Stand Development Fortepan 100

I shot a roll of night time city light shots last night, most of them with water and a lot of reflections. I shot them on Fortepan 100 at ISO 50 with exposure times ranging from 2 to 30 seconds and +1/2 to +1 stop compensation depending on what I was shooting. I want to use stand or semi stand development for these. The developers I have on hand are Rodinal, ID11, and Perceptol. From what I gather Rodinal is the best candidate for my developer. What I'm looking for are any suggestions of time, temp, dilution for developing these negs. The only time I did this type of development was on Pan F at 1/200 for 2 hours at room temp probably 75degs F. The results weren’t too bad, but I think the meter on that camera was not working accurate for night shots. I'm sure the meter on the camera I used last night is accurate. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

James,

Well, I just tried some stand development of that film in rodinol, 1:200 for 2 hours, at room temp last week. I was not impressed. Lots of contrast, Very High level of base fog. It was 120 if that makes a difference.

A good rule of thumb for finding a development time with semi-standing development is to double the normal development time. SO, if normal is Rodinal 1+50 for 9 minutes ( the time from Digital Truth ), use 18' and agitate 5 seconds every fifth minute, at 68 degrees.

To increase the dilution, use a factor drawn from the relationship of 1+25 : 1+50. (Digital Truth) 1+25 = 5, 1+50 = 9 ( 9/5=1.8x )

So, increasing 1+50 @ 18' to 1+100 x 1.8 x = 32 1/2.

I've found 5 minute agitation cycles to be a good balance of the benefits of standing development without the risks. It WILL give increased shadow detail while holding the highlights back.

You could use ID-11 1+3, for the same time, with 5 minute agitation cycles ( time estimated on the same basis as Rodinal ). You'd probably get lower highlight density, higher shadow density, and finer grain.

Perceptol ( at high dilutions ) is functionally the same as ID11, but slower, so it would probably be the same.

Good luck: show us what happens !

don

df cardwell said:

A good rule of thumb for finding a development time with semi-standing development is to double the normal development time. SO, if normal is Rodinal 1+50 for 9 minutes ( the time from Digital Truth ), use 18' and agitate 5 seconds every fifth minute, at 68 degrees.

To increase the dilution, use a factor drawn from the relationship of 1+25 : 1+50. (Digital Truth) 1+25 = 5, 1+50 = 9 ( 9/5=1.8x )

So, increasing 1+50 @ 18' to 1+100 x 1.8 x = 32 1/2.

I've found 5 minute agitation cycles to be a good balance of the benefits of standing development without the risks. It WILL give increased shadow detail while holding the highlights back.
don

Click to expand...

I just developed the roll using your suggestion for Rodianal 1:100 only thing I did different was develop at 67F and round the time up to 35 minutes to make it even for 5 minute intervals. The still wet results look promising. I will post a few scans when I get a chance, it may be a couple of months before I get around to print them properly. I'm now the proud owner of a Omega D2 I got off EBay for 25 bucks. My darkroom is going to have be rearranged to fit the thing in with my Super Croemga and my computer.

Thanks James.

Jim

The reality with this sort of alchemy is that every film but the one you're using obeys the seat-of-the-pants rules. Congrats on getting away with it !

A D2 Chromega for how much ? You rascal.

Were you shooting the Chas ? Can't wait to see the pix.

Semi stand works well with this film and developer. I use 14 minutes at 1:50, 68 degrees, agitate first thirty seconds, then give one agitation at three minute intervals.

Here are the results.

jmailand said:

I just developed the roll using your suggestion for Rodianal 1:100 only thing I did different was develop at 67F and round the time up to 35 minutes to make it even for 5 minute intervals. The still wet results look promising. I will post a few scans when I get a chance, it may be a couple of months before I get around to print them properly. I'm now the proud owner of a Omega D2 I got off EBay for 25 bucks. My darkroom is going to have be rearranged to fit the thing in with my Super Croemga and my computer.

Thanks James.

Click to expand...

These are some sample scans of the results I got using the above method. These are straight scans with no major manipulations. Just Resize and Autolevel in PShop. When I get some real prints I will stick a few in my gallery.

Thanks again for your help.

James,

Cool. Great stuff.

Really nice stuff

beautiful! reminds me of my techpan shots only with shadow detail.
Great job!