Stand Development

I've been using Don's method with TXP in x-tol, and have very printable negatives, and the skin tones just glow. That said... I've never had the nerve to fill the tanks prior to putting the film in. I worry that I will just knock the tank over as I fumble around in the dark with two rolls of undeveloped film loaded onto my stainless reels. So, I've taken to starting with a water bath for two minutes before development, and will add a drop or two of LFN to the developer. At first, I've had some trouble with air bells, but I seem to have solved that problem.

I've started to use this same method with Tri-x, especially for pictures that I take in very bright sun... at the beach for example, as I found, like Don, that the highlights with TXP became too bright. Again... easy to print negs, great skin tones. And just the right amount of grain.

Also, I find this method works well exposing at box speed when I want to keep my shutter speeds quick, but I also found that rating TXP at 160 with agitation every fie minutes just sings!!

Good stuff, Don... thanks!!

df cardwell said:

Here is an illustration showing a normal TX curve, a normal TXP curve,
and the results of minimal agitation with dilute D76. XTOL works even better.
NOTE: it might not seem to be a big difference, but if it frees you from burning and freaking dodging for the rest of your life, it can't be all bad, can it ?

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Your TXP curve w/ dilute D76/ minimal agitation looks a LOT like the curve I'm getting with FP4 and E12 with 5g glycin and standard agitation!

Water bath, etc.

dpurdy said:

One thing you don't hear as much about now is water bath film process. Which I think is another approach to the same end. I have never done stand development but I have done water bath.

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Some time back, I did a bunch of E6 pinhole work in the Olympic rain forest. Exposures were very long, and contrasts were very high. I tray processed the film by inspection after desensitizing, using a "water bath" that was juiced up with sodium carbonate, without agitation. Worked great. I had used water bath in the past with what I thought were somewhat disappointing results. The carbonate had the effect of accelerating the bath, and I think it gave me better contrast. I sometimes would rinse and repeat through additional development/carbonate bath cycles. I will admit, though, that some of the images worked better than others. They were printed on Cibachrome, and the best ones were utter knockouts. All of them present interesting possibilities now having the advantage of scanning and adjusting the contrasts in Photoshop, then printing on the Epson 3800.

Attached, one example.

df cardwell said:

With Rodinal, there is nothing to be gained by going beyond 1+50. The magic comes from the reduced agitation, not the dilution. Dilution ONLY slows the process.

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Well, it might be that I do something else wrong – but I have stopped using Rodinal diluted 1+50 when using minimal agitation techniques because I have had problems with drag between light and dark areas on the negative. Oftentimes it manifests itself where areas of bright sky meet the film rebate.

A friend of mine here in Oslo has had the same problem when using the same dilution and similar agitation, but neither of us has had any problems with Rodinal 1+100 and minimal agitation.

The problematic process have been: TX in 135 or 120 format loaded on Hewes or Paterson reels, Rodinal 1+50@20C, vigorous agitation the first thirty seconds or for a full minute. After that agitation for ten seconds every three or five minutes with a runtime of around eighteen minutes depending on desired contrast.

The problematic process have been: TX in 135 or 120 format loaded on Hewes or Paterson reels, Rodinal 1+50@20C, vigorous agitation the first thirty seconds or for a full minute.

Lock the doors,
don't tell your friends,
and disconnect the telephone.

THEN, invert and twist the tank 3 times, rap the tank on the table and go away.

Rodinal can be prone to over agitation.

df cardwell said:

The problematic process have been: TX in 135 or 120 format loaded on Hewes or Paterson reels, Rodinal 1+50@20C, vigorous agitation the first thirty seconds or for a full minute.

Lock the doors,
don't tell your friends,
and disconnect the telephone.

THEN, invert and twist the tank 3 times, rap the tank on the table and go away.

Rodinal can be prone to over agitation.

Click to expand...

Mmm, will do. But how come the problem does not appear during “normal” development after the same type of initial agitation?

Uhner said:

Mmm, will do. But how come the problem does not appear during “normal” development after the same type of initial agitation?

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I don't know how to answer that briefly. It just works.