Tri-X in Rodinal Failure

ChristopherCoy

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Tri-X shot at box speed, Nikon F5.
Rodinal 1:50 with distilled water, 10 sec agitation every couple minutes, 13 minute development time.

What in the heck did I do wrong? These images are not pleasing to me in any stretch of the imagination. Too long a development time? Too much agitation? The grain and contrast in these images are off the charts.

I chose Rodinal for its one shot use, but I'm thinking that I do not like it at this point, unless I can figure out where I went wrong.

These are straight scans, no manipulation.


 

Lachlan Young

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Nothing wrong with TX and Rodinal, if you get your exposure and processing reasonably on track. First and most importantly, what was your process temperature at developer in and developer out? Secondly (and without seeing the un-inverted negs I don't want to draw firm conclusions) it looks like you underexposed and overprocessed. A classic error. Try 10 mins process time at 20c, 10s inversion per minute, 30s initial, and bracket a roll (the F5 can autobracket) a stop each way at an EI of 200.
 

pentaxuser

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Difficult to tell from scans but the boats and water one and the bicycle one look OK to me. The dog one looks a bit soot and whitewash I agree but that might be exposure as that and the two OK ones went through the same developer.

pentaxuser
 

Horatio

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Had similar results with Arista Edu 400 in Adonal at 1:100. Will try again soon on another roll, with less time, cooler temp and more accurate measurements. I have no means to make traditional prints.
 

Lachlan Young

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Horatio said:
Had similar results with Arista Edu 400 in Adonal at 1:100. Will try again soon on another roll, with less time, cooler temp and more accurate measurements. I have no means to make traditional prints.
Click to expand...

Edu/ Fomapan 400 should generally be treated as a 160-200 speed film in Rodinal.
 

Pieter12

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Although TriX is not my go-to film (I shoot HP5+, processed in Rodinal most fo the time), I have shot 35mm TriX at 200 ISO and processed in Rodinal 1+25 for 7 minutes, and printed 11x14 with no issue.
 

Arvee

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I don't see anything terribly wrong with the examples other than the dog and #3 exposure are slightly overexposed, probably because you allowed the camera meter to set the exposure. Had those two subjects been metered with an incident meter they most likely wouldn't exhibit blown highlights. Either one could be easily printed wet.
 
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MattKing

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Show us a digital pic of the negatives please.
 

BradS

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Personally, Rodinal would be way down the list of developers to use with Tri-X....but, these negs do look quite over developed to me.
Tri-x and HC-110 (or D76) seem to be perfect for one another.
 

pentaxuser

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On my original Agfa sheet it says 12 mins for Tri-X at 1+50, not 13 mins although the agitation regime specified there is a little more rigorous than yours but it may be that you have erred on the generous side with 13 mins but I cannot see how one minute more that Agfa recommends would have made the dog shot look so contrasty. Agfa says its times and agitation regime give a contrast index of 0.65

As Matt has said digital pics of the negs will be helpful. It strikes me that the dog shot is the one that stands out as having too much contrast compared to the others. It might be that the meter was fooled for some reason in the dog shot

pentaxuser
 

BradS

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^ maybe spot metering the black dog ?
 

Lachlan Young

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@Pieter12 - yep, that's essentially been what I've found, it all works fine if your process controls are adequate & you aren't trying to extract the last ounce of shadow speed from the film. I don't expect the finest grain, the sharpest edges or the finest detail resolution (in all of these D-76 1+1 firmly beats Rodinal), but it has a nice overall look, especially if gigantic prints aren't the aim. I've largely found that those who complain about Rodinal's behaviour have poor process controls and often a lack of basic technique. D-76 seems much more forgiving.

@chriscrawfordphoto that was something else I was suspecting too - the first agitation cycle in particular with Rodinal needs good solid agitation technique otherwise all sorts of faults seem to appear. No gentle swirling or other BS popular on the internet (and with some college technicians, much to my horror), but proper steady inversions.
 
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ChristopherCoy

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I’ve been using center weighted metering. This is the negatives.
 

MattKing

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They look quite dense to me.
If you look at the negative with the dark dog, using a magnifier, can you see detail in the fur?
If so, I would bet on over-development.
 
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ChristopherCoy

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MattKing said:
They look quite dense to me.
If you look at the negative with the dark dog, using a magnifier, can you see detail in the fur?
If so, I would bet on over-development.
Click to expand...

not sure. I don’t have a magnifier.

I used the Mass Dev chart for a starting point. The water was probably about room temperature, maybe slightly warmer,75-80 degrees F.

I don’t mind grain, but this grain is obnoxiously large. And the tonality just isn’t there. It’s white or black. That’s it. In the picture of the swirly bark, there’s no detail in the light parts.
 

canuhead

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at that temp, yer kinda cooking the film. at 68ºf is the sweet spot from my experience, but have strayed to 70. as mentioned, the negs looked *slightly* dense but not overly. the scans however...
 

Arvee

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The developer was at 75-80F deg.? There is information about Rodinal that it likes to operate around 65F and at these lower temps you get much finer grain. If the film was developed at 75-80F (with adjusted time--MDC calls for 13'@68F) you will have bigger grain. If the film was developed at 75-80F at 13' you will have basketball size grain (and dense negs)! The negs, as Matt observed, look a bit hot to me also.
So what is the story on development: time, temp?
 
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ChristopherCoy

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Ok. I’ve not ever been a temperature checker person, so I’m rather sloppy in that regard. But it’s clear I’ll have to ice bath the Rodinal so that it’s at the proper temp.

I burned another roll of TriX today to check the light leaks in the Yashica, and I’ll load it tonight for development tomorrow morning.

I’ll check the temperature and pay more attention.

As for dilutions and times, what’s the consensus?
 

Arvee

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Okay, that explains your grainy result. I use 13'@68 1+50 and always get negs that meet my expectations. If you develop at MDC recommendations you should do well. I also agitate for 5 sec per minute so I don't blow out the highlights. Let us know how you fare tomorrow. Good luck!!
 
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ChristopherCoy

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1:50 dilution?
 
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ChristopherCoy

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