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Semi stand in larger tank

Discussion in 'B&W: Film, Paper, Chemistry' started by Domin, Apr 16, 2009.

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  1. Apr 16, 2009 #1
    Domin

    Domin Member

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    Recently I was getting uneven results while developing FP4 in Rodinal 1+100 1h with no agitation. It used to work well with old orwo film. I'm not sure what are the causes. I'm going to do semi stand this time - a few inversions at the beging and one or two at 30 minutes as from what I read it works even for other people.

    I have 4 or 5 rolls which I plan to develop. I used to develop one roll at a time as I had small tank. Now I have bigger one - 6 x120 or 5 x135. Is it safe to develop them at the same time with the agitation above? I'm bit afraid that higher tank can exaggerate problems with uneven development.
     
  2. Apr 16, 2009 #2
    Larry.Manuel

    Larry.Manuel Member

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    I've had good results with 120 size FP4+ at EI 100 in Rodinal 1+ 100 for 15 minutes, several agitations in the first minute, then one agitation each 3 minutes after that. My tank holds 6x120 or 8x135 films. There have been no problems using it with many films at once. It always amazes me - how active Rodinal is at these high dilutions. To me, FP4+ in Rodinal is perfect - the negatives have always been easy to print.

    My tests with stand development gave unevenly developed negatives.
     
  3. Apr 16, 2009 #3
    skillian

    skillian Subscriber

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    I do Rodinal 1:100 for an hour and have never experienced any uneven development. My agitation method is one 15 second inversion at the start and another at 30 minutes. Works like a champ. Regarding tanks - I always double the developer volume to film ratio. In other words, 2 rolls in a 4 roll rank, 3 rolls in a 6 roll tank, etc... Because of the dilution rates, I've found this to be necessary not only with roll film, but also with the 8x10 sheets I develop using semi stand. My results with a shorter tube resulted in high base fog at the top of the film - a taller tube (more developer volume) will eliminate this. Good luck!