Rodinal Substitutes?

[David A. Goldfarb]

My wife noticed the other day that the bottle of generic 500 mg acetaminophen tablets in the medicine cabinet was way past date, and despite the fact that it seemed perfectly effective a few weeks ago, she was going to toss it out and replace it, but I said, "Wait! I can develop film with that!" I mixed up a batch of paRodinal, and whaddya know, the darn stuff works and produces results a lot like Rodinal. Maybe the grain is even a bit finer. This is a perfectly respectable film developer. If I wasn't using scrap Tylenol, I don't know that it would be any cheaper than real Rodinal or R09 [actually, I looked up the price of Rodinal and the price of generic acetaminophen and the other ingredients, and paRodinal is much cheaper (approx $2.50/500ml vs. $15/500ml), but they're both cheap enough that it doesn't really matter that much], but it's interesting to know I've got the option.

Details for attached image: Linhof Tech V 4x5" with a 2.25x3.25" sheet film back, 360/5.5 Tele-Xenar, Y2 filter, 1/50 sec., f:18, J&C Classic 200 (Fortepan) rated at EI 200, paRodinal (1+50), 12 min., 68 deg. F, agitation every 30 sec. in a tray.

 

[Uhner]

That is quite impressive. Makes me wonder why I keep 3 litres of Rodinal stored in the basement in case supplies run dry again.

 

[Snapshot]

I've been using Gainer's Metolal to good effect. The results are very similar to Rodinal and it's easy to mix up.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

Gainer's EZ-Rodinal

I've been using Gainer's Metolal to good effect. The results are very similar to Rodinal and it's easy to mix up.

Also, here is Gainer's recipe for EZ-Rodinal

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)