Rodinal comparison with R09

Gerald Koch · Jan 24, 2006

I have a bottle of R09 but have yet to try it. May make a good weekend project.

It is my understanding that R09 is somewhat less concentrated than Rodinal since its recommended dilution is 1:40 rather than 1:50. This may explain the different results.

Gibran · Jan 24, 2006

Gerald Koch said:
I have a bottle of R09 but have yet to try it. May make a good weekend project.

It is my understanding that R09 is somewhat less concentrated than Rodinal since its recommended dilution is 1:40 rather than 1:50. This may explain the different results.

So I guess if one tried 1:80 that would be equivilent to Rodinals 1:100? I personally never go above about 1:63 with Rodinal so its a non issue to me, R09 would probably work fine for my purposes.

avandesande · Jan 24, 2006

I am quite satisfied with the post that started this thread.

Gibran said:
I'm glad you got us back on topic. Sorry for the detour although we will just have to agree to disagree on the merits of Bill Troops argument for the possibility of a second developing agent. You dismiss as pure nonsense that the fact that Rodinal is active at 1:100 is not collaborating evidence of said second highly active developing agent. My question to you is, have you used some of the other Rodinal substitues, in particular the R09 at dilutions of 1:100 to back up your nonsense claim. Otherwise, your just, well speculating yourself. But, if you have, then that would provide the original poster with some good info and discard what has been said here previously(that R09 does not work as well as Agfa Rodinal at high dilutions such as 1:100 or above).

gainer · Jan 24, 2006

avandesande said:
I am quite satisfied with the post that started this thread.

Forget the quote. I pushed the wrong button.

I probably shouldn't mention this, but if paraminophenol and potassium hydroxide went into Rodinal, I'd have to agree that the ions are still there, except that the hydroxide ion went into making water when its other half, sodium or potassium, made the paraminophenolate. The Wolfen recipe said 17 kg of the potassium hydroxide in, I suspect, a 1000 liter batch. That's almost enough to make the phenolate out of the specified 34 kg of paraminophenol, with certainly no hydroxide left over. If you were to evaporate a batch of Rodinal under vacuum, you would not find potassium hydroxide and paraminophenol, I'll bet.

If there's a synergistic agent in the AGFA Rodinal, there would likely be more of it than the paraminophenol, which is about as good an activator of ascorbate or hydroquinone as Metol. Gerald, I seem to remember, posted the formula for Kalogen, which is a PQ stand in for Rodinal

Whatever is not hypothethcal conjecture is all nit picking, which can be fun, but I have found several formulas using the same principle as Rodinal that give about the same result. By that I mean that IMHO if you had never known Rodinal, you wouldn't miss it if you knew any of these formulas.

Donald Qualls · Jan 25, 2006

There are a lot of arguments about "secret ingredients" in Agfa (soon to be A&O) Rodinal, based on its ability to be used at 1:100.

The "Parodinal" I've been using, containing (as mixed) only acetaminophen (converts to p-aminophenol in hydroxide solution), sodium sulfite, and sodium hydroxide, works fine at 1:100, and at the same dilutions and times recommended for Rodinal otherwise; I've stand developed Tri-X in it (1:100) and got film that was borderline overdeveloped in 45 minutes (though the 35 mm film had very heavy marks below the sprocket holes, presumably bromide drag due to density-induced circulation). No secret ingredients needed, no superadditivity going on -- just processing conditions that make the most of low developer activity.

edz · Jan 25, 2006

Donald Qualls said:
There are a lot of arguments about "secret ingredients" in Agfa (soon to be A&O) Rodinal

Not "soon to be" but "might be". They are selling pre-A&O production. Rodinal (as well as Sistan) were not ever made in Vaihingen/Enz. The problem is again the loss of the connection to Bayer and photochemical production as this was really the basis for the choice and economy of the formulations. A&O, like the rest of us, will need to purchase ready-made Rodinal and can only offer to bottle it and distribute it. A&O, however, lack a distribution network. Their focus is computer service. This fits perhaps into D-Lab (mini-lab) services but not quite into selling consumer chemicals. I see a lot of stones and stumbling blocks on the road. Beyond selling out from the current stocks to some mailorder wholesellers--- in this connection I'd like to point out that Afgaphoto too are selling to wholesellers and even have taken to try to sell stocks via eBay--- they are in need of quite a few more playing pieces before we can talk about them moving into the shoes.

avandesande · Jan 25, 2006

As much as we have groused about how hard it is to make photographic emulsions, finding a company to formulate and package rodinal is amazingly trivial.

edz · Jan 25, 2006

avandesande said:
As much as we have groused about how hard it is to make photographic emulsions, finding a company to formulate and package rodinal is amazingly trivial.

Brewing and bottling Rodinal is easy. Making and packing it at an attractive price and with a good margin is hardly so. The difference is really between "Rodinal" as a product and "Rodinal" as part of a business. The same arguments apply to Calbe R09 and Fomadon R09. Agfa used a lot of potassium salts as they were cheap in Leverkusen from Papa Bayer.

gainer · Jan 25, 2006

gainer said:
If there's a synergistic agent in the AGFA Rodinal, there would likely be more of it than the paraminophenol, which is about as good an activator of ascorbate or hydroquinone as Metol. Gerald, I seem to remember, posted the formula for Kalogen, which is a PQ stand in for Rodinal

I flubbed again. Kalogen is MQ, not PQ. I did make some PQ stuff that I like pretty well and that seems to be holding up well in storage.

Fotohuis · Jan 25, 2006

If our Rodinal stock is gone we will switch over to Fomadon R09.

Rodinal 125ml Eur. 4,00 2nd bottle -/- 10%
Rodinal 500ml Eur. 9,00 (stock almost gone)

Fomadon R09, 250 ml Eur. 4,50, available up from Februari 2006.
For most films we have some R09 data.
In most cases 1+50 Rodinal can be replaced by R09 1+40.

best regards,

Robert

titrisol · Feb 6, 2006

Yep, Love rodinal + Ascorbate
I just scanned some negs of FP4+ developed in 1+50+C for 9 minutes.... kewl results.

Dead Link Removed

gainer said:
Forget the quote. I pushed the wrong button.

I probably shouldn't mention this, but if paraminophenol and potassium hydroxide went into Rodinal, I'd have to agree that the ions are still there, except that the hydroxide ion went into making water when its other half, sodium or potassium, made the paraminophenolate. The Wolfen recipe said 17 kg of the potassium hydroxide in, I suspect, a 1000 liter batch. That's almost enough to make the phenolate out of the specified 34 kg of paraminophenol, with certainly no hydroxide left over. If you were to evaporate a batch of Rodinal under vacuum, you would not find potassium hydroxide and paraminophenol, I'll bet.

If there's a synergistic agent in the AGFA Rodinal, there would likely be more of it than the paraminophenol, which is about as good an activator of ascorbate or hydroquinone as Metol. Gerald, I seem to remember, posted the formula for Kalogen, which is a PQ stand in for Rodinal

Whatever is not hypothethcal conjecture is all nit picking, which can be fun, but I have found several formulas using the same principle as Rodinal that give about the same result. By that I mean that IMHO if you had never known Rodinal, you wouldn't miss it if you knew any of these formulas.

Gibran · Feb 6, 2006

titrisol said:
Yep, Love rodinal + Ascorbate
I just scanned some negs of FP4+ developed in 1+50+C for 9 minutes.... kewl results.

Dead Link Removed

Funny you should mention that as I have been testing various mixtures of Rodinal and Xtol lately after reading Mr. Cardwells article here and a mention of it at the Unblinkingeye. Definitely gives me sharper results than diluted HC-110 Yet also takes the edge off that Rodinal Grain(as seen in 4000dpi scans). Looks to be a pretty nice compromise with faster films such as Fuji Neopan 400. Waiting on some more Acros to try it on.

MMfoto · Feb 6, 2006

titrisol said:
Yep, Love rodinal + Ascorbate
I just scanned some negs of FP4+ developed in 1+50+C for 9 minutes.... kewl results.

Dead Link Removed

Can't tell a whole lot from the scans, but I really like the photos.

Rolleijoe · Apr 7, 2006

I just got my 1st bottle of "Fomadon R09", and a fresh bottle of Rodinal. Will be running similar tests myself with Efke 100. BTW, I think you've got way too much time on your hands. ; )

Rolleijoe · Apr 7, 2006

edz said:
R09 has the keeping powers not much unlike those of legendary Rodinal. The p-aminophenol in R09 is, if I'm not mistaken, still from the days of the DDR (and that country was annexed and its state disolved 15 years ago)--- and probably is from much earlier production. The problem with R09, however, are the horrible plastic bottles. The bottles seem to biodegrade right from day one.... Better were the old glass bottles with their low grade porous rubber stops.. but then again Agfa R.I.P. went over to less than ideal bottles too...

I still have about 9 large brown bottles of Microdol-X which I purchased as a full case back in '96 or so. May open 1 up this year and see how it goes.

Rodinal comparison with R09

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