Semi stand method for Neopan at 200, Rodinal 1:50 or other dilution?

Just developed about 50 rolls of Neopan at 200 (135 and 120). I used Rodinal 1:50 over 9 minutes with 30 seconds agitation initially and 3 inversions over 15 seconds per minute afterwards. I did each tank serially and it took me the better part of daylight to complete the taksk.

If I use semi-stand, I could have 3 or 4 tanks going at the same time, with the bottleneck being washing/rinsing.

Can people recommend their semi-stand recipe for Neopan 400 shot at 200 or 400 (200 preferred) and Rodinal at whatever dilution they find gives good results.

I use only Neopan 120/135 and Rodinal. My scenes are usually moderately contrasty, outdoors, enviornmental portraits.

It will not hurt film, nor will it change the contrast that much, to let it sit for a little while once it has gone through a healthy chunk of its development time. You can make up for the standing by agitating later. When I do multiple tanks at once, I wait till about halfway through the first tank's development time, then I stop the timer for the first tank at one of the 30 second marks, and I get the second tank going. When the second tank's timer hits a 0 second mark, I flick the first tank's timer back on. I arrange it so that I agitate each tank once a minute, but since the tanks are staggered by 30 seconds, the agitations do not overlap, so I am not doing a juggling act. The second tank then sits with its timer off while I dump the developer from the first tank, stop the film, and then fill the tank with water. Finally, I turn the second timer back on and go back to agitating the second tank. I have three Gra-lab timers. They are terribly cheap on the used market, and provide all you need in a processing timer, plus a few conveniences that a wall clock does not provide. (I also use them for printing, though there are much better timer options for that.)

I have not done any more than two tanks this way, but doing 8 rolls of 35mm at a time is really not a bad rate of production. If you really need to do more, you can double roll the films back to back on the reels, so you are doing 16 rolls at a time (or 8 with 120). Just make sure that you are using plenty of developer. I would only do this with undiluted D-76, for instance, not 1:1. You can also use 220 reels to develop two rolls of 120 end to end. I have stainless 220 reels, and I tape the two rolls of 120 end to end when I do this.

I do not have any specific minimal agitation techniques for Neopan 400 to share, but I do know that letting it sit for a few minutes while you do something else will not hurt it unless you do it near the beginning of the development time.

I tried Tmax 400 with Rodinal as a semi stand developer at a very high concentration (1+200) for 1 hour. I could not find any unevenness in the negatives although I only agitated in the beginning for 1 minute continiously and at half an hour for 6 times. Another try was with Fomapan 200 and also brought very good results with no faults.

I think with Neopan it would be mainly the same but there is one thing that you have to keep in mind. (Semi) stand development heavily influences the gradation with increasing the micro contrasts in the picture very much. It produces also strongly increased sharpness enhancing edge effects. Therefore pictures I made with semi stand development look much sharper and textures are rendered much more "brilliant" than with the conventional developing in a fine grain developer (A49, that is similar D76). I know Rodinal is already sharper as fine grain developers with the normal processing but through stand development this tendence still becomes more distinct.

Some people might like the produced "very sharp" look, some would prefer a more smooth gradation and sharpness. In every case it is worth trying stand development to see what a unique look it produces.

Best,
Andreas

(Semi-)stand is actually film-independent, because it ends up developing the film (any film) to completion.

With Rodinal many people use 1+100 or 1+200, agitate for 30 sec. to 1 min. (usually 5 - 10 slow torus inversions), and leave it for 1 or 2 hours (some agitate in the middle as well). I like 1+200, agitate for 30 sec, and leave for 2 hrs. I have a 2-reel Patterson which holds about 600 ml of liquid, so I do 1 35mm or 120 film at a time, 3 ml Rodinal, and 600 ml water. The reason I only do 1 film at a time is 3 ml of Rodinal is below the recommended minimum amount of developer concentrate (I believe the stated minimum is 5 ml) - it works fine at 3 ml, but I don't want to exhaust it unnecessarily by doing 2 at once.

Have fun

Neopan 400@250 in Rodinal 1:50, 20C, 13min 30sec: agitating first 30sec and then 3 inserts every 3 minutes. This recipe works very well for me.