Pushing HP5 with Rodinal?

[martinsmith99]

I'm shooting a band on Saturday, indoors and I was thinking of not using flash and shooting at 3200iso or probably even faster. I have a stack of 35mm HP5, but I've never pushed only pulled so far. I wonder how this film holds up to pushing and the developers I have are Rodinal and Ilfosol 3.

Is it advisable to seek a faster film? Or just forget the idea and use flash?

 

[ZorkiKat]

Rodinal isn't good for push processing. Your better off with an MQ or PQ type like D76 or Microphen.

For instance, if you double your D76 developing time, you get an effective EI 1600 from your HP5.

 

[ruilourosa]

do not use flash, hp5 is not known to be the most flexible film for pushing, neither rodinal is the best developer to do it, but maybe if you had a bit of sulfite, or borax, or vita c... others will tell... meanwhile try another developer, like a dilute solvent developer, like d-76 1+3 or x-tol 1+3 long times but better shadow detail...

 

[Athiril]

If HP5+ is comparable to Tri-X, then Rodinal is an excellent developer for pushing it to 3200.

 

[ruilourosa]

not really comparable... and no, rodinal is not an excellent developer to push... any film at all, i know it, i love it, but not for push processing... although it will, as with any other developer, continue to increase highlight density in extended development, and yes that is the basis of pushing, since you won´t get more speed, but with a dilute solvent developer, it will continue to develop (even if it´s just a bit) the low values, and in that way it can give a little more the impression of a speed boost (as it happens in PQ devs like microphen in a limited way of 1 stop).

hp5 is a really nice film but different of tri-x, grain structure is different, and they respond differently in underexposure and overdevelopment!

it´s easy to compare, just buy both and develop both...

 

[frobozz]

I routinely push HP5 to 1600 in ID-11 and am happy with the results. Grainier and contrastier than normal, but not outrageously so.

Duncan

 

[Ian Grant]

do not use flash, hp5 is not known to be the most flexible film for pushing, neither rodinal is the best developer to do it, but maybe if you had a bit of sulfite, or borax, or vita c... others will tell... meanwhile try another developer, like a dilute solvent developer, like d-76 1+3 or x-tol 1+3 long times but better shadow detail...

HP5 is quite a good film for push processing but Rodinal isn't the ideal developer choice, Microphen or DDX are far more suitable, and will give better grain & tonality.

Ian

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Not that I advise doing it, but there are some pretty amazing results with using Rodinal at very high dilution and standing development, where people use Tri-X 400 to record pictures at EI 3200 - 25,600 and still get usable results. Some are even very beautiful.
I don't know how it would work with HP5+.

Development time will affect shadow detail, and if you develop long enough you can get detail from some pretty low threshold values. But you run a huge risk of unevenly developed negatives, so it's a bit of a chance to try it.

Are you push processing the film just to satisfy your curiosity? Or would you be better off using TMax 3200 or Delta 3200?

- Thomas

 

[ruilourosa]

microphen is a speed enhancing (up to a stop of real speed) developer, but i believe, and anchell do too, that if you want to "push process" it does not deliver results as good as a dilute d-76 type developer or x-tol. Rodinal (in a 1+100 or more dilution) may also present some speed increasing properties, although with unpractical times and sometimes uneveness.

i wonder if adding the "normal" additives (borax, sulfite or vita c) to rodinal could improve it´s pushability properties

 

[funkpilz]

I have had very good results with HP5+ at 1600 stand developed in Rodinal 1+100 for 90 minutes. Your mileage may very, but I think it is very much worth a try.

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Perceptol, perceptol, perceptol. Or one of its homemade analogues.

 

[Q.G.]

For pushing HP5, i always used Microphen.

 

[BetterSense]

I used to shoot HP5 at 1600 and use straight D23 using the D76 time marked on the box. Results were quite pleasant.

 

[ruilourosa]

perceptol is a speed reducing highly solvent fine grain developer, i really do not see it´s use as a push processing developer, although if diluted could be of use, resembling a sort of diluted mq borax or even more closely d-23, even so i do not know if the phosphates and the sodium chloride present could be of use in a push processing development

 

[martinsmith99]

Thanks for the responses. It seems that the combination is not ideal.

I'll get some 3200 Delta I think as looking at the venue I'll probably need to push that.

 

[Athiril]

For the Rodinal nay-sayers, are you going to share your resuts, or describe the and describe your entire process with that? Or are you just copying what everyone else says about Rodinal and offering nothing more than direct contradiction to those of us that have done it?

I've found it better than any other developer Ive used for a high level of pushing.

 

[Q.G.]

For the Rodinal nay-sayers, are you going to share your resuts, or describe the and describe your entire process with that? Or are you just copying what everyone else says about Rodinal and offering nothing more than direct contradiction to those of us that have done it?

I've found it better than any other developer Ive used for a high level of pushing.

So...
"are you going to share your resuts, or describe the and describe your entire process with that? Or [...]"

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

If you have a bottle of Rodinal, try diluting it 1:100, and play with doing one initial agitation for 30s or so, and then let it sit for an hour.
Bracket a roll of HP5+, same scene, shoot at 400, 800, 1600, and 3200.

It's pretty easy to do. See for yourself whether you think it's possible or not.

There are lots of people on places like Flickr that do it all the time.

 

[Colin Corneau]

As much as I love Rodinal I'm not sure I'd use it to push that far. If you have time, Thomas' advice is good though - I know he's done a lot of work with stand developing.

Developer aside, HP5+ is really well suited for pushing. I used it way wayyyy back when newspapers shot B&W film and I routinely pushed it to 1600. Same today, too -- it handles it really well.

You've got the right film, IMO, now you need to figure out the developer.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I should add that most people I have seen doing extreme underexposure, and generating really decent shadow detail by extending development time (which is the real trick here), really prefer the Tri-X 400 film for that purpose.

What's interesting about Rodinal is also that when you extend development time, and agitate less with a more dilute developer, grain becomes markedly finer as well.

Just buy a bottle of the stuff and go do it. More than a few will be surprised by the results.

 

[AnalogueNewbie]

I'm certainly no expert, but I pushed some HP5+ to 1600 in stock D-76 and was happy with what I got. Nice tones with a grain that I think adds something to the pictures.

 

[ZorkiKat]

For the Rodinal nay-sayers, are you going to share your resuts, or describe the and describe your entire process with that? Or are you just copying what everyone else says about Rodinal and offering nothing more than direct contradiction to those of us that have done it?

I've found it better than any other developer Ive used for a high level of pushing.

As much as I love Rodinal for developing film, I would have to say that I don't quite like what I get from it when used for push processing.

Contrast bitingly high, shadow detail too transparent, and highlights burned out- when 'pushing' is done with Rodinal in the usual manner as done with other BW developers like D76 or other MQ/PQ types. Pushed films in rodinal don't quite give what I expect - or like- based on what I always did and got from D76.

Stand developing with dilute rodinal does yield a negative with an apparent speed increase. I've done it only twice and the wierd Mckie lines and wavy densitied were not too appealing for me. Plus leaving the tank for about 2 hours in the refrigerator (to keep the temps at 20C here in tropics) wasn't always feasible.

Burnt highlights, as well as the odd density range that arise from rodinal pushes are serious considerations for me. They make for hard to scan negatives. If I were printing on 'wet' BW all the time, that may be moot point, but my current situation require that the negatives I make should be both scan-able and printable.

As for examples, let me look for those negatives....