Your best semi-stand experiences?

[Rolleiflexible]

I think you will find that the Paterson tank and reel are likely implicated in bromide drag. I've done a ton of testing over the past several years and found that the more contact the film has with its support structure, the more drag you risk. Similarly, getting the reel of the bottom of the tank lets gravity pull away the byproducts during stand and reduces the risk of streaking.

For these reasons, I use only Nikor stainless reels in a tank twice as large as needed. I invert a funnel at the bottom of the tank and place the loaded reel on top of it. This suspends the film well above the bottom, and the Nikor reel design appears to have minimal tendency toward bromide drag since so little is in contact with the film. YMMV

I too use SS tanks and Hewes reels. But I don't bother to add space at the bottom of the tank. Using this equipment, I've never had bromide drag in 20 years of semistand development of 120 roll film.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

With *these three* (rodinal, HC-110, caffenol) I would not call semi-stand a safe method. From the numerous threads on the subject and personnal experience, even with extensive testing to find the ideal combination of agitation, reel positionning... and so on to eliminate bromide drag, the risk is still there and shouldn't be underestimated.

I can speak only for Rodinal. Semistand development of 120 roll film in highly-diluted (<1:100) Rodinal is riskfree.

 

[What About Bob]

It works really well, especially at high dilutions. Here is a scan of a print made from a 9x12cm negative developed in D:23 1+9 with 0.5 g/l lye added. The high dilution gives you great sharpness:

https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/Gallery/Silver/media/large/20230616-1-91-Barking_Mad.jpg

However, this comes at the cost of consdiderably more visible grain in smaller formats like 35mm:

https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/Gallery/Silver/media/large/20230608-1-12-Tickets.jpg

I've gotten really good semistand results in D-23 1+3 that is a more day-to-day balance between sharpness and grain.

It's like Rodinal on steroids. D23 is capable of a lot.

Curious to see how 1:3 would perform with Kentmere 400.

 

[GLS]

My favourite stand/semi-stand developer by a long chalk... Pyrocat-HD

Same here.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

I have only done semi-stand with Caffenol, and wonder what other developers/routines would work in semi-stand mode.
Success stories?

Psst.. I know semi-stand is heresy to many, but why not have some fun with stuff.. and I was nice enough to not to mention extreme s-s! We are all friends, here, as Big Sandy like to say.

Have a look at the web darkroom website by Andrew Sanderson who sometimes employs dilute/static for night photography using diluted ID11.

Can't seem to make a link on my phone.