MIcrophen, D76 or Rodinal with HP5+ experiment??

[Larry the sailor]

Sort of an experiment.
I've got an old Soligor C/D 95-310 f5.6 Zoom/Macro. I bought this lens new in 1985 In Yokosuka, Japan on a port visit.
At the time I was using a Canon AE-1 and never really had much in the way of good results with the lens. Maybe in part because I had a kind of cheap, light tripod or tried to shoot it handheld. I always thought it was kind of soft/low contrast.

Anyway, I dug it out of storage the other day to try to use the macro feature and see if my increased experience, much better tripod, better camera, (New F1) and improved skills would net me better results. I'm not expecting miracles though.
I take pretty good care of my stuff even if it is put away for a couple of decades, No marks on the glass, no fungus, doesn't look much different than when I bought it new.

Now to the heart of the issue.
I shot a couple rolls of HP5+ through it using the macro range and will be developing the 2 rolls in different developers to see what will give me the best sharpness/contrast.

My current developer options are D76, Microphen or Rodinal. I'm leaning toward D76 for one and Microphen for the other, I guess I could shoot another roll and use all three but that sounds too scientific.

Which option should tend to maximize what ever inherent sharpness and contrast this lens has to offer? Or, is there another option likely to give me the results I'm looking for?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Sort of an experiment.
I've got an old Soligor C/D 95-310 f5.6 Zoom/Macro. I bought this lens new in 1985 In Yokosuka, Japan on a port visit.
At the time I was using a Canon AE-1 and never really had much in the way of good results with the lens. Maybe in part because I had a kind of cheap, light tripod or tried to shoot it handheld. I always thought it was kind of soft/low contrast.

Anyway, I dug it out of storage the other day to try to use the macro feature and see if my increased experience, much better tripod, better camera, (New F1) and improved skills would net me better results. I'm not expecting miracles though.
I take pretty good care of my stuff even if it is put away for a couple of decades, No marks on the glass, no fungus, doesn't look much different than when I bought it new.

Now to the heart of the issue.
I shot a couple rolls of HP5+ through it using the macro range and will be developing the 2 rolls in different developers to see what will give me the best sharpness/contrast.

My current developer options are D76, Microphen or Rodinal. I'm leaning toward D76 for one and Microphen for the other, I guess I could shoot another roll and use all three but that sounds too scientific.

Which option should tend to maximize what ever inherent sharpness and contrast this lens has to offer? Or, is there another option likely to give me the results I'm looking for?

I would expect the D76/Microphen dev to give much detail and resolution but limited sharpness, Rodinal dev, however, should maximize the apparent sharpness. I would expect little difference between D76 and Microphen.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

In my opinion, D-76 1+1 gives the best overall quality with HP5, of the three developers you asked about. (I've never tried Microphen but have used a lot of D-76 and Rodinal with HP5).

The Rodinal negs do look a little sharper, at the expense of more grain, but the tonality is not great. Rodinal tends to flatten midtones with HP5.

HP5, 120 size, in Rodinal 1+50.

HP5, 35mm size, developed in D-76 1+1.

Sorry I didn't have a 35mm example to show for Rodinal. I had used it only on 120 size HP5, unfortunately. I like the D-76 tonality best. My FAVORITE developer for HP5 is PMK, but thats not on your list and is kind of a pain to work with.

HP5, 120 size, in PMK.

 

[Pentode]

I agree with Chris re: Rodinal and D-76 (and why wouldn't I? He has a lot more experience than I do!). If all you're after is sharpness then Rodinal 1:50 or 1:75 will be your best option among the choices you listed.
D-76 straight or 1:1 won't be as sharp, but the midtones will look much better (IMO). I almost always use D-76 at 1:1 and I like it with HP5+.

For something in between you could try D-76 1:3. At that dilution much of the solvent effects are minimized and it starts approaching something much closer to an acutance developer. It could be a good middle ground for what you're trying to do.

I have no experience with Microphen so I can't offer much there.

 

[MattKing]

Is it sharpness (acutance mainly) that you are seeking, or is it resolution?
Sharpness is mostly subjective, but correlates well with how we perceive quality, while resolution is mostly objective.

 

[john_s]

..... and never really had much in the way of good results with the lens. Maybe in part because I had a kind of cheap, light tripod or tried to shoot it handheld. I always thought it was kind of soft/low contrast......

Maybe the most important aspect of this experiment is to develop to your desired contrast (i.e. get development time right for your purpose). Instead of using two different developers, maybe a good approach would be to chose a developer that's good enough (all of the above), develop one roll, inspect the contrast, then adjust for the second roll.

In my slow evolution as a photographer, it dawned on me that getting development time right made as much difference as anything else, maybe more.

 

[Larry the sailor]

Lots of good input, thanks. I'll let you know what I do and how it comes out.

 

[Larry the sailor]

Well, A little better than I expected.
1st roll in D76 1:1. Negatives are a little dense but should be fairly easy to print. I'll probably have to work to get the contrast in the print the way I want but I should be able to duplicate the scan OK.
Minor level adjustments in LR

 

[pentaxuser]

Not much wrong with the bees shot nor with any of your previous ones. Like you I prefer the PMK one but I find it difficult to tell if this is PMK or simply a shot that would have looked marginally better than the other two irrespective of the developer

Incidentally the bees one would be superb with a touch of hand colouring of the bees only. I only wish I had those delicate hand-colouring skills but alas

pentaxuser

 

[M Carter]

Just a suggestion for down the road, but - testing and experimenting with each developer will teach you a lot about what they do; you can cut a roll in halves or thirds, process it and scan or print it (base your decisions on your final output). You'll discover things like - Rodinal may require an extra half stop or stop of exposure to get the shadow detail you want, but then development needs adjustment to compensate for the extra highlight exposure... and Rodinal at 1+50 or 1+60 is a rather different developer than at 1+25 (in my opinion anyway, it's almost like 2 different products). You can even dial in Rodinal development via dilution; like, your neg looks pretty good with 7 minutes at 1+50 but the highs seem a bit harsh... try 1+60 vs. calculating a new time. Rodinal is pretty "linear" if you change dilutions in 5-10% increments - you can get where you know just what to expect.

 

[Ernst-Jan]

I have never used Microphen but I did use ID11 (=D76) and Rodinal with HP5+.
I really like the results I get with ID11 1+2

 

[Larry the sailor]

I'm fairly satisfied with the results i got with D76 1:1. I processed the 2nd roll in D76 stock and got perfectly acceptable results as far as development goes by my photography left me wondering where my head was. While I pretty well learned what I was wanting to learn I did not get any photos out of the 2nd roll I'm willing to share due to camera operator failure.