Rodinal - Any views or other reccomendation? And use of a water filter for hard water

Hello everyone. I have aquired a 500ml bottle of rollei R09 (rodinal) for free from my friend who is returning a favour, and have researched alot on it. I wouldn't mind the opinions of people on here on that developer, which i intend to use on ilford PAN films, diluted 1 + 75 one-shot (7.5ml to 500ml water), and the rollei RPX ISO 100. I have had good results with ilford microphen, but i find rodinal would be alot cheaper, considering i am only 16, have to be careful with rent and other stuff. The water here is quite hard, and sometimes i have spots on my negatives. (Prints are fine). I have an activated charcoal water filter which will hopefully soften the water enough (I could also do 2 or 3 passes), so it doesn't leave spots on my negatives, what do you guys think? I could use distilled water, but cost is another problem unless i saved up for a distiller. Rodinal seems like a developer you can experiment a lot with. (which is what i like doing). I have become very good at B/W, despite making the mistake to begin using VC paper. (Grade 3 paper I am going to try). If anyone has any suggestions as to other developers i could use for either fine grain or high sharpness, please let me know! Kodak D76 I am also looking into, I am not sure if it is one-shot or not.
Many thanks everyone

I have used both ro9/rodinal and the older, apho9, formulation with many films with great success, I us it at either 1/25 or 1/50 and find it to be a very forgiving developer,grainier than othr developers, but to me and many many users worldwide that is not a problem unless you intend to make giant enlargements, but with normal printing I find the negatives to appear sharper due to the ''edge effect'', all in all one of the best developers,
Richard

For some of the prints i do, grain would be a nice artistic effect, from what i have read that is reduced with higher dilutions. It sounds good

Use it!
The reverence for Rodinal by some users here almost reaches biblical proportions at times.

I reserve it for slower ISO speed films but by all means try some out.
You sound like you're on your way quite well for a 16 yo.

Happy shooting.

jm94 said:

Hello everyone. I have aquired a 500ml bottle of rollei R09 (rodinal) for free from my friend who is returning a favour, and have researched alot on it. I wouldn't mind the opinions of people on here on that developer, which i intend to use on ilford PAN films, diluted 1 + 75 one-shot (7.5ml to 500ml water), and the rollei RPX ISO 100. I have had good results with ilford microphen, but i find rodinal would be alot cheaper, considering i am only 16, have to be careful with rent and other stuff. The water here is quite hard, and sometimes i have spots on my negatives. (Prints are fine). I have an activated charcoal water filter which will hopefully soften the water enough (I could also do 2 or 3 passes), so it doesn't leave spots on my negatives, what do you guys think? I could use distilled water, but cost is another problem unless i saved up for a distiller. Rodinal seems like a developer you can experiment a lot with. (which is what i like doing). I have become very good at B/W, despite making the mistake to begin using VC paper. (Grade 3 paper I am going to try). If anyone has any suggestions as to other developers i could use for either fine grain or high sharpness, please let me know! Kodak D76 I am also looking into, I am not sure if it is one-shot or not.
Many thanks everyone

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Hello,

That's a lot of questions for one single thread. I'll do my best to help you out.

1. Rodinal. My use of Rodinal is to add 'texture' to my prints. It produces a wonderfully sharp grain. That sharp and well defined grain I am somehow able to see 'through' when I view the print, because both the grain and the underlying picture have wonderful acutance (edge sharpness).

2. Hard water. When you hang your film to dry, use a wetting agent, such as Edwal or Sprint. They are inexpensive. I have hard water too, and use an old windscreen wiper (carefully cleaned), and run it along the whole length of the film, on both sides, to remove any excess water and wetting agent. This gives me negatives that are completely free of drying marks, and I also don't get any scratches.

3. Other developers. D76 is a solvent developer, which is the opposite to how Rodinal works. While D76 yields fairly sharp negatives, they are not as sharp as those processed with Rodinal. It does, logically, give somewhat finer grain. D76 is a 'middle of the road' type of developer that does very little wrong, and that is its strength. It never really disappoints, but it isn't absolutely brilliant for anything in particular either. It just does a fine job every time. Rodinal is more specialized in that it gives lower effective film speed (which you can use to your advantage), more grain, sharper grain, and very high acutance.
My main choice for developer is Kodak Xtol. I use it replenished, meaning I have a working solution that I re-use over and over again, and I replenish with a certain amount of fresh Xtol stock with each roll passed through it. It yields negatives that are almost as sharp as Rodinal, gives much finer grain, and better film speed.
There are a thousand answers to this question, about other developer recommendations, and I'm afraid the only way you can figure out if it'll work for you is to try a few of them out.

With all that said, it is good to learn a bullet proof process before you start branching out with changing around your materials too much.

Good luck,

- Thomas

Many thanks for your comments Tomorrow I will expose a roll and give it a shot I will post my results here. I will also increase my exposure a little as per the suggestions here : - ) I will post my results when i have them! I have no scanner but ill describe them well and upload an image! Thanks again =]

jm94 said:

Many thanks for your comments Tomorrow I will expose a roll and give it a shot I will post my results here. I will also increase my exposure a little as per the suggestions here : - ) I will post my results when i have them! I have no scanner but ill describe them well and upload an image! Thanks again =]

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When you do, try to bracket your exposures at -1 stop, box speed, +1 stop. That will tell you a lot about how you wish to expose your film moving forward.
Then when you have figured out your film speed, you can adjust development time to dial in your mid-tones and highlights. Print those negs if you can, because sometimes what looks good to your eyes will look different in the print.

That's funny, I'm 17. I live at home though, so i don't have to worry about rent. Anyways I use d76 mainly, it's arguably the cheapest developer out there. Well it's the cheapest that i would trust. As Thomas said, it isn't something thats going to "wow" you, it will give a nice image, but it's not amazing. I would think microphen is better ( i have to use up the last of my gallon of d76 before i mix up the microphen thats sitting in my DR.
Anyways, if your looking for something cheap, try d76. I have never used rodinal, but i hear great things. I think i will wait to try it until i have a more consistent income... I think it may be one of those addicting developers!
Oh and I use d76 one-shot. I believe you can replenish it though, but i personally prefer to do a one-shot development, and I also often use it in the stock solution, not dilluted. You can get a lot more out of it if you dillute it, but i have so much chemistry waiting to be mixed that i use stock anyways.
Anyways, excited to hear how you like the rodinal, it's supposed to be a very nice developer.
-Austin

Luseboy said:

Anyways I use d76 mainly, it's arguably the cheapest developer out there. Well it's the cheapest that i would trust. As Thomas said, it isn't something thats going to "wow" you, it will give a nice image, but it's not amazing. I would think microphen is better....

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I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I more think about D76 as the standard, against which all other developers are compared. It is an extremely fine product, and it is used by a large amount of very skilled and experienced photographers and printers, on merits of its performance.
Microphen isn't better than D76. It isn't worse either. There is no such thing. They are different, and that's a very important distinction.

You can get much larger variations in your results by altering HOW you use your materials, than WHAT you use.

For reducing your hard water you can use a Brita (TM) filter which contains an Anion- Kation and a Carbon filter. It will be very helpfull to solve a lot of tap- water problems.

About Rodinal: A high acutance Para- Amino Phenol developer. Not very fine grained but by reducing the agitation you will also reduce the grain. Also when you lower the temperature and the acutance will be higher when using a higher dilution. Normally Rodinal is used as one shot developer in the dilutions 1+25, 1+50 or 1+100. Also you will lower the contrast in a higher dilution. So Rodinal is a very interesting developer.

jm94 said:

The water here is quite hard, and sometimes i have spots on my negatives. (Prints are fine). I have an activated charcoal water filter which will hopefully soften the water enough (I could also do 2 or 3 passes), so it doesn't leave spots on my negatives, what do you guys think? I could use distilled water, but cost is another problem unless i saved up for a distiller.

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No dispute with Rodinal, but it would probably be good practice to mix developers only with distilled water, for developing. At less than a dollar per gallon from most stores, the piece of mind from knowing your soup is as pure as it can be is priceless. Washing is another matter – and the combination of filtered tap water and wiping/Photoflow should prove helpful as necessary.

My water is has enough mineral content that even photoflo and filtering won't stop the spotting. I use spring water from nearby and then have to use a distilled water soak of at least 45 minutes (I do an hour) as the last wet step to leach all the minerals out of the emulsion and dilute them enough not to spot. If the other methods mentioned don't work, try that.

Try Rodinal with Pan F+ and reduced agitation (one set of inversions every 3-5 minutes instead of once or twice each minute) and a somewhat lengthened development time (about 30%-50%) to control contrast and build shadow detail. You might like this alternative. I used to do this at 1:100 dilution routinely.

Lee

also see a Rodinal developer tech sheet at:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Tomorrow I am going to be shooting my test roll, and good idea about documenting my exposures, with the first 3 exposures being -1 stop, then at the rated speed, then one stop higher and so on. Another thing id love about rodinal is the length of time it keeps... i read a story somewhere about a half-full bottle had been found in a WW2 bunker or whatever 60 years on, and it worked like new. And with photography being art, the post about each developer being different i really like. I have a few developers to experiment with, first off will be rodinal, then next will be D76, then champion universal, all of which i now have. i wouldn't say no to ilford ilfosol too. Made a nice sale with some old audio equipment i had banging around, as i have had a clear out with my move, so stocked up! I will be posting my results here!

I use D-76 as my main developer, Pyrocat-HD as my 4x5 developer, and Rodinal as my go to for special needs. Last night I souped a roll of Agfa Scala 120 shot at iso100 for negatives, and the results are out of this world.

jm94 said:

Tomorrow I am going to be shooting my test roll, and good idea about documenting my exposures, with the first 3 exposures being -1 stop, then at the rated speed, then one stop higher and so on. Another thing id love about rodinal is the length of time it keeps... i read a story somewhere about a half-full bottle had been found in a WW2 bunker or whatever 60 years on, and it worked like new. And with photography being art, the post about each developer being different i really like. I have a few developers to experiment with, first off will be rodinal, then next will be D76, then champion universal, all of which i now have. i wouldn't say no to ilford ilfosol too. Made a nice sale with some old audio equipment i had banging around, as i have had a clear out with my move, so stocked up! I will be posting my results here!

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Sounds like a plan. Taking notes is the first step to organizing your efforts. If you really want to learn the relative differences between your three developers, use the same film with all three of them. And do that for a long time. You might even wish to employ one of them to become especially accustomed to, so that you can learn how to fully exploit that developer. That will help you to fully exploit the other developers with more ease.

Have fun! This really is supposed to be fun. Print your negs to verify what you think you see. Notice how your materials react to light and contrast, and what adjustments you have to make to create easily printable negatives in lots of lighting scenarios.

- Thomas

After the rinsing is done I pour distilled water into the tank and use Photo Flo. I would not wipe the negatives on either side with a windshield wiper or sponge of any kind. That will eventually cause scratches.

I second all those who use distilled water.

I was having trouble with a sepia toner; turns out it was the hardness of the tap water. A bottle of distilled water is cheap insurance, so now I mix my film & paper developers, PhotoFlo mix, and bleach & toners in distilled water. I make up 4 liters of PhotoFlo and reuse it for a couple of months. I drain my film at a 45 degree angle until the dripping stops before I hang to dry. If I do "squeegee" the film, I dip my fingers in the drying agent and gently squeegee the film (35mm & 120. My fingers are not long enough for 4x5). The few times that I do get water spots (rare), I either (a) wash-drying agent-drain-dry again if I'm not pressed for time or (b) use a photo wipe and isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol to clean if I am pressed for time.

The best, negatives, i have, ever, developed. 30ml to 970ml water. 30 min dev time, 1 min stop citric acid 1 + 19, 5 min fix in rollei neutral fix. Can't wait to print! Will keep you all posted!

Prints are apsolutely stunning! At 3.5x5, they are superb with quite a decent tonal range, as shown on a pile of bricks. 5x7 has the grain effect, which you can easily see, went well with a photo of an old run down factory down town. Helps it look old fashioned! At 10x8, the grain is too much, and ruins the image, all of this is at 30ml to 970, develop for 30 minutes, citric acid stop, 5 minutes in odourless fixer. I am hooked! I want to try a higher dilution, say 1+100, with sacrifice of some contrast, to see what happens grain wise. and develop for 45 minutes. The only frustrating part was the long development times, where you are a sitting duck!

What film are you using it with? At 8x10 size, you should be able to get an almost grain free print, even with Rodinal, depending on film (Obviously something like Delta 3200 or TMax 3200 would yield visible grain).

I'm very happy that you like the results. 30ml to 970 equals a ratio of 1:32 or so. When you use 1:100 instead, contrast doesn't have to suffer. Rodinal is a developer that is slow working, but very powerful, and when you dilute to 1:100 it just takes longer to get pretty much the same result.
The exception to that rule is to do standing development, where you agitate only once or a few times during the entire developing process, which often is an hour long or more. Using normal agitation with one or two full tank inversions every minute or so, will yield similar results at 1:100 as it does at 1:32. It will just take longer.

Pay close attention to temperature of all your processing liquids when you process film. That includes wash water and wetting agent. The developer is critically needing to be right at temperature +/- no more than a few tenths of a degree. Stop bath, fixer, wash, wash aid, etc should be within a degree or two of the developer temperature. This helps minimize grain, and is a good foundation for repeatable results.

Ilford PAN 100 35mm. My darkroom tends to sit at around 19 - 21C, i take the tank into the kitchen (which doesnt have bad temp changes) and let it work at ambient temperature. i did a few agitations during the developing probably 3 or 4 times. I enlarged a few of the other scenes, other than the old factory and reading my notes i have found the factory scenes to be underexposed, whereas the properly exposed ones came out superb at 8x10. (Was busy talking to a friend while i was shooting) (One of a dandilion, blossom and a mobile phone mast included). I have gotten mixing confused, I was thinking of 1+100, not 1:100! On sunday im going to a village to a friends place, where i will expose another roll, and try it at 1+99,(10ml to 990) and develop for 60 minutes. Sure is fun!

Try Fomadon R09, dillution of 1:100....I like it a lot!!!

Later-JOE

Rodinal has been my standard developer for all formats for the last 56 years.

Wonderful stuff, with an almost infinite shelf life.

I have enough on the shelf to easily last the rest of my life and well into the next.

- Leigh