Response to Rodinal --- What's it best for ?

Rodinal can give great tonal rendition and often a look of etched clairity. The downside is that the grain pattern is quite obvious. Unless you like that look all the time, it's not something I'd use to the exclusion of all else. It seems better suited to slower films (in 35mm anyway), unless you're after that grain pattern. Great stuff in MF and LF. You can reduce the grain and retain the look by adding 4g/l of sodium ascorbate (per P. Gainer's writings). I also had very good results with highly dilute Rodinal and TMX. Before you choose a film and developer combination, you should try to define the look you're after- smooth and glowing, hard and biting, large grain, small grain, edge effects, or whatever. That makes it easier to choose both the materials and the processing methods.

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