Tri-X, D-76 and increased grain.

[Shawn Dougherty]

When I finish shooting my Pond Scum project this fall I've got another short termer to work on. This will include lf contact prints, small 35mm enlargements made at night using T-max 100 and Rodinal SS and daytime 35mm work. It's the latter for which I'm still working out the details.

I want to make 5x7 enlargements and I'm after the look achieved by Mr. Wallace Rollins. You can visit his APUG gallery (there was a url link here which no longer exists).


The tones he's getting are great and not much different than I would expect from this combo based on the work of others. However, it seems to me as though he's increased the amount of grain a bit. I've tried to contact him about his work flow and haven't heard back. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to achieve that increase in grain while keeping the contrasty yet long scaled tonalities he seems to be achieving? Is it simply a matter of more agitation with shorter development times? Should I be using D-76 full strength or 1:1? I think this look would compliment some of my 8x10 contact prints quite nicely...

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

He might just be shooting wider and cropping.

1:1 should give you more grain than straight, I would think, since you would be reducing the proportion of sulfite, which is a grain solvent in D-76. You might need to go to a dilution like 1:3 to see a difference.

You could also just use Rodinal, which will give you more grain.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

Thanks, David. I've already got quite a stash of Rodinal I'm using with my night work(semi-stand). Maybe I'll give it a try. It would certainly be easier to use only one developer in two different ways....

 

[Roger Hicks]

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to achieve that increase in grain while keeping the contrasty yet long scaled tonalities he seems to be achieving? Is it simply a matter of more agitation with shorter development times? Should I be using D-76 full strength or 1:1? I think this look would compliment some of my 8x10 contact prints quite nicely...

Overexpose.

 

[Saganich]

After looking through the gallery it seems that the grainy shots you refer to look to be cropped and enlarged a bit.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

Some certainly have been cropped and enlarged, though even those that don't appear to be ( I assume) have that nice gritty look. Particularly "Christmas Day, Los Angles", "going home" and "Rain, New Orleans". Then again I'm used to contact prints... Probably the best thing for me to do is start experimenting but it's always helpful to get advice from APUG. Roger, overexposure is a good route. I've been overexposing by 1 stop with my first roll of Tri-X400. Time will tell. Thanks fellows. Shawn

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Shawn, I used D76 a few times with Tri-X and liked it but for some reason never looked back to it. In Rodinal you might expect that grain to become more pronounced, but I think perhaps the tonal qualities you see in Rollins' work will be somewhat subdued.
If I had both developers at hand, I would shoot a dummy subject and try half roll in each.
- Thomas

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

Thomas,
That's a great idea. I have a 2500ml of Rodinal and I just bought a bag of D-76 over the weekend so I think that's just what I'll do. Thanks. Shawn