Tri-X developed in Rodinal

pentaxuser said:

MadNbad, here's a question I don't think I asked originally: On your #84 what is the colour of the walker and arrow in pic 2 Both look black to me but being unfamiliar with U.S. road sign colours I thought I'd ask

Thanks

pentaxuser

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The background is a medium brown, a light earth color not as dark as mulch and the pictogram is white but often greenish from a light coating of moss.

I have a new to me lens arriving shortly, a Voigtlander Color-Skopar 50 2.5 LTM and a LTM to M adapter. I might test it out by metering the sign carefully and try to match the hue a bit better.

Leica M4, Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35 1.4 SC V2, 010 filter, Tri-X @ ISO 200, Rodinal 1:50:

madNbad said:

The background is a medium brown, a light earth color not as dark as mulch and the pictogram is white but often greenish from a light coating of moss.

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Thanks for the reply

pentaxuser

albireo said:

As I said before, I don't disagree in general, but I'm finding increasing evidence that you can do better.

I highly respect your views in general on this forum as I've stated many times, but when it comes to scanning you seem to cling on to truisms.

Can you show some samples of your negative scanning work and illustrate your process in detail? We will then have a practical baseline to build up on for a constructive discussion.

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I gave you my professional opinion - you don't get to make choices about highlight density when you need to make museum grade scans/ prints from old negs, where people are paying for a first-class result, not silly complaints about highlight density. In the most diplomatic way possible, if you want to know why workers in the creative industries don't waste effort on forums like this, responses like yours are illustrative of why - and I really, really don't want to pick on you for this, but it unfortunately does illustrate the point.

It's undoubtedly true that the least necessary development for your chosen paper grade (relative to the average light/ contrast conditions you work in) will dramatically improve the tonal quality of a darkroom print (BTDT - grade 2 is possibly not always the best aim point with today's much more flexible range of materials, but that's a story for another time) - and that that qualitative improvement will also translate into a scan - but to claim that you need to reduce negative highlight density for scans more than you do for darkroom prints bespeaks a lack of experience with scanning equipment/ approaches of baseline quality/ competence.

As much as I could expend hours of my time sending you examples of how readily most decent scanners will handle B&W neg density, you can check for yourself with a decent digital camera (essentially anything halfway decent from the late 2000s onwards that outputs a raw file is going to be plenty capable) and a light table. It really is not difficult.

JerseyDoug said:

Tri-X in Rodinal is a fabulous combination. I now shoot it at 400 and develop with (1+50) for 13 minutes at 68º F.

The big issue with Rodinal, particularly at (1+50), is agitation. When I switched from the usually recommended 30 seconds continuous plus four inversions at one minute intervals regimen to just four very gentle inversions to start and just one very gentle inversion at one minute intervals the apparent grain was reduced and the impression of edge sharpness was increased.

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that's exactly what I do but for 12 minutes and at EI3 20; and as you said a wonderful combo

Lachlan Young said:

I gave you my professional opinion - you don't get to make choices about highlight density when you need to make museum grade scans/ prints from old negs, where people are paying for a first-class result, not silly complaints about highlight density. In the most diplomatic way possible, if you want to know why workers in the creative industries don't waste effort on forums like this, responses like yours are illustrative of why - and I really, really don't want to pick on you for this, but it unfortunately does illustrate the point.

It's undoubtedly true that the least necessary development for your chosen paper grade (relative to the average light/ contrast conditions you work in) will dramatically improve the tonal quality of a darkroom print (BTDT - grade 2 is possibly not always the best aim point with today's much more flexible range of materials, but that's a story for another time) - and that that qualitative improvement will also translate into a scan - but to claim that you need to reduce negative highlight density for scans more than you do for darkroom prints bespeaks a lack of experience with scanning equipment/ approaches of baseline quality/ competence.

As much as I could expend hours of my time sending you examples of how readily most decent scanners will handle B&W neg density, you can check for yourself with a decent digital camera (essentially anything halfway decent from the late 2000s onwards that outputs a raw file is going to be plenty capable) and a light table. It really is not difficult.

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I apologise to OP for the OT. This will be my last post on this matter.

Back to the quoted poster. That's a lot of ad hominem and argument-twisting for such a small amount of text.

I also see 0 evidence provided in support of the argument that a negative OPTIMALLY developed for darkroom printing is also OPTIMAL* for scanning.

Now my turn to give you my professional opinion. In my line of work, petty personal attacks and strawman arguments don't get you very far. Instead, what one does is come up with a hypothesis, design a series of well-powered experiments, interpret the results of those experiments and attempt to disprove the null hypothesis and prove the alternative hypothesis. An independent panel of other professionals in the same line of work will then carefully evaluate your hypothesis, you methodology, your conclusions, your outlook. There is no room for 'I did this for the past 100 years so it MUST be correct' in my book. Sorry.

Since you haven't been able to provide clear hypotheses, evidence of any kind, or even attempted to engage in a polite and constructive manner, I can officially welcome you to my ignore list as Valued Member n.1! All the best.


*according to some definition of optimality which we haven't even agreed on. Pity, could have been a fun discussion.

Leica M4-2, Voigtlander Nokton 50 1.5 ASPH V1, Tri-X @ ISO 200, Rodinal 1:50:

Leica M4-2, 28 2.8 Elmarit-M ASPH V1, Kodak Tri-X @ ISO 200. Rodinal 1:50:

My wife and I took a road trip from Oregon to Pennsylvania in June. We spent a week visiting family that hadn't all been together in a decade. It was more of a dash than a real road trip, 6500 miles, nineteen days driving and on road for twenty five days, I brought the M4-2 with a 35 1.4 Nokton Classic SC V2 and a bunch of Tri-X. As it turned out, I took surprisingly few photos. Here are a few:

Still plugging along with Tri-X @ ISO 200 and 50:1 dilution of Rodinal and getting pretty good results but would like to get a little more speed from a film that's rated for 400. Is bumping the time from ten to fourteen minutes too much? I'll probably do an expriment and see what happens. For all the XTOL fans, I'm getting some supplies ready for when Adox XT-3 hits the shelves. I can deal with a litir but don't have the room to store five.

M4-2, Voigtlander 35 1.4 Nokton Classic SC V2, Tri-X @ IO 200, Rodinal 50:1 20C 10 minutes

madNbad said:

but would like to get a little more speed from a film that's rated for 400. Is bumping the time from ten to fourteen minutes too much?

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You've done a great job controlling your contrast and exposure. Extra development will give you more contrast, and unfortunately very little extra speed (=shadow density).

john_s said:

You've done a great job controlling your contrast and exposure. Extra development will give you more contrast, and unfortunately very little extra speed (=shadow density).

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I'm going to try a few rolls at 400, bump the time to 12 minutes, keep the dilution at 50:1 and the same agitation procedure. I've have all the necessary ingredients , plenty of film, developer and time.

madNbad said:

I'm going to try a few rolls at 400, bump the time to 12 minutes, keep the dilution at 50:1 and the same agitation procedure. I've have all the necessary ingredients , plenty of film, developer and time.

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Give what chuckroast believes works for him Basically it is semi-stand at high dilution such as 1+100. To be accurate about chuckroast's findings I don't think that Rodinal was one of his tested developers but it may be worth a try

pentaxuser