Mixing Rodinal with any developer may be a bad idea. The high pH of the Rodinal is sure to screw-up the other developer. This can lead to fog and higher than wanted contrast. Where do these bad ideas come from?
Most of the different threads seem to refer to this article: http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rodinal/rodinal.html
I will probably not try this out myself. But I wouldn't classify an experiment as a bad idea.
To confirm, you would add the desired Rodinal concentrate to your 9% solution of sodium sulfite. For example, if I add 20ml of Rodinal to a 1 litre sodium sulfite solution (1+50), I would use the 1+50 developments times minus 20% because of the sodium sulfite. I can then replenish this solution with 1ml of Rodinal everytime I develop a roll of film. Would that be correct? Furthermore, how many rolls of film would I be able to use this solution for if I replenish? Also, was not the original recommened sodium sulfite solution 7.5%?If Rodinal produces too much grain for your taste then try this modification. This was recommended many years ago in either a Popular or Modern Photography magazine article "Rodinal Rejiggered." Just dilute the Rodinal concentrate with 9% sodium sulfite solution instead of water. Developing times are about 20% less than with water. A 9% solution is easily made by dissolving 90 grams of sodium sulfite in enough water to make 1 liter. This reduces the pH of the Rodinal, creates a buffer, and the sulfite provides finer grain by increasing the halide solvency. The original article also mentioned using it as a replenished system by adding 1 ml of Rodinal for each 80 in2 of film developed.
I've mixed HC-110 with Rodinal, i used the HC-110 times plus 1 minute and didn't really see any noticeable difference in the grain/sharpness in any meaningful way.
So was it a useful experiment and if so what improvements did the mixture bring about?
Thanks
pentaxuser
To confirm, you would add the desired Rodinal concentrate to your 9% solution of sodium sulfite. For example, if I add 20ml of Rodinal to a 1 litre sodium sulfite solution (1+50), I would use the 1+50 developments times minus 20% because of the sodium sulfite. I can then replenish this solution with 1ml of Rodinal everytime I develop a roll of film. Would that be correct? Furthermore, how many rolls of film would I be able to use this solution for if I replenish? Also, was not the original recommened sodium sulfite solution 7.5%?
Try a little vermouth too. Helps me with my personal acutance.
Yes you are correct. I should have dragged my notes our before I posted you are right the sulfite concentration is 7.5% and not 9% as I first said. The article appeared in Popular Photography, Sept 1966. The article said the developer keeps for a month but did not specify the number of rolls. IIRC it was FG-7 that was diluted with 9% sulfite.
I only used the developer as a one-shot because of the cheapness of sodium sulfite. The negatives produced are very clean and produced some very nice prints.
I've stopped playing around with all this, and now since I started rotary processing (which completely changes everything) .
Read somewhere about people mixing xtol with rodinal in order to get a more accute and fine grained negative than when the developers are used by themselves.
Have anyone tried mixing rodinal with dd-x or have info/thoughts about doing so?
hi richard
a lot of people in this world, and on this or any other photography website
like quantifiable results, hard core data and science behind everything they do
so they can get repeatable results, or have some sort of end result that they can
hold up and say " see the data from my experiment / experience shows nothing good came of this"
mixing things together that don't usually go together, and going against the stream,
and loud chorus of " don't do it ! " might work for you and you will never know unless you do it.
(chances are no one has done what you want to, so there is no consensus that it did or didn't do anything or
enough of whatever it was supposed to do ( or not ) to write home about )
the whole perspective of don't fix it unless its broke doesn't make sense to me.
sprint chemistry made a metol free d76 clone that i use often and the founder made it
while other said " you can't improve on that, you are wasting your efforts" ...
that was 35-40 years ago, and the developer is still being made today ...
and it works great with every film you can find ( or was made ) ...
so, if you want to mix 2 different developers together and see what happens
there is no reason at all not to.
have fun, do your experiments and report back
how it worked or didn't work using whatever development scheme you want.
you might have to agitate differently at different intervals, or use different dilutions
or expose your film differently and you might have to rely on the additives in your tap water too
photography is only a foundation you can do whatever you want on it.
john
Apollo and Dionysus find it hard to share the space at APUG ...
Thanks for the reply. With rotary processing I had always thought that only the quantity of developer and the development times change but "everything" seems to encompass much more. What are the other changes?
Thanks
pentaxuser
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?