Rodinal & Microdol-X

Alright I've been reading the 'net all night and finally got home and looked through APUG for a while. I think I've figured out what I wanted to know about the two but just want some quick simple answers to the "basics" of these two developers.

Background: my two favorite films are Fuji Acros 100 and Ilford Pan F Plus. I've always developed in Tmax and HC-110 before realizing that development was at least half the battle. Anyways depending on what the subject is I'm usually print at 16x20 from 6x7 negs. Generally I either want extreme sharpness or absolutely no grain. Here's what I think I've learned, could you guys please correct anything that I have wrong and confirm everything I have right? Thanks.

If I used Rodinal this is going to give me accutance (right word?) meaning there'll be more pronounced grain but sharpness will be top notch.?? Right/wrong?

If I used Microdol-X it'll give me perfectly smooth buttery prints with no signs of grain in sight, but it won't be razor sharp, but still good enough from 5'-10' or more? Right/wrong?

Thanks for the help, I just get confused with all the terminology of accutnance and speed loss and, just everything.

Yep!

jgoeden said:

If I used Rodinal this is going to give me accutance (right word?) meaning there'll be more pronounced grain but sharpness will be top notch.?? Right/wrong?

Click to expand...

You may also want to investigate or trial varying dilutions of Rodinal. At higher dilutions coupled with reduced agitation you can get very good perceived sharpness (accutance) without having a lot of grain, especially with MF. This also helps control excessive contrast. Also have a read up on stand development.

For example, try Acros in Rodinal 1+100 for around 18 minutes. Agitate 15s each minute (~5 inversions) for first three minutes, then one inversion every 3 minutes. Sharp, no grain and great tonal range.

You can also try Microdol-X at the 1+3 dilution.

To be painfully accurate, the Resolution of the film is unaffected by the developer.
Referring to the smallest object the film can see, it is up to the film and film alone, an issue of grain size . But getting it onto the paper, that's a different story, and up to the developer's contribution. That is usually referred to as Acutance, and usually refers to a much larger object, but more significant: the contour lines in the image, and the small picture elelments that read take out cues from to feel the 'clarity', or acutance of the image.... often around .1 mm on the film.

So, the developer presents this information in different ways. Your choice of Rodinal and Microdol X is wonderul, for it covers the landscape from 'acutance losing' to 'neutral' to two varieties of 'acutance enhancing' formula.

I'd guess you would see more profound effects with FP4 or Tri X, for example. Pan F will be more responsive to the differences. ACROS will be interesting, and you may need to develop to a slightly higher than normal density to see the effects: it is a VERY low grain, high res film !


Have a great time with this and show us the pictures.



d

Those are my two main developers - well, Microdol-X was a replacement for Perceptol, which now available again so I am moving back. I use Rodinal with the slower films (PanF+ and FP4+) and Microdol-X/Perceptol with faster films (HP5+ and Tri-X). This gives me acutance without overly large grain (grain is not a bad thing like many people would have you believe). With the faster films, I use 1:3 Microdol/Perceptol to get similar results. You have to think about gradation and other things as well, but there is no substitute for first hand experience when you are talking about developers. Experiment a bit to see what you can do with your combo so that you know what your pallete has to offer and you will see a definite return in the quality of your results.

- Randy

For the Fuji Acros and other T-grain/Delta films it is recommended to dilute solvent type developers like Microdol-X, D-76, Perceptol, etc 1+3.

Thanks guys for the simple answers and easy to understand explanations. I do appreciate it. I'm glad I didn't get any "well search the thread" answers, b/c I did and a lot of it has soo much info it's hard to understand for a novice. Thanks again. I will post some results but probably not many because like many on this site I can't figure out how to hook photoshop up to the omega! lol. For the shoot coming up I'll probably be using the Acros + Rodinal combination for increased sharpness. She's a model who needs some prints and I don't think 8x10 prints from a 6x7 would even show grain on 400 speed films (no "testing" but just an assumption). Anyways I also get what you mean about the grain. I'm not a fan of I guess you would call it "medium grain". I either want perfectly smooth prints or SOME DARN HUGE GRAIN! lol but then i'll just push tri-x to 1600-3200 or some neopan 1600 to like 3200 or 6400. then again I've never done this but "guessing" the scene's I wanna shoot for grain I'm sure it'll look good. Thanks again, so helpful! Will post soon.