Troubles with developing Tri-X

[John Wiegerink]

Standardise on 20C for all processing steps. Be strict about this for the sake of consistency...and fix longer! I'd also watch how vigorously you agitate. I can see sprocket hole surge marks. That is why I much prefer the figure-8 method. Cheers and good luck!

What Andy says! I have never found aggressive agitation to be beneficial in my development of film. When I started to develop my own 120/620 film I noticed uneven development on the edges of the negatives. Thinking it was lack of agitation I naturally gave it more agitation, but the problem seemed to get worse. The light bulb then came on pretty bright and the problem was solved when I cut back to a gentle and very brief agitation. I also found that Rodinal developer was more prone to this problem than some of the other developers I have used.

 

[ole-squint]

Welcome to Photrio.
Thanks for sharing pics of the negatives themselves.
They do look under-developed to me.
Perhaps your Rodinal concentrate has problems.
But it also may be that 8 minutes is far too short for 1+49 dilution Rodinal.
I'm seeing recommendations of 13 minutes at 20C.
And by the way, the purple tint isn't very important. Yes you can take steps like using a washaid to help remove it, but it doesn't have an important affect.

You mention that you're on well water. Try using distilled water from a grocery store. There may be certain minerals in your well water that's messing up your developer.

 

[pentaxuser]

OP, just out of interest where did you find your originally stated times for Tri-X and for fixing? Whatever that source was it may be wrong on a lot of other film-processíng matters. The cost of film and the effort required to produce negatives that give OK results are just too much to risk using poor info

pentaxuser

 

[DsrtBill]

This video from Ilford might help you visualize the process, although I would not have used the squeegee at the end. There is too much risk of scratching the film, I just hang my film to dry.

I have watched this video before, and got a squeegee because of it. After using the squeegee and scratching the emulsion off multiple frames, I decided not to do that again!

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Temperature-compensation-chart.pdf

Thank you so much, Alex!

So, hopefully this comment comes across as firm rather than harsh, but I think you need a critical piece of equipment, which is a book. A good introductory book on the basics of B&W photography and darkroom work. There are a number of good ones (eg Horenstein "B&W Basic Manual," Schaeffer's "Ansel Adams Basic Techniques", David Vestal's "Craft of Photography," and so on) and we have a few threads about recommendations. But it is IMO better to read a book about how to do this stuff, than to learn it all from the internet, forums and Youtube videos, because the internet doesn't do a good job of separating the important from the trivial.

You really do not need to take the temperature of the developer every minute, especially for B&W. I just take it at the beginning and figure that I am working close enough to room temp that it probably won't change by more than a degree by the end. The only time that is critical to not overdo, is the developing time.

It's possible to overfix a film, but I think you would have to try pretty hard. If the clearing time for a fully exposed film is (for example) 2 minutes in rapid fixer at 20 C to get a clear piece of film in daylight, then you should fix for 4 minutes (double the clearing time). But if you leave the film in for 8 minutes, it is very unlikely that you would notice any effect of overfixing.

My routine is more or less: get the developer to somewhere in ~68-75 F (it is often hot where I am, and I may add an ice cube when diluting the developer). I have hard water, and use distilled water for the developer and Photo-flo but tap water for the other solutions. Develop for the recommended time-temp with agitation every 30 seconds. The temp of the remaining solutions can be anywhere in ~ 65-80 F: stop for 30sec to 1 minute; fixer for recommended time from the bottle (say 4 min for rapid fixer); wash aid for recommended time; wash by your favorite method; Photo-flo in distilled water for 30 sec without agitation; no squeegee, hang to dry.

No, no, I do not think recommending books is harsh at all. I have The Darkroom Handbook by Michael Langford. I just missed the small section on temperature. After your comment, I checked this morning and saw it! I feel like it does not explain the concept well, though in the end, it's completely my mistake.
I have tried to stick to the book and manufacturer's instructions for everything outside of developer dilutions.

That makes sense; not checking the temperature multiple times. I was mainly concerned with how much difference the sun would make on a dark tank. I am developing outdoors currently.

Also, I will have to try your ice-cube method and MattKing's method for mixing the solution once it gets hotter.

Standardise on 20C for all processing steps. Be strict about this for the sake of consistency...and fix longer! I'd also watch how vigorously you agitate. I can see sprocket hole surge marks. That is why I much prefer the figure-8 method. Cheers and good luck!

Will do, for both trying to keep ~20c and fixing longer!

What Andy says! I have never found aggressive agitation to be beneficial in my development of film. When I started to develop my own 120/620 film I noticed uneven development on the edges of the negatives. Thinking it was lack of agitation I naturally gave it more agitation, but the problem seemed to get worse. The light bulb then came on pretty bright and the problem was solved when I cut back to a gentle and very brief agitation. I also found that Rodinal developer was more prone to this problem than some of the other developers I have used.

I am still trying to figure out how to agitate properly. Currently, I slowly roll the agitation stick between my thumb and index finger. This is about a quarter of a rotation of the tank in 10 seconds.
The other way I was agitating was rolling it between said fingers, but for 5 seconds one direction and 5 the other, which was maybe a half rotation in both directions.

You mention that you're on well water. Try using distilled water from a grocery store. There may be certain minerals in your well water that's messing up your developer.

I have only used well water to wash the film; however, most of the time I use distilled water to wash. I strictly use distilled water to mix the working solutions.

OP, just out of interest where did you find your originally stated times for Tri-X and for fixing? Whatever that source was it may be wrong on a lot of other film-processíng matters. The cost of film and the effort required to produce negatives that give OK results are just too much to risk using poor info

pentaxuser

For the fixer, I used this sheet. On page 2 under 'Fixing times', it lists 2-5 Minutes for "General purpose films", and I followed the minimum amount of time.

The developer is a different story. Somewhere, buried in this forum, I found a post listing dilutions for Rodinal: 1:50 8-10 min and 1:75 12-14 min. These were attributed to
Bob Schwalberg. For this, I also followed the minimum time. Funnily enough, when I found the post, it was @Alex Benjamin who posted it. If I had only read a little further...

I found the times for FP4+ at 1:75 a tad under what I liked, so I added a little. Did not try Tri-X at these times.

Link to that thread: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/tri-x-developed-in-rodinal.193470/post-2655511

Again, thank you to everyone, and apologies for these longer posts. I am trying to address any questions and acknowledge everyone's advice.
- Bill

 

[DsrtBill]

Here are the results;

Both photos are of the emulsion side, since any photo of the front is just a reflection of the lights above.

Process:
Checked the distilled water temperature before loading the tank with film.
Used the Paterson tank this time.
Checked water again after, no change, and was at 20.5c.
Used Rodinal 1:50 - 588ml water and 12ml Rodinal. Checked the temp before pouring into the tank, and read exactly 20c.
14 minutes, first minute agitated, then the last 10 seconds of every minute after.
Filled the tank up once from the well, but after reading the temperature of the well water at 18c abandoned that. Dumped the water and filled the tank up with distilled water, dumped and refilled 4 times total. Before dumping, I let them sit for maybe 20-30 seconds while preparing for the next fill, a little less for the well water. I'll be switching to a different method if anyone has advice on doing Water Stop baths.
I accidentally left a little bit of the water from the bath, so the fixer was slightly diluted when I poured it in. Fixed for 4 minutes, and took it out to look at it after. I thought it looked fine, so I dumped out the diluted fixer.
Ilford wash method
Then used Sprint Archive Fixer remover for ~3 minutes. It was getting dark, so my note-taking failed around here.
Ilford washed again and ran through Photo-Flo. I got some particles on the negatives while running through Photo-flo and while photographing. I also broke a cylinder, which I am still a little sore over.


Lost a few frames to surge marks from over-agitation, though it is only on the first few. Do these negatives look about right? I would say they look mildly better in person than compared to the photos. If I had a light table, it would make this easier!

- Bill

 

[Craig]

I am still trying to figure out how to agitate properly. Currently, I slowly roll the agitation stick between my thumb and index finger. This is about a quarter of a rotation of the tank in 10 seconds.
The other way I was agitating was rolling it between said fingers, but for 5 seconds one direction and 5 the other, which was maybe a half rotation in both directions.

I'd say that's under agitated. When I use the stick I'll turn it vigorously for several revolutions to get the liquid moving, then stop the stick abruptly so the fluid is moving past the film. So perhaps 5-7 seconds turning, every 30 seconds.

I've not had surge marks around the sprocket holes, but I'm also using Xtol as my developer.

I use an acid stop with the indicator in it. Pour it in, twist the stick vigorously, or put the cap on and invert a few times. your choice and pour out. 15s is all it need, the reaction happens quickly. I dump and it if it's still yellow, then it's acid and can be reused. Blue means the acid has all reacted and it's a base now - discard.

 

[mshchem]

Standardise on 20C for all processing steps. Be strict about this for the sake of consistency...and fix longer! I'd also watch how vigorously you agitate. I can see sprocket hole surge marks. That is why I much prefer the figure-8 method. Cheers and good luck!

Excellent advice here! Figure 8 method is classic. This is how I learned.

Also, water wash needs to be kept around 20°C. Cold water is not good, neither is too warm .

20-24°C is just right (waterwash not porridge!)

Best!

 

[250swb]

I agitate the same way @Craig does, with the stick and four or five full turns in one direction then stop abruptly and the developer keeps flowing. I've not had uneven development or surge marks since I saw the light and adopted the twizzle stick thirty years ago. And I agree the OP isn't using the stick correctly, it's good to be gentle and not over agitate but moving it a fraction of a turn isn't really doing anything, the idea is to get fresh developer into the emulsion, not extend the life of the developer already in the emulsion. A variation of rotational agitation is to just to gently swish the developer in the tank, an ideal method for high contrast films.

But a good book is what the OP needs, the OP has clearly started with some confusing advice and just one source of good advice (or one mentor) is required.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Somewhere, buried in this forum, I found a post listing dilutions for Rodinal: 1:50 8-10 min and 1:75 12-14 min. These were attributed to
Bob Schwalberg. For this, I also followed the minimum time. Funnily enough, when I found the post, it was @Alex Benjamin who posted it.

The Schwalberg article is certainly worth a read, but I do find his development times about 20% to 25% under what is needed. I suspect this is due to the change in emulsion in various films since it was published. The Tri-X and FP4 of today aren't the same films they were back then.

Rodinal is a tough nut to crack, and that's the reason you'll find development times that are all over the place. Agfa times don't match Ilford's times, and even Agfa's times don't match each other, depending on which chart you rely. Finding the sweet spot with this developer is really difficult and demands a lot of testing — not only of development time, but also of film speed, agitation, temperature, etc. When you miss with Rodinal, you miss spectacularly — bland underdevelopment or way too much contrast. But when you find the sweet spot, with certain films, it can give absolutely gorgeous negatives, especially in larger formats.

This is an Galaxy phone photo taken under the yellow-ish light of the darkroom of a just-squeegeed print from a 4x5 T-Max 100 negative shot at ISO 64 and developed in Rodinal 1+50. It was my first time trying this combo, so I followed the Agfa instructions to a tee, i.e., 12 minutes at 20ºC, constant agitation the first 30 seconds + 5 seconds (two inversion) every 30 seconds. This is the work print, so absolutely no dodging or burning, made on grade 2.5. My definition of a "relatively easy" negative to print.

Works well for this normal contrast scene, but negs from higher contrast scenes would have benefited either from slightly lower times, less agitation, or the compensating effect of the 1+75 dilution. In other words, lots of testing still needed.

 

[npl]

About agitation with the stick, below is what is found on the XTOL datasheet.

I used a variant of this for a long time and it work : initial agitation of 30s (roughly 30 half-turns) then every 30s 5 half-turns at a rate of 1 half-turn per second. When used with a timer that does 5 beeps every second at 30s intervall (I used the MDC app) there's great consistency between devs, as it's easy to agitate the exact same way every time.

It's not a very dynamic agitation so dev times are extended a bit compared to the inversion method. Note : untested with very short times like 5min or below, that are not recommended anyway even with inversions.

 

[koraks]

I slowly roll the agitation stick between my thumb and index finger. This is about a quarter of a rotation of the tank in 10 seconds.
The other way I was agitating was rolling it between said fingers, but for 5 seconds one direction and 5 the other, which was maybe a half rotation in both directions.

While the twizzle stick can yield good results (as evidenced by some remarks above), it shouldn't be used too gently. The purpose of agitation is to replace the developer on the surface of the film. Being too gentle with the twizzle stick can result in the spent developer 'sticking' to the surface of the film a little (esp. within the coil of film spooled onto a reel), causing local exhaustion. This effect will never be perfectly even, resulting in uneven development.
Excessive agitation can induce problems but I have frankly never seen clear evidence of manual agitation being too excessive - other than people complaining of splattering developer all over the place. Surge marks as a result of uneven flow patterns are fairly common, but not so much on 135 film; they occur mostly on 120 and sheet film. It's debatable whether over-agitation is the main contributing cause; to me it seems to relate more to uneven flow patterns as a result of tank geometry combined with the image area extending close to the edges of the film (where unevenness is most likely to show).

The TL;DR of this is that the risk of under-agitation, especially in the approach you described, is far more of a concern than over-agitation.

Overall, the other comments about insufficient development (too short) and in particular grossly insufficient fixing times are the main contributing causes to your problem, which also has a component of underexposure to it at least in some frames.

There's no need to use a 'fixer remover' on film and if you do the Ilford wash method, there's also no compelling reason to use a wash-aid (sodium sulfite). With fiber-base paper this is a different story.