash next time ).

 

[pentaxuser]

I have just finished developing my tests for HP5 (rodinal 1:50, rodinal semi-stand, hc-110 dil H and D23). ).

Thanks, sterioma. This test will be even more interesting for me for a couple of reasons 1. Whenever the subject of Rodinal is mentioned with HP5+ then if this usually draws comments to the effect that these are a particularly poor combo

2. HP5+ tends to be my "go-to" film

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

D-23 is a great little developer. I've been using it 1+3 with Pan-F, and X-ray. Perhaps for the next experiment, you could try it at different solutions with HP5-Plus. Another lovely combination. Oh and then there's two-bath!

 

[foc]

I have just finished developing my tests for HP5 (rodinal 1:50, rodinal semi-stand, hc-110 dil H and D23). I managed to shoot at f8 this time, but the max speed I could achieve was 1/30 (I don't have strong enough strobes, I have a begineer's kit I got from Amazon; maybe I need to use flash next time ).

Great. Can you post some of your examples, please?

 

[sterioma]

Great. Can you post some of your examples, please?

As soon as I get back to our local community darkroom I'll make the prints.

The Rodinal 1:50 seems a bit underdeveloped compared with the other ones, I don't have times of my own as I don't normally shoot this combination, other than using semi-stand development when I shoot at 800.

The densities from the remaing three combinations seem very similar on the light table, and looking around with a loupe they seem pretty identical. I guess only the print will tell if there's any real difference.

 

[WD4AON]

I, for one, thank sterioma for his efforts and contribution here.
Terry

 

[foc]

As soon as I get back to our local community darkroom I'll make the prints.

The Rodinal 1:50 seems a bit underdeveloped compared with the other ones, I don't have times of my own as I don't normally shoot this combination, other than using semi-stand development when I shoot at 800.

The densities from the remaing three combinations seem very similar on the light table, and looking around with a loupe they seem pretty identical. I guess only the print will tell if there's any real difference.

Looking forward to it.

 

[gone]

One way to look at this, and I think it's the only way to look at it, is that everyone's got their opinions, and just let go of it. APUG has had grumpy old men on it ever since I can remember, and that's just the reality of internet forums. There's others that are worse. I won't even go to the LF forums (not here, but any LF forums) because of the lack of manners.

 

[sterioma]

Looking forward to it.

Great. Can you post some of your examples, please?

I have just created a separate post for my tests with HP5: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...p5-in-d23-hc-110-rodinal.183745/#post-2415248

 

[foc]

Thank you for the update and the link.
It makes interesting reading.

 

[dynachrome]

Were the tests done with a 50mm f/2 Yashica ML? The f/1.2 Yashica ML standard lens is a 55.

 

[removed account4]

Lately I have been playing reading a bit about D23 and decided to give it a go with dilution 1:1. This is the first time I make a developer from raw ingredients; I normally use Rodinal for slower films and HC-110 for higher speed films (mostly HP5).

I wanted to make a quick experiment comparing the three developers, with the only film I can bulk roll at the moment which is Fomapan 100. Let's go straight to the results and if you are still interested then read on.

Whole 8x10 prints (all printed identically with a condenser enlarger in my community darkroom).
D23:
View attachment 270244
Rodinal:
View attachment 270245

HC-110
View attachment 270246

Details comparison (around 2.5cm or 1 inch in the actual print):
View attachment 270277

As expected, Rodinal is the grainiest of the three but with this film and enlargement it's only really visible if you look carefully at the test resolution target. Second comes D23, while HC-110 has the finest grain.

D23 and HC110 give a moderate speed increase with respect to Rodinal, but it's probably not more than 1/3 stop in my test.

Rodinal gives by far the greatest impression of "sharpness", although probably there is not a big difference in terms of resultion but it's more acutance effects. In the small detail print scan, the numbers and that checkerboard look really crisp with Rodinal, while they look blurry in the other two prints, especially with HC-110.

If you are curious here's my test setup (again, not very scientific, so take everything with a pinch of salt):

• Camera and lens: Yashica FX-D 35mm camera with 50mm 1.2 ML lens mounted on a tripod (camera is actually on sale if you are interested )
  
• Film: Fomapan 100 bulk rolled, exposed at 50 (this is my usual rating for Rodinal derived from previous testing)
• Metering: incident reading with a Sekonic 308
• Lighting: window light from the top on a overcast day + 1 softbox
• Subject matter: 24 identical frames of variuos objects including a gray card (underneath the tangerine) and a test target printed with my inkjet printer (!)
• Development: D23 1:1 for 10 minutes, Rodinal 1:50 for 10 minutes, HC-110 dil H for 11 minutes. All developed in tanks, 30s initial agitation, then 3 inversions every minute.
• Prints: 8x10 prints on Ilford Multigrade, all exposed for the same time based on the first one I tried (D23). Rodinal is slightly darker than the others. If I had more time in the darkroom I would have tried to have matching highlights
• Scanner: prints have been scanned at 600dpi with a cheap Epson printer/scanner. All prints have been scanned identically and no changes have been made other than cropping.

man you are so lucky the same crowd isn't around when I asked for unscientific data in a thread a few years ago
real horror show ( to quote Alex ). .. thrown under the bus, told this website is for "serious business" and all sorts of BS...

good luck with your thread, more threads like this are needed on this website!!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

How not to welcome tests including prints' scans? To me that's what matters in the first place... Scanning film is a different field IMO.
Then, reaching the same contrast on prints, and other technical facts, are welcome, but:
Tests are interesting when we can see different points of view -from different types of tests- for the same materials:
One test can show what TMY, TX, HP5+ and D400 can do in D-76, Xtol and DDX at EI640 for soft light, and a different test shows what happens with those films and developers under direct sunlight; and another test shows the best possible result for each film if we use different EIs: the optimal EI for every film in every developer.
To me those three tests tell me the truth about different films, but a single test is extremely limited in general.

 

[sterioma]

Were the tests done with a 50mm f/2 Yashica ML? The f/1.2 Yashica ML standard lens is a 55.

Ah, yes that was a typo. It was a standard 50 f2, which I have since sold. Photrio does not let me edit my original post anymore.