For starters, your development time for 1:25 dilution should have been about 9 minutes, assuming you exposed at 125 ASA.
So, I finally developed my first roll of FP4 with Rodinal 1+25, and it came out super overcooked.
The negative looks very high contrast, but the scanner saved me - I was able to recover details.
Even with the overcooking, I must admit, I really like this combo of FP4 and Rodinal.
Help me figure out what I did wrong:
The film was shot at 200 ISO. I used 20 ml for 500 ml of water for 13 minutes. I always used a stick to agitate - so I twisted the stick (with normal speed, not too fast and not too slow) for the first 30 seconds, and then I agitated for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. Usually, with HP5 and HC-110, I agitate every minute for 10 seconds, but I decided to save myself a little time.
The issue for sure could be that I agitated too much, but I never thought that it would affect it so much.
Maybe I developed it for too long and need to reduce the time?
I did some research and realized that since I'm mostly shooting high-contrast scenes, I want to use a 1+50 or even 1+100 dilution. Could anybody tell me, if I use these dilutions, how long I'll need to agitate? Or maybe with a 1+100 dilution, it makes sense to use stand development? In this case, I'll need to agitate (or use the stick) for the first minute, and then leave the tank for an hour.
he negative looks very high contrast, but the scanner saved me - I was able to recover details.
Contrast and shadow detail aren't the same thing. You can have high contrast with lots of shadow detail. Pushing or pulling film, agitation, development time will have an impact on contrast. Shadow detail will depend on how you've metered the scene.
That said, you're getting exactly what you should be getting if you use FP4+ @ 200 in Rodinal 1+25 : high contrast with little shadow detail, especially if you didn't meter for the shadows. Your agitation scheme has nothing to do with your results.
Which brings me to the part that is confusing me. You said you wanted to emulate Trent Parke's style. High contrast with little or no shadow detail is a huge part of that style, from what I can tell. That said, no way of knowing how much of it is the negative, and how much is the darkroom work.
Acutance isn't glow.
Acutance is sharp edges on small details - and not necessarily natural and accurate to real life sharp edges on small details.
You're right but I wonder if the OP's glow isn't a form of Mackie lines which might be described as a form of glow around the edges where light meets dark at sharp edges. It certainly isn't what most recognise as "glow" and I have always found that I have had to really examine a print closely to even detect this effect
OP, can you show us a print of a neg or print which have been stand-developed and which shows the glow to which you refer?
Thanks
pentaxuser
You're right, I didn't know what it's called, but this is what I meant.
The first photo is developed in 1:25, 13 mins @200
View attachment 362902
and the second in 1:100, 60mins, @64
View attachment 362901
As you can see on the first photo has a lot more 'glow' than the second one, however, conditions was almost similar in terms of light.
FWIW, "glow" usually is a result of how the highlights render and is more often than not evidence of good highlight contrast.
And in my experience, reduced agitation development schemes like stand development compress the range in the highlights - they are exactly the opposite of what you need in order to achieve "glow".
For "glow", you need the right sort of light, and you want to use the right combination of agitation and development time to achieve full highlight density, without excess highlight density - i.e. you don't want to over-develop.
In your example, it isn't what I meant, but I get where you're leaning. This is what you're getting with stand development: this play between dark and bright areas, not the halation.
If it's halation you want, why not use a film with bad or no anti-halation tech? Aviphot, Foma... Kentmere is also a little worse than Ilford.
I shoot a lot of HP5+ and FP4+ (in 35mm, 120, and 4x5). For a long time, I developed HP5+ only in HC-110, and FP4+ only in Rodinal. I still use those developers in medium and large format where the grain is basically a nonissue. I stopped using FP4+ in Rodinal with 35mm film because I found it too grainy, and with a harsh and unpleasing grain to my eye.
HP5+ in HC-110 (in 35mm format) gives a somewhat soft image with definite grain, but it's a smooth, pleasing grain that works well with many of the types of photos I like to shoot. FP4+ in Rodinal (in 35mm format) gives a very crunchy, sharp, salt-and-pepper grain that is significantly more noticeable than HP5+ in HC-110, despite the film being slower.
With Rodinal, it seems agitation has a lot to do with grain formation. I meter at EI 64, and develop in 1:100 Rodinal with constant rotary agitation for 7 minutes to get negatives of a normal contrast, which print well at Grade 2. For medium format and up, the grain is basically not noticeable at the normal print sizes I do (generally 8x10, 11x14, sometimes as large as 16x20). With 35mm film, the grain is readily apparent even with a 5x7 print, and downright distracting IMO in an 8x10 print.
As I understand highlight development is affected by agitation, the harder you agitate - the more highlights will be developed, and you could block highlights
Regarding stand development - it needs to be used when you want to get a flat negative with compressed contrast.
This is not quite how it works. The essential purpose of agitation is to provide even development. Agitation will have an impact on contrast, development time, film speed. Development time will have a much greater impact on highlight development. As does dilution in the case of developers who become compensating developers when used at high dilution (D-23 at 1:3, for example).
In other words, all parameters are related. If you do a lot of agitation but develop less time than normal, you will not get blocked highlights. And by "lot of agitation", I don't mean "agitating harder", as you wrote. I mean developing longer, i.e., more inversions at each cycle. Strength of agitation doesn't have that much impact.
That said, all this, as I mentioned before, is dependent on exposure. Blocked highlights — i.e., dense negs — come from overexposure, and the "blocked" part will be accentuated by overdevelopment. Check Ralph Gibson's photographs if you want to see examples of this done on purpose.
Problem with the photos you've posted — sorry to repeat myself — are that they are overexposed.
Normally with minimal agitation or stand development, you do get compression in the highlights, as you mention (your highlights are still blocked, which, again, points to overexposure). This, however, doesn't mean getting a "flat negative". The shoulder will be flattened, because the developer will stop working earlier in the denser areas, but the high dilution will have a positive impact on local contrast in the other areas.
If you look at Trent Parke's photos from the Dream/Life book by googling, you'll find a few examples of what I'm talking about.
sure, but as I said, rn I just trying to understand how to get halation on purpose.What you seek is achieved through the skill of the photographer, knowing what he wants and how to "see" it in a scene.
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