Response to Tweaking PanF/Rodinal

The more agitation you give a film the more density your highlights are going to have. The idea behind waterbath development or stand development is to limit the amount of fresh developer in the highlight areas of the film against the working developer in the shadow areas. The developer gets used up fast in the highlight areas and keeps working in the shadow areas. The more agitation you give a film the more fresh developer you bring to the highlight areas thereby encouraging more density in the highlight areas. And when taking pictures of moving, splashing water you have to give much less exposure and development to the film because the spashing, cascading water builds up those specular highlights on the film to the point that there are no shadows left in the water to help deliniate the texture of the water anymore. Your eyes keep readjusting to the changing scene but not the film. It just continues to record specular highlights. And soon that is all that is on the film. White (density) areas of paper. You can't tame these dense areas by decreased development or decreased agitation. Keep the exposure short and then decrease the development. Normal situations call for increased exposure to provide adequate shadow densities and then decreased development or dilute deveolpers to control the highlights. But moving water is different. James

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