Pushing Rodinal and D76

Philippe-Georges · Feb 14, 2023

MingMingPhoto said:
how did you learn about these chemcials? And do you understand these chemicals? If so would you mind explaining how they do what they do? also does the order matter?

The basic answer to your two questions can be found in two books written by three people who know by far more about this than I ever could.
The first one is Ansel Adams in his book 'The Negative': see chapter 10 'Value Control in Processing' starting from p.229, and Appendix 3 for more formulas.
The two others are Steve Anchell and Bill Troop in their book 'The Film Developing Cookbook', and can stand next to the first one.

All I am supposed to know about film developing comes from them, and not to forget Pat Gainer and Chris Patton too, and so many, many, others.
But the one thing I know for sure is that I hardly know anything.

And I am still learning, and learning, and learning...
That honger for learning drives me to go on, through trial and error...

Philippe-Georges · Feb 14, 2023

Talking about the subway...

relistan · Feb 14, 2023

Andrew O'Neill said:
I recently started using Thornton's 2-Bath. Has been working well with TMY-2, HP5, Xray (green-latitude), and a couple of others.

The trick is that Thornton's 2 Bath, like all modern two baths, does development in the first bath. This works for all modern films.

albireo · Feb 14, 2023

MingMingPhoto said:
Also what do you think of these results? One is TX @800 dev for @1600 rodianl 1+50 and the other is Delta 400 @ 800 Dev in D76 Stock @1600

Hey MingMing - I like your sequence. There's a thread linking those pictures of the kids in the subway. Some really good ones in there. Nice!

As for the technicalities, they do bear the signature of scanned underexposed negatives. Not much you can do to rescue them I'm afraid. I agree with @koraks . Try Delta 3200 exposed at 1000 and develop in D76 or better Xtol. You'll be amazed.

aparat · Feb 14, 2023

MingMingPhoto said:
Hey everyone. I'm just wondering...
so basically all my photos are shot at box speed and developed 1+50 in rodinal.

My friend was telling me to try processing in D76 if I want to push my film. He said for Trix Specifically I should shoot at @800 and develop for @1600 in stock dilution.

I tried it and the results are good, however I really like the acutance of Rodinal. It compliments my style of shooting very much.

I shot another roll and I think I got some photos that I really like, however I dont want to devlope in D76 if I don't have to

does anyone have examples and input on developing trix shot at 800 in rodinal as if it was shot at 1600 in 1+50? since I'm over devloping would that pull out more of the shadow detail and still give me that high acutance or will I be better off with D76?

You've already received a lot of great advice. If I may be allowed to offer my 2 cents, I'd say that, in my experience, pushing films with Rodinal tends to run the risk of the highlights running away from you. I found that Rodinal tends to significantly increase highlight contrast with longer processing times, which may or may not be something that you want.

I also agree with @Andrew O'Neill that HP5+ is probably a better choice for push processing.

aparat · Feb 14, 2023

relistan said:
The trick is that Thornton's 2 Bath, like all modern two baths, does development in the first bath. This works for all modern films.

I was intrigued by your comment and those by @Andrew O'Neill and @Philippe-Georges regarding the Thornton Two Bath developer. I happened to have all the ingredients, so I mixed up a batch. I gave Delta 100 and Tri-X 400 five minutes at 21C, with agitation every 30 seconds. I've read that this is a compensating developer. I did not find it to be so. In fact, it produces nicely linear curves with these two films. What I did find was a slight increase in film speed, especially with the Delta 100. I would have to do more testing to be sure, but my preliminary results show Delta 100 around ISO 130 and Tri-X 400 around ISO 230, both numbers being higher than with D-76. Grain is nice and tight. Overall, a very good result. I wonder how much N-development control is possible with this developer.

delta100_thor2bath by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

delta100_thor2bathCloseup by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

trix400_thor2bath by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

trix400_thor2bathCloseup by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

MingMingPhoto · Feb 15, 2023

albireo said:
Hey MingMing - I like your sequence. There's a thread linking those pictures of the kids in the subway. Some really good ones in there. Nice!

As for the technicalities, they do bear the signature of scanned underexposed negatives. Not much you can do to rescue them I'm afraid. I agree with @koraks . Try Delta 3200 exposed at 1000 and develop in D76 or better Xtol. You'll be amazed.

Thank you!
And wow, I didn't think they were so under exposed... I thought they were decent - but I'm learning. Ok so I'll defiantly try this. btw what's the dead giveaway of scanned under exposed negatives?

aparat said:
You've already received a lot of great advice. If I may be allowed to offer my 2 cents, I'd say that, in my experience, pushing films with Rodinal tends to run the risk of the highlights running away from you. I found that Rodinal tends to significantly increase highlight contrast with longer processing times, which may or may not be something that you want.

I also agree with @Andrew O'Neill that HP5+ is probably a better choice for push processing.

I def feel like the highlights are very milky with the pushed rodinal -- totally agree!
I'm not too into the grain in HP5, but might try to experiment for fun and learning purposes.

Really love the grain in rodianl paired with TX so trying to find something that'll help with that.

Philippe-Georges said:
Talking about the subway...
View attachment 329685

nice

Philippe-Georges said:
The basic answer to your two questions can be found in two books written by three people who know by far more about this than I ever could.
The first one is Ansel Adams in his book 'The Negative': see chapter 10 'Value Control in Processing' starting from p.229, and Appendix 3 for more formulas.
The two others are Steve Anchell and Bill Troop in their book 'The Film Developing Cookbook', and can stand next to the first one.

All I am supposed to know about film developing comes from them, and not to forget Pat Gainer and Chris Patton too, and so many, many, others.
But the one thing I know for sure is that I hardly know anything.

And I am still learning, and learning, and learning...
That honger for learning drives me to go on, through trial and error...

Just purchased off ebay. Will give them a read

BMbikerider · Feb 15, 2023

MingMingPhoto said:
can you comapre the delta and the TRIX since I used D76 on the Delta and Rodinal on the TriX. Do you think there's an actual way to get more shadow detail on the subway? I guess with microphen like peopel are saying. Or the DDX. I'lll try those and see what happens, but I'd like to see more shadow detail from anyone else if they have examples of subway photos or lowlight photos like this

A small amount of fill in flash perhaps but if you don't want to attract attention to your self that is out

relistan · Feb 15, 2023

aparat said:
I was intrigued by your comment and those by @Andrew O'Neill and @Philippe-Georges regarding the Thornton Two Bath developer. I happened to have all the ingredients, so I mixed up a batch. I gave Delta 100 and Tri-X 400 five minutes at 21C, with agitation every 30 seconds. I've read that this is a compensating developer. I did not find it to be so. In fact, it produces nicely linear curves with these two films. What I did find was a slight increase in film speed, especially with the Delta 100. I would have to do more testing to be sure, but my preliminary results show Delta 100 around ISO 130 and Tri-X 400 around ISO 230, both numbers being higher than with D-76. Grain is nice and tight. Overall, a very good result. I wonder how much N-development control is possible with this developer.

delta100_thor2bath by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

delta100_thor2bathCloseup by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

trix400_thor2bath by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

trix400_thor2bathCloseup by Nick Mazur, on Flickr

Interesting results, thanks! How long was development in the second bath?

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 15, 2023

I'll be uploading a series of videos using this developer, starting this weekend...

aparat · Feb 15, 2023

relistan said:
Interesting results, thanks! How long was development in the second bath?

Both baths were 5 minutes. My ambient temperature was 21C so I just used it throughout the process. Yeah, I also found the results interesting. It's not a huge speed increase, but, at the very least, it allows Delta 100 to be shot at box speed, even pushed to EI 200, while the Tri-X can be shot at EI 200, comfortably, which is not always the case (i.e., with some developers). But more surprising was the ruler-straight Delta 100 curve. I was lead to believe, by reading posts and blogs about this two-bath developer, that some compensating effect would occur. I didn't see it, which doesn't mean it's not there, perhaps with other films.

One question I have is how much can I reuse the A and B solutions? I just poured the solutions back to their respective bottles.

relistan · Feb 15, 2023

aparat said:
Both baths were 5 minutes. My ambient temperature was 21C so I just used it throughout the process. Yeah, I also found the results interesting. It's not a huge speed increase, but, at the very least, it allows Delta 100 to be shot at box speed, even pushed to EI 200, while the Tri-X can be shot at EI 200, comfortably, which is not always the case (i.e., with some developers). But more surprising was the ruler-straight Delta 100 curve. I was lead to believe, by reading posts and blogs about this two-bath developer, that some compensating effect would occur. I didn't see it, which doesn't mean it's not there, perhaps with other films.

Well you did a lot more rigorous testing than me with that film in different developers. But Delta 100 has a very straight line curve anyway. In general a two bath will exhibity compensating behavior by exhausting the developer in the densest regions. This is tunable by amount of time in the first bath vs time in the second, as long as you are achieving your target density.

aparat said:
One question I have is how much can I reuse the A and B solutions? I just poured the solutions back to their respective bottles.

@gorbas is the one I would ask here because he has used it a lot. A can be reused quite a lot from experience, B about 4-5 times.

relistan · Feb 15, 2023

@aparat this thread, starting from this post might be useful

MingMingPhoto · Mar 26, 2023

M-88 said:
Tell your friend that there are far better developers for pushing the film. Like Microphen, or DD-X. D-76 is a staple developer, good all-rounder. But jack of all trades is master of none.

Also, "pushing" only enhances contrast. It cannot create shadow details out of nowhere, if they weren't captured on the film. So pushing will take you only so far. It was an emergency measure back in the film days, when one had to utilize available light in difficult situations. But nowadays, it somehow became a "creative tool" for some of modern hobbyists, to get "more grain".

my GOD. Microphen and TX are INCREDIBLE. Thank you EVERYONE and you for tellign me about this developer. LOOK AT THIS:

000009840010 Tx400 Microphen Stock.jpg

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

I thought I loved the grain in rodainl, I do, but this photos exposure and all the photos processed were incredible. I think If I shoot Rodinal again I'll have to expose a third or two more to compensate

bluechromis · Mar 27, 2023

If you don't mind grain, home-mixed FX-37 and the similar commercial FX-39 are high acutance developers, possibly more so than Rodinal. But unlike Rodinal, they are speed-increasing. The grain will be more than with D-76 or DDX.

Roger Cole · Mar 27, 2023

Steven Lee said:
I was about to post the same thing. The speed of D76 + acutance of Rodinal + shelf life of avocado!

WT heck is "shelf life of avocado?"

I detest avocados so I have literally no idea what their shelf life is. I'm also not familiar with Ilfosol 3.

relistan said:
The trick is that Thornton's 2 Bath, like all modern two baths, does development in the first bath. This works for all modern films.

No it doesn't, and neither do other two bath developers, at least the ones I'm aware of (and I used Diafine as my nearly exclusive developer for a couple of decades but haven't used others much, though some.)

Perhaps you meant that the developing AGENT is in the first bath, which is true. But without alakline accelerator very, very little development occurs in the first bath. The second bath has the alkaline accelerator (see the posted formula.) The developing agent in the first bath soaks into the film. It's then activated in the second bath when the accelerator is introduced, leading to it rapidly exhausting in the highlights but slowly in the shadows. Depending on the developing agent this can get a bit more shadow detail (aka "actual film speed") without blowing out the highlights but the point with any developing agent is that compensating effect. The highlights are developed less and not blown out (onto the shoulder of the film curve) or on films with little or a very high shoulder at least not pushed so high they are difficult to print requiring a lot of burning in, while the shadows still receive full development.

Roger Cole · Mar 27, 2023

aparat said:
Both baths were 5 minutes. My ambient temperature was 21C so I just used it throughout the process. Yeah, I also found the results interesting. It's not a huge speed increase, but, at the very least, it allows Delta 100 to be shot at box speed, even pushed to EI 200, while the Tri-X can be shot at EI 200, comfortably, which is not always the case (i.e., with some developers). But more surprising was the ruler-straight Delta 100 curve. I was lead to believe, by reading posts and blogs about this two-bath developer, that some compensating effect would occur. I didn't see it, which doesn't mean it's not there, perhaps with other films.

One question I have is how much can I reuse the A and B solutions? I just poured the solutions back to their respective bottles.

I've never used Thornton's but I'm surprised at the straight line well into the highlights as well. I wonder how something like HP5+ or FP4+ would respond.

Paul Howell · Mar 27, 2023

Pushing film is a tech that "pushed" (forgive the pun) when available light shooting was popular in the 60s and 70s, a common practice with news and PJs. Shooting indoor sports, in twilight, early AM, dim rooms, no flash. When pushing expose for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may. D76 is a good developer for pushing, as a general purpose developer it provided reasonable grain, held shadow details pretty well, with good edge sharpness. Rodinal was designed in the last 1800 and in my experience works best with slower film, I use it with Tmax 100 and ILford panF. It makes for poor pushing developer as it loses shadow detail more than other developers, grain in 35mm become very noticeable and tends to increase fog. Divided developers like Diafine, as mentioned already Thornton's 2 bath, can work. When a working JP I used Diafine, with the older version of Trix which could be pushed to 1600 or even 3200 while keeping shadow details and keeping grain to a manageable size, but I found it soft, lacking acutance. Acufine works pretty well. But, unless shooting in low light or at very high shutter speeds to capture motion, I don't see any reason to "push" a film.

aparat · Mar 27, 2023

Roger Cole said:
I've never used Thornton's but I'm surprised at the straight line well into the highlights as well. I wonder how something like HP5+ or FP4+ would respond.

Yeah, I agree. I am going to run a test with both HP5+ and FP4+ soon. I will probably just do five minutes in each bath at 20C. It is an interesting developer, and fairly easy and inexpensive to mix. I am curious how it compares to Diafine, in general.

relistan · Mar 28, 2023

Roger Cole said:
WT heck is "shelf life of avocado?"

I detest avocados so I have literally no idea what their shelf life is. I'm also not familiar with Ilfosol 3.

No it doesn't, and neither do other two bath developers, at least the ones I'm aware of (and I used Diafine as my nearly exclusive developer for a couple of decades but haven't used others much, though some.)

Perhaps you meant that the developing AGENT is in the first bath, which is true. But without alakline accelerator very, very little development occurs in the first bath. The second bath has the alkaline accelerator (see the posted formula.) The developing agent in the first bath soaks into the film. It's then activated in the second bath when the accelerator is introduced, leading to it rapidly exhausting in the highlights but slowly in the shadows. Depending on the developing agent this can get a bit more shadow detail (aka "actual film speed") without blowing out the highlights but the point with any developing agent is that compensating effect. The highlights are developed less and not blown out (onto the shoulder of the film curve) or on films with little or a very high shoulder at least not pushed so high they are difficult to print requiring a lot of burning in, while the shadows still receive full development.

Nope, it does some development in the first bath and so does e.g. Diafine. Go test it yourself if you don’t believe me. The theory in books like The Film Development Cookbook is not how they actually work. Furthermore, regarding the second bath also, with about 20ml of carryover into the second bath, Thornton’s developer becomes a stronger and stronger developer in the second bath. You should only use the second bath a very limited number of times. That’s just how it works. Nothing wrong with that, but the theory is not what happens in practice.

Roger Cole · Mar 28, 2023

relistan said:
Nope, it does some development in the first bath and so does e.g. Diafine. Go test it yourself if you don’t believe me. The theory in books like The Film Development Cookbook is not how they actually work. Furthermore, regarding the second bath also, with about 20ml of carryover into the second bath, Thornton’s developer becomes a stronger and stronger developer in the second bath. You should only use the second bath a very limited number of times. That’s just how it works. Nothing wrong with that, but the theory is not what happens in practice.

I HAVE tested it myself, and yes it does "some" but it's quite minimal.

relistan · Mar 28, 2023

Roger Cole said:
I HAVE tested it myself, and yes it does "some" but it's quite minimal.

Depends on what you call "minimal". You can see the image after 5 mins and if you leave it long enough, it's printable. https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/advice-on-my-two-bath-developer.181701/page-7#post-2423412

I call that "develops in the first bath".

Pushing Rodinal and D76

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