Rodinal At High Dilutions

Hi All,

Recently, I've been experimenting with Rodinal (and Patrick Gainer's metol based Rodinal clone). To be truthful, I was surprised at the excellent negatives and print tones I've been getting with this developer. For some reason Rodinal has been virtually foolproof for me, although I've currently standardized on FX-37. Still, I'm tempted to consider switching to Rodinal for most of my developing needs. To think, I used to be such a grain-a-phobe.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experiences that like to share using Rodinal, especially at the higher dilutions (1+100 or greater). Specifically, I'm looking for any techniques, such as agitation, used to obtain desired negative properties. From a personal standpoint, I'm looking for advice on taming contrast, achieving good negative luminosity and controlling grain. For reference purposes, I've been using APX 100 and Tri-X 400 as my primary film choices.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Barry Thornton's book, 'The edge of darkness' is interesting reading. He discusses the effects of dilution, etc, on grain. One thing he doesn't appear to cover, and which I wonder about at times, is developer exhaustion at high dilutions - in other words, is there sufficient developer in the tank to develop the highlights fully?

I've done a lot of APX 100 in Rodinal 1+100 for 20 minutes. Great for controlling high contrast scenes.

I agitate for the first 60 seconds and then three inversions every 5th minute.

Works great.

Rodinal is also grerat for Pan-F. After much time, I think I've finally nailed down: 1+100, 20 min., 1 inversion every other minute.

Both Tri-X and APX 100 are great in Rodinal, too.

I used to use Rodinal a lot, and my favorite film with it was Efke 25 at 1+100 dilution. Development times would change depending on brightness range but then I always agitated for ten seconds every minute. I'm thinking that to tame contrast perhaps I should have agitated less often. Efke had a way of running away with contrast with too long development times.
APX100 was another film I really liked in Rodinal. Didn't try Tri-X much until after I discovered Pyrocat.
Not much food for thought, but I can confirm that I liked how those negs printed.
- Thomas

My standard dilution with Rodinal is 1+100, with 5 inversions every minute for the first three minutes, then one inversion every three minutes thereafter. 20 minutes is a good starting time for most ISO 25 - 200 films and TriX & a little bit extra for APX 400 and Neopan 400 (@ EI250).

Not too grainy, nice and sharp, good shadow detail and no blocked highlights.

Having sounded so positive though, my default developer now is PC-TEA.

P C Headland said:

My standard dilution with Rodinal is 1+100, with 5 inversions every minute for the first three minutes, then one inversion every three minutes thereafter. 20 minutes is a good starting time for most ISO 25 - 200 films and TriX & a little bit extra for APX 400 and Neopan 400 (@ EI250).

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Do you find with higher dilutions the grain is smaller? I'm using Rodinal at 1+50 dilution and find the grain actually tolerable.

"Stand-Entwickler sind stark verdünnte Lösungen für langsame Entwicklung (1/2 Stunde) in Tanks (Fotohändler!) oder Dosen. Ein mit 30 bis 40 Teilen Wasser verdünnter Rapid-Entwickler wird zum Standentwickler: er arbeitet zart, ausgleichend und feinkörnig."
Dr Walther Heering: Das Rolliflex-Buch (1951:156).

Herr Dr Heering considered Rodinal to be a "Rapid-Entwickler" (ibid) that in normal dilutions (1:3 – 1:10) produced large grain.

If we are to believe the quote above it is apparent that Rodinal is capable of fine grain in higher dilutions when using stand development. I have, however, found very little to support this statement when using modern films. But then again; nor have I tried to use Rodinal in 1:3 dilution…

Uhner said:

"Stand-Entwickler sind stark verdünnte Lösungen für langsame Entwicklung (1/2 Stunde) in Tanks (Fotohändler!) oder Dosen. Ein mit 30 bis 40 Teilen Wasser verdünnter Rapid-Entwickler wird zum Standentwickler: er arbeitet zart, ausgleichend und feinkörnig."
Dr Walther Heering: Das Rolliflex-Buch (1951:156).

Herr Dr Heering considered Rodinal to be a "Rapid-Entwickler" (ibid) that in normal dilutions (1:3 – 1:10) produced large grain.

If we are to believe the quote above it is apparent that Rodinal is capable of fine grain in higher dilutions when using stand development. I have, however, found very little to support this statement when using modern films. But then again; nor have I tried to use Rodinal in 1:3 dilution…

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It appears that stand development should be a high development for fine grain but you quote a 1:3 ratio for Rodinal. This doesn't appear to be dilute at all. Am I missing something?

I’m sorry. No you have not missed anything important. I just tried to bring a historical perspective to the discussion with a quote from a book that my father bought in the early fifties.

What Heering meant was that highly diluted Rodinal (1:30 or 1:40) used as a stand developer has compensating action and produce soft negatives with fine grain. He also stated that Rodinal in normal dilutions produce large grain. Apparently he considered 1:30 to 1:40 to be high dilutions and 1:3 to 1:10 to be normal dilutions. He is however talking simultaneously about several developers (Rodinal, Perinal and Paranol), something that might account for the different dilutions.

Personally I consider Rodinal to be highly diluted at 1:100, but times and materials change.

Thank for clearing things up for me regarding Dr. Heering's commentary.