Stand Development --- Should I overexpose the film too?

Steve York · May 23, 2025

Developing film is like cooking; many different ways to make an edible meal. Actually, a rather apt analogy since they are both just chemical reactions. If you use a mechanical shutter, Sunny 16 or hand held meter, then these are other variables from picture to picture, so I'm not one of these people that says you have to do this for this long, every single time. In fact, I often wing it with times, temperature, agitation, and always get useable negs. However, I've never gotten good results with pure stand development -- bromide streaks, thin negatives. Semi-stand cures those issues, and I don't have one set formula. After an initial agitation, just agitate a little every 10-15 minutes for an hour or so.

albireo · May 23, 2025

250swb said:
That's your problem right there, and the best advice is the one your granny may have given you 'once bitten twice shy'.

You don't need any more equipment to develop the film in a controlled way instead of the suck-it-and-see 'technique' of stand development.

Agree with Steve.

Blank slate.

Put everything away apart from your Pentax 17, two rolls of Kentmere 100 and a bottle of HC-110. Close youtube, reddit, and sever the mind association between 'Rodinal'and 'stand development'.

Expose that Kentmere at 80 ISO. Develop in HC 110 Dil B (use 400-500ml of total solution in your Paterson tank) for 5 minutes. Make sure you nail the 20 degrees Celsius temperature! Then, continuous gentle inversions first 30 seconds, then 1 inversion and 3 raps of the tank on the counter every 30 seconds. Use your phone and this app to time this

Massive Dev Chart Timer - Apps on Google Play

The #1 app for B&W film developing featuring an advanced darkroom timer.

play.google.com

Stop with stop bath, fix with rapid fixer and wash (google the ' ilford wash method' ). Final wash in distilled water and Fotonal.

5 min dev + 30 sec stop + 4 min fix + 1'30'' min logistics = 11 min of time needed to supervise the whole process. Not a lot, and you're almost completely in control. Not really a hassle compared to stand, and you will love your negatives. Easy to scan and easy to print.

Dali · May 23, 2025

Why someone would start developing film using a controversial method is beyond me, when it is easy to start with 101 development guidance given by manufacturers... Follow Albireo's advice and build from there (more / less exposure, more / less development time) as it is the logical way to proceed.

retina_restoration · May 23, 2025

Dali said:
Why someone would start developing film using a controversial method is beyond me

Why? Because the internet is rife with bad advice that "content creators" generate, and all too often it is presented as a "magic bullet" that will turn bad exposures into spectacular ones. That's why the "stand" technique has built up such a huge mythology around it. It promises magic but in the hands of the inexperienced, it delivers far less.

GregY · May 23, 2025

retina_restoration said:
Why? Because the internet is rife with bad advice that "content creators" generate, and all too often it is presented as a "magic bullet" that will turn bad exposures into spectacular ones. That's why the "stand" technique has built up such a huge mythology around it. It promises magic but in the hands of the inexperienced, it delivers far less.

chuckroast · May 23, 2025

retina_restoration said:
Why? Because the internet is rife with bad advice that "content creators" generate, and all too often it is presented as a "magic bullet" that will turn bad exposures into spectacular ones. That's why the "stand" technique has built up such a huge mythology around it. It promises magic but in the hands of the inexperienced, it delivers far less.

Anyone who thinks long duration, low agitation, high dilution development is a magic bullet is .... severely confused.

My very, very, very deep dive into this the past few years was: A) After decades of doing things the "normal" way and B) A lesson in finding all the ways to make film development fail.

But ... it gave me another arrow in my quiver than I now know when- and how to apply.

Magic it ain't and it's absolutely not for first timers.

dcy · May 23, 2025

Dali said:
Why someone would start developing film using a controversial method is beyond me,

That sounds needlessly antagonistic. It's a hobby. No need to ding someone for not making an optimal choice the first time. I saw something I found interesting and I wanted to give it a try. I was (am) attracted by the idea of a development method where I basically can't get the timing wrong. Is it really so shocking that someone doing it for the first time might want to try that?

Please try to be nice to newcomers.

koraks · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
Please try to be nice to newcomers.

Point taken, @dcy. You're right to call us out on that, collectively (and who the shoe fits, & all that). I apologize for my part in it.

MattKing · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
That sounds needlessly antagonistic. It's a hobby. No need to ding someone for not making an optimal choice the first time. I saw something I found interesting and I wanted to give it a try. I was (am) attracted by the idea of a development method where I basically can't get the timing wrong. Is it really so shocking that someone doing it for the first time might want to try that?

Please try to be nice to newcomers.

Understood - but I don't believe that the frustration was really addressed at you.
It was addressed at all the stuff on the internet that tends to mislead people in your circumstances.
We totally understand why you tried the things you tried.
In my case, and in the case of many of us here, the resources we had were much more limited, but much more universally relied upon.
For example: https://125px.com/docs/techpubs/kodak/z-133-2003_03b.pdf
Or from Harman/Ilford: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/beginners-guide-processing-film/
Except in our case, that sort of info was in book or pamphlet form.

pentaxuser · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
That sounds needlessly antagonistic. It's a hobby. No need to ding someone for not making an optimal choice the first time. I saw something I found interesting and I wanted to give it a try. I was (am) attracted by the idea of a development method where I basically can't get the timing wrong. Is it really so shocking that someone doing it for the first time might want to try that?

Please try to be nice to newcomers.

Can I ask: What kind of stand development will you try first? The semi-stand or the full stand where you only agitate at the beginning and leave for the designated time as you did in your first attempt and which you say was "awful" to use your word or attempt semi-stand development instead?

Maybe you have found some interesting things that you now want to apply after reading all the replies to improve on the awful result last time? If so can I ask what these are?

Finally here's a video from John Finch on Rodinal and stand development. Have a look at it to see if he has done anything different from what you did on your first attempt He used a pre-soak for between 2-5 mins and then a 1 min agitation at the start and nothing beyond that. He gets a good result but was he just lucky? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no

Thanks

pentaxuser

chuckroast · May 23, 2025

I kept fairly copious notes at the link while noting that this is a tricky, fidgety process that should likely not be a first time option:

https://gitbucket.tundraware.com/tundra/Stand-Development

Milpool · May 23, 2025

pentaxuser said:
Can I ask: What kind of stand development will you try first? The semi-stand or the full stand where you only agitate at the beginning and leave for the designated time as you did in your first attempt and which you say was "awful" to use your word or attempt semi-stand development instead?

Maybe you have found some interesting things that you now want to apply after reading all the replies to improve on the awful result last time? If so can I ask what these are?

Finally here's a video from John Finch on Rodinal and stand development. Have a look at it to see if he has done anything different from what you did on your first attempt He used a pre-soak for between 2-5 mins and then a 1 min agitation at the start and nothing beyond that. He gets a good result but was he just lucky? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no

Thanks

pentaxuser

Hopefully you’ll take this with some humour, but every time you reference your usual YouTube sources I’m reminded of the Seinfeld pitch meeting for the show about nothing:

NBC President: “Well why am I watching it?”
George: “Because it’s on T.V.”

Craig · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
I was (am) attracted by the idea of a development method where I basically can't get the timing wrong.

This is a problem solvable with cash: a Jobo machine. I have the (near) top of the line ATL-3000 and once I have the film in a tank and put into the machine, I push the start button and it does the rest.

I bought it for pennies on the dollar when people were dumping film gear around 2007/2008, but I really appreciate having it now. There are other Jobo processors that offer similar capabilities for less money.

Andrew O'Neill · May 23, 2025

Here's a video I made a couple years ago, comparing stand/semi-stand, using Pyrocat-HD, and BTZS tubes, for sheet film.

pentaxuser · May 23, 2025

Milpool said:
Hopefully you’ll take this with some humour, but every time you reference your usual YouTube sources I’m reminded of the Seinfeld pitch meeting for the show about nothing:

NBC President: “Well why am I watching it?”
George: “Because it’s on T.V.”

Yes no problem The video seems well presented and the presenter shows evidence of his findings ín the form of darkroom prints A video is impersonal and by its nature non confrontational. Unintentionally, I am sure, we appear to have upset dcy in the way we have responded which unfortunately is not the best learning environment for someone wishing to learn and a video avoids this

What he learns from it and what he decides to do is of course his business

pentaxuser

dcy · May 23, 2025

MattKing said:
Understood - but I don't believe that the frustration was really addressed at you.
It was addressed at all the stuff on the internet that tends to mislead people in your circumstances.

I might have misinterpreted Dali's comment. I thought he was singling me out.

I do want to say that I sincerely appreciate all the help I'm receiving here. The level of knowledge in this forum is noticeably higher than other internet forums and I'm grateful that so many of you go out of your way to give comprehensive answers instead of getting annoyed that another noob is asking the same question for the umpteenth time.

dcy · May 23, 2025

pentaxuser said:
Can I ask: What kind of stand development will you try first? The semi-stand or the full stand where you only agitate at the beginning and leave for the designated time as you did in your first attempt and which you say was "awful" to use your word or attempt semi-stand development instead?

For now I'm going to stick to the standard agitation since everyone has made it clear that that's where I should start. Next time I try something like a stand development, it would be semi-stand.

pentaxuser said:
Maybe you have found some interesting things that you now want to apply after reading all the replies to improve on the awful result last time? If so can I ask what these are?

Yeah. I have a message in my inbox from another member that I haven't yet been able to read in its entirety (or thank the sender for). It goes into a lot of detail about why we agitate the developer and what agitation does, and what bromide drag is, etc. From what I've read so far, I've learned how semi-stand helps mitigate (but perhaps not eliminate) the biggest issues with stand dev.

pentaxuser said:
Finally here's a video from John Finch on Rodinal and stand development. Have a look at it to see if he has done anything different from what you did on your first attempt He used a pre-soak for between 2-5 mins and then a 1 min agitation at the start and nothing beyond that. He gets a good result but was he just lucky? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no

Thanks! I will definitely watch that and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it.

dcy · May 23, 2025

Andrew O'Neill said:
Here's a video I made a couple years ago, comparing stand/semi-stand, using Pyrocat-HD, and BTZS tubes, for sheet film.

Thanks! --- and I just subscribed to your channel.

Andrew O'Neill · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
Thanks! --- and I just subscribed to your channel.

Wow thank you!
There is also geometric agitation, using dilute developers. You might want to check that out.

Dali · May 23, 2025

dcy said:
That sounds needlessly antagonistic. It's a hobby. No need to ding someone for not making an optimal choice the first time. I saw something I found interesting and I wanted to give it a try. I was (am) attracted by the idea of a development method where I basically can't get the timing wrong. Is it really so shocking that someone doing it for the first time might want to try that?

Please try to be nice to newcomers.

I am nice with newcomers. I don't want them to be discouraged having trouble in their photography journey for the single reason they thought that manufacturers are the least competent people in this matter and prefer to trust any internet self-proclaimed expert. No more, no less.

john_s · May 23, 2025

In the days long before the internet, I followed the manufacturers' instructions, and this was with very mainstream materials. I wasn't smart enough to work out why my prints weren't very good and were hard to print. I was working pretty much in isolation. Later, I was informed that exposing more and developing less would solve my problem, and it did. Had the manufacturers' instructions spelled that out I would have appreciated it.

dcy · May 24, 2025

Dali said:
I am nice with newcomers... for the single reason they thought that manufacturers are the least competent people in this matter and prefer to trust any internet self-proclaimed expert. No more, no less.

Nothing that I wrote suggests that I thought the manufacturer is incompetent, or the least competent, or that their instructions were in accurate. I said that stand development looked easier. Easier != Technically superior. It is possible to think that the manufacture'r's method will produce best results if done correctly, yet choose a method that looks less error prone.

What you wrote here is not "being nice to newcomers". It is hostile. I don't think you are unaware that ascribing a ridiculous opinion to newcomers can reasonably be read by said newcomers as you calling them dumb.

Andrew O'Neill · May 24, 2025

Ok let's keep this on track, please.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · May 24, 2025

dcy said:
My very first attempt to develop B&W film was almost a year ago. I used Rodinal + stand development and the result was awful. Since then I have learned that my negatives were "thin" which means they were insufficiently developed.

Stand development is controversial but it is best to form informed opinion on the merits/demerits of stand development versus regular agitation by doing a few comparative tests. And while doing the tests, it is prudent to avoid the usual sources of errors in stand development. First, a certain minimum volume of developer concentrate per roll is needed. This no is 6 ml for Rodinal. What this implies is that you need to use at least 600 ml of developer working solution at a dilution of 1:00. Using less than 600 ml can result in underdeveloped negatives. Second, very small tanks that can accommodate only one developing reel are best avoided. Use a tank that can take at least two reels and make sure that the film to be developed is loaded on the top roll. Note that this also implies that a certain minimum volume of developer working solution is needed. For a Patterson two reel tank, this volume is 600 ml. Third, initial agitation for about a minute or even longer goes a long way in avoiding uneven development. Fourth, temeprature must not vary significantly throughout the standing period. For Patterson tanks temeprature change might not be a big concern but for steel tanks it is. Last but not the least, some developers can produce undesirable amount of base fog when the development time is very long. 510-Pyro is one such developer, though many swear by it.

You might or might not like stand development results, but unless you do a comparative test giving stand the best chance to succeed, you'll never know.

Alan Johnson · May 24, 2025

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026286255&seq=126

On the RHS of this diagram are curves for with and without agitation.
There seems to be a rather small increase in the slope at the toe region with agitation.
With agitation does give a slightly higher film speed.

Stand Development --- Should I overexpose the film too?

Steve York

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