Sharpness Revisited - a JOBO Rotary Process Saga (pt2)

Hey guys, I promised I would report when I had done more rigorous testing and found the right combo.

After being unhappy with "grain edge sharpness" which seems to be rather generalized to what we all look for in terms of image detail, I have finally found a happy medium for at least 1 film, AND I get to keep using Rodinal!

Delta100 @100 in Rodinal 1:50 12 minutes.

I may play around slightly with those variables for optimum exposure/development, but it's an EXCELLENT start!

I was so excited with my results I am of course pre-posting before I have the time to fully share the resultant examples. And they are of course scans so a fair amount of you will find less value in the results and that's ok.

But I felt that it was important to share some kind of conclusion with those of you who followed the previous sharpness thread that went all haywire.

That takes care of the 100 speed, and most of my shooting.

Still working on 400, but not done testing that yet, I've run out of sheets of HP5+ I still have 25 sheets of TMY-2 however I've decided that the only film I can justify shooting at "higher than ilford prices" is the Acros100 that I love so much for nighttime long exposures. Those rotary tests will be done at a later time, if I have no success, I may keep JUST the Acros100 development to hand processing and leave for truly important shots. And if it goes well, well then that's even better!

That's it for now, if I can get done before my GF gets here I can post a few examples.

And just what do you plan to do if you can't finish it before she arrives?

Hmmmmm?

pbromaghin said:

And just what do you plan to do if you can't finish it before she arrives?

Hmmmmm?

Click to expand...

Finish later? Lol

Example 1

Full image


1:1


Example 2 full image



1:1


Nothing has been done to the images in post.

Happy and satisfied Stone

Wait a minute Stone. You didn't even post the camera, lens and exposure info...



Just kidding, the results look good. I am curious however why you are so insistent that Rodinal has to be the developer? I do like Rodinal, but I have found other developers that seem to be better suited for the Jobo continuous rotation model.

If you likes em, then you shoots em.

Looks like you're having success, and have a solution to the consistency issue as well

Back to the motherf***ing photography!

Pioneer said:

Wait a minute Stone. You didn't even post the camera, lens and exposure info...



Just kidding, the results look good. I am curious however why you are so insistent that Rodinal has to be the developer? I do like Rodinal, but I have found other developers that seem to be better suited for the Jobo continuous rotation model.

Click to expand...

Cost and space

$13 = 1 bottles of Rodinal = 6 months of processing.

$180 = 10 bottles of DD-X = 6 months of processing.

I'll post all the details another time when I have time to enter them in the gallery I already posted the dev times just not exposure times.

DD-X seems to be the only liquid developer besides Rodinal that has given me the look I want with the grain and edge effects I want.

These were only 2400 scans, I should have scanned at 3200 but I didn't have time. Such is life, it's good enough to see I've found a match.

StoneNYC said:

Nothing has been done to the images in post.

Click to expand...

sharpen unsharpen masks?
levels?
contrast+brightness?
lightroom?
in scanner software adjustments?
interpolation?

certainly something has been done ...

jnanian said:

sharpen unsharpen masks?
levels?
contrast+brightness?
lightroom?
in scanner software adjustments?
interpolation?

certainly something has been done ...

Click to expand...

And they seem to be positives, not negatives, maybe he is reversal processing his films.

Please stop. Whatever he is doing, StoneNYC is now happy, so let him continue to do that. We do not need to turn this into another 50+ pages epic.

Glad he's happy.

Claiming no manipulation though, is simply wrong.

It is outside the scope of this forum to discuss the specifics of why. But if one understands how a digital image file is made, then one also understands that digital images are intrinsically manipulated.

jnanian said:

sharpen unsharpen masks?
levels?
contrast+brightness?
lightroom?
in scanner software adjustments?
interpolation?

certainly something has been done ...

Click to expand...

I scanned them with the standard scan, didn't adjust any levels, then I imported the TIFF image into Lightroom and exported it as a JPEG... It was effectively resized to fit the constraints of APUG's limited file size handling.

No levels, no brightness, no sharpening, no scanner adjustments...

Don't be difficult... It's a straight scan...

didjiman said:

Please stop. Whatever he is doing, StoneNYC is now happy, so let him continue to do that. We do not need to turn this into another 50+ pages epic.

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Thanks. Why do they goad me? Lol

markbarendt said:

Glad he's happy.

Claiming no manipulation though, is simply wrong.

It is outside the scope of this forum to discuss the specifics of why. But if one understands how a digital image file is made, then one also understands that digital images are intrinsically manipulated.

Click to expand...

I mean that I didn't do any levels adjustments, the scanner did scan at it's own baseline, but effectively I did no adjustments, no contest, no clarity, nothing, no sliders, just made it a readable image instead of a 150mb TIFF file...

I just mean I didn't "cheat" and do any post scan adjustments at all.

I know what they mean. I know what you mean.

Sigh.

Glad you found a combo you like and that's cheaper than DD-X. Delta is good and under-appreciated film. I wish they still made Delta 400 in 4x5 sheets! (Hint, Simon...)

I like to use DD-X. It gives great results. I recently switched to Xtol. Good as anything else.

It is outside the scope of this forum to discuss the specifics of why. But if one understands how a digital image file is made, then one also understands that digital images are intrinsically manipulated.

Click to expand...

This applies to any image that is discussed on this forum. On the one hand, what would be a photo forum if we did not discuss images (gear discussions?). On the other hand, because of the rules here, we must pretend that the image on the screen is not d*****l.

StoneNYC said:

Thanks. Why do they goad me? Lol

Click to expand...

StoneNYC said:

I scanned them with the standard scan, didn't adjust any levels, then I imported the TIFF image into Lightroom and exported it as a JPEG... It was effectively resized to fit the constraints of APUG's limited file size handling.

No levels, no brightness, no sharpening, no scanner adjustments...

Don't be difficult... It's a straight scan...

Click to expand...

not being difficult .. not goading you ..
not really any such thing as a straight scan but that said. ...
... whatever.

markbarendt said:

Glad he's happy.

Claiming no manipulation though, is simply wrong.

It is outside the scope of this forum to discuss the specifics of why. But if one understands how a digital image file is made, then one also understands that digital images are intrinsically manipulated.

Click to expand...

+1

glad you are happy with whatever system you have working for you

That's pretty draconian policy. The only film I use regularly is for 4x5 so LFF and various FB groups cover that already. I only visit because of StoneNYC's entertaining threads XD, and I will not contribute fund to the site with this sort of policy.

Developing using Rodinal

This is according to an Agfa Manual I have, Rodinal should not be used for rotary processing or other processing where constant agitation is carried out. The reason behind this is it will reduce the 'edge' effect of sharpening the image and a possible increase of grain, although this will not be so clearly defined.

The recommended developing/agitation for Rodinal, also from this book is :- For the first 30 seconds constant inversion or rotary agitation, then for the remaining time, one inversion only, every 30 seconds

Rodinal achieves the 'edge' effect, (very similar to unsharp mask in Adobe) by allowing the low rate of agitation to exhaust the developer in the highlight areas (denser part of the negative) which will give a miniscule clear line between a highlight area and one which is not so dense. Thereby giving an apparent increase in sharpness.

I know that some of the higher dilutions used by Rodinal developer, timings can be excessive, but shortening the times by using constant agitation, even with reduced times will almost certainly dull the effect of the recommendation by Agfa. I know they have been out of the mainstream for a while, but their advice still stands good today.

StoneNYC said:

I mean that I didn't do any levels adjustments, the scanner did scan at it's own baseline, but effectively I did no adjustments, no contest, no clarity, nothing, no sliders, just made it a readable image instead of a 150mb TIFF file...

I just mean I didn't "cheat" and do any post scan adjustments at all.

Click to expand...

It isn't a matter of "cheating" Stone. Scanning is a viable way of doing your work. It can produce lots of great stuff and if it works for you, great, embrace it and do good work.

I'm going to step out on the limb here though and super over-simplify to explain this at it's most basic because it is a concept that is important for people shooting film and sending it out to labs for printing to understand.

Sensor data + a set of instructions = a digital image.

Not using "a set of instructions" to "develop" the sensor data, is the equivalent of not using a developer on your film. You get no image at all, period.

Somebody has to define those instructions and those instructions vary from machine to machine, program to program, operator to operator, resolution setting to resolution setting.

The point I'm making is that the idea of a "straight scan" can only be applied "locally" (i.e at Stone's place) not globally (i.e at Stone's place and Mark's place and jnanian's place and Thomas's place and the local mini-lab).

scan and enjoy life, its too short to worry about other stuff, unless you want to ..

Give him a break. We all know what he means. People are just being annoyingly pedantic about it.

Pedantic? Isn't that what the 'P' in APUG stands for?

Roger Cole said:

Give him a break. We all know what he means. People are just being annoyingly pedantic about it.

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Because Stone won't be the only one using the info found here.

Over my years here I have answered many questions from people asking what was wrong with their film because the prints/scans they got back from the lab suck.

Hint, it's typically not the film that caused the problem/confusion.