Tri-X rodinal and skies ;-(

ericdan · Oct 8, 2020

Tri-X looks nice and sharp in rodinal and on my 5x7 prints the grain doesn’t usually bother me too much. Recent vacation shots with lots of sky however look terribly grainy. No longer nice grain but plain ugly.
Xtol is great at minimizing grain but it almost looks too clean. What other options for sharp photos at box speed?

PhotoJim · Oct 8, 2020

Sharp image = sharp grain. They go together, unfortunately.

My personal suggestions:
- Try FP4 Plus instead. It will still be sharp, but the grain will be tamed down quite a lot. (Pan-F Plus if you really want to tame down the grain.) But... you lose film speed of course.
- Dilute your XTOL (if you aren't already). 1+1 or 1+3 dilution will give you sharper (but grainier) images than developing in stock solution.
- Shoot Tri-X in a larger format, e.g. 120 instead of 35mm.
- If the FP4 Plus idea is a stop too slow, consider Eastman 5222 (Double-X) which is ISO 250. Only available in 35mm long rolls, but a few third parties sell it in individual rolls.
- Delta 400 or T-Max 400 will give you high sharpness but finer grain. Fussier to handle, but worth a try.
- Try a pyrogallol/pyrocatechin-based developer. This will give you excellent sharpness but the image stain will mask the grain somewhat. I use PMK (with pyrogallol); many here use it, as well as Pyrocat HD (which uses pyrocatechin).

Вormental_old · Oct 8, 2020

I actually think that stock, full-strength (do not dilute!) Xtol is exactly what you need. Nice, tight grain with pleasing tones.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

ericdan said:
What other options for sharp photos at box speed?

First, let me recommend you a reading of The Film Development Cookbook, if you like grain you'll find quite interesting knowledge there, also the The Darkroom Cookbok is a good introduction. It won't deceive you.

Options personally I'd consider:

> As Bormental points, first you may dilute Xtol to decrease its solvent effect for an slightly coarser grain. Xtol delivers smooth grain without killing ultimate sharpness, which looks contradictory but it is. But you may want something coarser...

> You may simply add sodium sulphite to rodinal to adjust its solvent effect to your taste (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/rodinal-and-sodium-sulfite.6804/)

> Use Xtol for the half of its developing time, then rinse well with water and then throw Rodinal in and develop for the half of the Roodinal development time. You mostly will get a mid point between Xtol an Rodinal. Further by adjusting the time share of Xtol vs Rodinal you may finely tune the grain depiction.

> Use Rodinal + Xtol mixture. While in general mixing developers may have severe drawbacks (can it even explode ? ) the Xtol + Rodinal has many followers. You will geet deep blacks as if a toe cutter was used, less shadow detail but an impressive look, grain will also be adjusted from the different formulations. https://www.flickr.com/groups/819042@N23/

> Use other developers, like D-76, D-76 diluted, HC-110, T-MAX that may deliver a mid point.

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2020

Rodinal isn't as sharp as D-76, let alone Xtol etc. It produces more visible granularity, which people mistake for making things apparently sharper, but it's really just adding fine detail destroying noise. I wouldn't go round adding silver solvents/ other developers to Rodinal, all you're going to end up with is a half-assed version of something better designed to deliver fine grain. Xtol, D-76, D-23, Perceptol are all capable of doing the job just fine - as is adjusting your exposure and development regime. 5x7 is not a significant enlargement & you should be able to get Rodinal to look more than OK at that size. Essentially your exposure needs to go up a bit & your processing time needs to go down (potentially quite a bit). Dilute Perceptol (1+2 or 1+3) delivers a pretty good balance of granularity and sharpness if you want to go down that route.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 8, 2020

If you are seeking developer recommendations for Tri-X, you may want to check out Tetenal Ultrafin Plus. I used it briefly and was quite pleased with the smooth tones and fine grain I got. Unfortunately, it's a very expensive proposition for me to continue using it thanks to international shipping and customs.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Unfortunately, it's a very expensive proposition for me to continue using it thanks to international shipping and customs.

Being it's a classic Metol-Hidroquinone soup (any other dev agent?) many totally equivalent alternatives can be found in The Darkroom Cookbook... perhaps dosing silver solvent for a perfect match.

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
If you are seeking developer recommendations for Tri-X, you may want to check out Tetenal Ultrafin Plus. I used it briefly and was quite pleased with the smooth tones and fine grain I got. Unfortunately, it's a very expensive proposition for me to continue using it thanks to international shipping and customs.

It's a fairly standard Dimezone-S/ Hydroquinone (no idea why the claim for Metol above, suggests a lack of checking the relevant documentation) developer with Diethanolamine added - which can act as both a halide solvent & alkali. Halide solvency with modern emulsions can help deliver both higher sharpness and finer grain.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

1) Well Checked information

2) A troll going to personal attack without being able to read a MSDS Bye, Lach. Please don't quite me again, direct or indirect.

miha · Oct 8, 2020

138S said:
Trolls not being able to read a MSDS Bye, Lach

View attachment 256558

The MSDS you are showing are misleading (so are Tetenal names at times) Ultrafin Liquid is not TT Ultrafin Plus (TT Ultrafin Plus was discontinued a couple of years ago and replaced by TT Ultrafin T-Plus. It was a fairly standard Dimezone-S/ Hydroquinone dev.)

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2020

miha said:
The MSDS you are showing are misleading (so are Tetenal names at times) Ultrafin Liquid is not TT Ultrafin Plus (TT Ultrafin Plus was discontinued a couple of years ago and replaced by TT Ultrafin T-Plus. It was a fairly standard Dimezone-S/ Hydroquinone dev.)

Exactly, it's not difficult to find out what the current T-grain aimed developer from Tetenal is - and what its composition is. I also would not be surprised if Tetenal's work manufacturing for Ilford & Kodak had given them insight into the best current thinking on optimal developer composition. As for the claims upthread, Ultrafin Liquid actually suggests 3 active developer ingredients - Metol, HQ and Phenidone A.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

miha said:
The MSDS you are showing are misleading (so are Tetenal names at times) Ultrafin Liquid is not TT Ultrafin Plus (TT Ultrafin Plus was discontinued a couple of years ago and replaced by TT Ultrafin T-Plus. It was a fairly standard Dimezone-S/ Hydroquinone dev.)

Yes, you ar right, the Ultrafin T-Plus uses Dimezone

While the Tetenal Ultrafin Film Developer uses Phenidone A

Still, quite available alternatives quite easy to DIY mix at home, if necessary. The Film Development Cookbook...

miha · Oct 8, 2020

138S said:
While the Tetenal Ultrafin Film Developer uses Phenidone A

Yes, a combo of Phenidone and MQ as hinted above by Lachlan.

Bear in mind there use to be a plethora of TT Ultrafin devs available: Liquid, SF, PLUS, T-PLUS, ...perhaps more.

Pentode · Oct 8, 2020

ericdan said:
What other options for sharp photos at box speed?

It's pretty hard to go wrong with Tri-X and D-76 1:1. It's certainly not your only option but it's a great option.

removedacct1 · Oct 8, 2020

If you're married to Tri-X, then there's not a lot can be done to avoid nasty, coarse grain in areas of great density (IE: bright skies). Its just what Tri-X does. If you want to avoid it, try Tmax 400 instead.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

miha said:
Yes, a combo of Phenidone and MQ as hinted above by Lachlan.

Bear in mind there use to be a plethora of TT Ultrafin devs available: Liquid, SF, PLUS, T-PLUS, ...perhaps more.

Still, the MSDS sheets cites all agents, even Phenidone and Dimezone are cited when its toxicity vs % content is low.

Hazardous chem has to be mentioned if present beyond 1% content , or 0.1% if the chemical is a carcinogen (US regulations). Probably Phenidone and Dimezone have to be mentioned by some margin.

Mytol (dimezone variant) contains 0.3gr of dimezone per 1L, so if it was concentrated x5 it would contain around 1.5%. If Ultrafin has a comparable content then it has to be well mentioned, as it is a potential carcinogen.

I cannot find Metol in the 2 of the 3 current MSDS Ultrafin sheets... https://www.freestylephoto.biz/msds/134-Tetenal

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2020

Metol is CAS: 55-55-0. It's still in the Ultrafin MSDS, not Plus or T-Plus. The now withdrawn Ultrafin Plus looks like a T-Max style non/ low aqueous content developer, for those that care.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 8, 2020

138S said:
Being it's a classic Metol-Hidroquinone soup (any other dev agent?) many totally equivalent alternatives can be found in The Darkroom Cookbook... perhaps dosing silver solvent for a perfect match.

My suggestion was meant for OP as I've used it, liked it and thought OP might also like it. As far as I'm concerned, I'll be happy to use the "totally equivalent alternative" if I am convinced that it is indeed the totally equivalent alternative.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 8, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
I also would not be surprised if Tetenal's work manufacturing for Ilford & Kodak had given them insight into the best current thinking on optimal developer composition.

If this is true, and I won't be surprised if it is true, then it is a strong reason for OP to take my suggestion seriously.

138S · Oct 8, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
"totally equivalent alternative" and ascertained them to be totally equivalent.

Let me say my point of view about that... today BW developers are a quite mature field, the last genuine innovation from kodak was in 1996 (Xtol), this was 24 years ago, and everybody may mix Mytol for a perfectly matching result...

... not a big challenge to match well any general usage developer with the knowledge provided by in The Film development Cookbook, specially if we have some clues from the MSDS, and if we measure the pH of the developer to imitate.

personally, now I do not mix much for convenience, but after reading the former cookbook two decades ago I felt able to do that. My view is that there is some hype with developers and what counts is having some control, but of course YMMV.

For example, on any doubt, by using the bare technique described in post #4...

"Use Xtol for the half of its developing time, then rinse well with water and then throw Rodinal in and develop for the half of the Roodinal development time. You mostly will get a mid point between Xtol an Rodinal. Further by adjusting the time share of Xtol vs Rodinal you may finely tune the grain depiction."

...I feel able to cover much of the results we can get around with other general usage soups, with the exception of boosting speed a fraction of one stop to the expense of a well coarser grain. Some additional nuances may be there, but not much things around general usage developers.

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
If this is true, and I won't be surprised if it is true, then it is a strong reason for OP to take my suggestion seriously.

It's certainly interesting that it totally does away with the Tetenal habit of MPQ combinations (which largely seems to have been a 1950's era attempt to balance the perceived qualities of Phenidone's speed and Metol's sharpness) in favour of Dimezone-S/ HQ (which is likely intended to form a specific amount of an HQMS salt) and silver solvent - the combination of which is likely intended to achieve an improved speed/ grain/ sharpness relationship, based off more contemporary research. I do note that Spur also seem to have the same belief in MPQ combinations (though often with added silver solvent).

ericdan · Oct 8, 2020

paulbarden said:
If you're married to Tri-X, then there's not a lot can be done to avoid nasty, coarse grain in areas of great density (IE: bright skies). Its just what Tri-X does. If you want to avoid it, try Tmax 400 instead.

Not married to it but have about 3y of supply in the freezer.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 8, 2020

138S said:
Let me say my point of view about that...

Thank you for elaborating your view. I appreciate that your earlier post was intended primarily to help me find a totally equivalent alternative to the Tetenal developer, though I didn't ask you for help on that front. I've no problem using a totally equivalent alternative for the Tetenal developer. However, unless someone who has used the same developer gives me the exact formula for a totally equivalent alternative after having experimentally ascertained the claimed equivalence, I'm not going to spend my time on it.

takilmaboxer · Oct 8, 2020

If Rodinal gives you unacceptable grain, then try another developer. If Tri-X gives unacceptable grain, then try another film.
It's not complicated.
If you have a large stash of Tri-X, then the obvious choice would be, a different developer. Xtol, D76, there are choices out there. Rodinal is brutally honest; it will give you exactly the grain the film offers.
If you really want smooth skies, use medium or large format. FP4 or Tmax films will give smooth skies. Tri-X in Rodinal is not an optimum choice.. Just sayin!

Athiril · Oct 9, 2020

Xtol is as sharp or sharper than Rodinal. If you don’t want it as smooth as full strength Xtol you can try diluting it. Or use additives with Rodinal. Potassium thiocyanate at 1.5g/L per litre to working developer in Rodinal gives as fine grain as Xtol, so you may want to try half that or a quarter. It can speed up development with some films though.

Another option is sodium sulphite 20g/L would be a fair bit finer but not full Xtol level. You could make a stock solution in a jug, and pour some out and add your Rodinal when you want to develop.

Tri-X rodinal and skies ;-(

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