What is the grainiest bw film and developer?

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

PT. 1:
HP5, Rodinal 1:6, 1 min, 45 s. 68ºF, Petri 7s

(The perils of shooting at f 1.8...)^

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Pt. 2:
there were two 1:6 frames with some sort of weirdness:

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Hp5, Rodinal 1:3, 1 min, 68º F, Petri 7s.

 

[loccdor]

Rodinal 1:3! That's nuts. Great pictures.

 

[thinkbrown]

Hp5, Rodinal 1:3, 1 min, 68º F, Petri 7s.

I got the notification for this, misread it, and thought you developed for 7 seconds

 

[Quiver2]

Strange that no one has mentioned caffenol as a developer. Use the formula for slow films on a high speed film e.g. 400 or greater. The Arista/Fomapan films work for this.



Edit note: Curse you autocorrect!

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Hp5, Rodinal 1:1, 36s, 68ºf. Petri 7s

Next low dilution cycle- Ultrafine Finesse 400/ ORWO N74

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Strange that no one has mentioned caffenol as a developer. Use the formula for slow films on a high speed film e.g. 400 or greater. The Arista/Fomapan films work for this.



Edit note: Curse you autocorrect!

I've used caffenol for developing expired Kodachrome, but not much else. might be worth trying down the line

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

assumed 20(ish) years expired Tri-X in Rodinal 1:25. this convinced me I should be considering this film for high grain.

 

[koraks]

A good deal of fog helps; you end up with a muted negative that needs a lot of contrast boosting to normalize contrast, and that will boost the grain along with it.

Another thing that you could try is to use a red filter; not orange, yellow etc, but red. The red-sensitive part of a panchromatic emulsion tends to be on the grainy side. Of course, you get the particular color response for free to go with it...

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

I know I've got some red filters somewhere- but all these were shot unfiltered

 

[pentaxuser]

Rodinal 1:3! That's nuts. Great pictures.

Well it certainly is to a Scotsman like me Actually if the same size prints looked similar on a darkroom print I'd say that Rodinal 1+3 looks OK but I do wonder what, if any, improvement there is on 1+25/50

pentaxuser

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Ultrafine Finesse 400 (aka, I'm pretty sure it's ORWO n74), Rodinal 1:12, 4 min 68ºF.
Argus C Forty Four

 

[tezzasmall]

I'm loving the grain that you are getting with STRONG Rodinal dilutions, GasMaskMan.

I have a nearly full bottle of Rodinal that I didn't really get on with at it's usual dilutions, so I might just use it up on one or two 35mm films at your low dilutions.

Interestingly, to try and get some grain before, I tried a roll of HP5+ in Ilford MG developer, at 1+9 (= usual paper strength), and developed for two minutes, and I was quite impressed with how good the negatives came out. They were totally useable for printing with no extra grain. I've kept this in mind for when I need to d+p a film in the minimum time. But your tests have shown me an even faster way!

Terry S
UK

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

I'm loving the grain that you are getting with STRONG Rodinal dilutions, GasMaskMan.

I have a nearly full bottle of Rodinal that I didn't really get on with at it's usual dilutions, so I might just use it up on one or two 35mm films at your low dilutions.

Interestingly, to try and get some grain before, I tried a roll of HP5+ in Ilford MG developer, at 1+9 (= usual paper strength), and developed for two minutes, and I was quite impressed with how good the negatives came out. They were totally useable for printing with no extra grain. I've kept this in mind for when I need to d+p a film in the minimum time. But your tests have shown me an even faster way!

Terry S
UK

Always happy to inspire. the big tradeoff is these high dilutions absolutely will drain a 500ml bottle, especially if you try 1:3 and 1:1.
and yes, throughout the year, there will be more low dilution rodinal tests with more films.

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

Low dilution Rodinal Ultrafine Finesse 400 (aka N74) Pt. 2:
1:6, 2 min, 68ºF, Argus C Forty-Four.