I'm trying to settle on Rodinal at 1:50 as my 35mm film developer and so far I have had great results with slower films, APX 25 and Pan F. Not much luck with anything faster though. Delta 100 seems to work pretty good so far but Tri-x was a disaster, Delta 400 was just ok but terrible pushed. I really to need find one fast film that ideally could be pushed a bit in pinch. I will try some Delta 3200 this weekend which is probably the fastest, but does anyone have a favorite fast film for use with Rodinal at 1:50? Thanks.

-- bill zelinski (willy226@yahoo.com), September 27, 1999

Answers

Rodinal has a great tonal scale but is grainy as hell. I save it for 8x10 sheets.

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-- Peter Hughes (leonine@redshift.com), September 27, 1999.

I agree with Bill--Rodinal has no solvent action whatsoever, so it tends to preserve the grain structure of any film developed in it. The grainier the film, the grainier the results with Rodinal. It is best used with slow films. Try X-tol for the fast films--I think you'll be much happier.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), September 27, 1999.

I bought many bottles of Rodinal over the years, as the stuff seems to be highly recommended by many people. I never found its magic properties, and it's hard to mix the high dilutions with great accuracy. Probably best reserved for large format work. I don't think it's a great general purpose developer, especially for 35mm (consider when it was first formulated!)

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), September 28, 1999.

Thanks, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. I will cointinue to experiment with Rodinal for the 35mm slower films until I get that Deardorf 8x10 (although by then I should be using mixing my own Pyro right? :) Xtol works fine work on my Tri-X and Delta 100. My main reason for trying Rodinal was to see if I can get better acutance as I'm printing with a diffusion head (dichro)at 8"x10" and thought this would help to "sharpen" up my prints a bit and for right now grain is not the main issue, it seems the consensus is that a condensor head would also "sharpen" my small negs but I have not decided to switch yet, although if this is what it takes...

-- bill zelinski (willy226@yahoo.com), September 28, 1999.

Try HP5+ in Rodinal 1:50 with 20-50g sodium sulfite/liter working solution, 10'/68F for EI 250-320.

-- John Hicks / John's Camera Shop (jbh@magicnet.net), September 28, 1999.

"My main reason for trying Rodinal was to see if I can get better acutance" Xtol diluted 1+2 or 1+3 gives plenty of acutance, to my eyes. I've settled on 1+2 for the shorter developing times.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@ase.com), September 29, 1999.

Cobbstone-like grain can be achieved with Rodinal when you use T-Max 3200 or Neopan 1600, dilute 1+25, 5-6 min at ISO1600. Better performance and good tonal range, I got with Agfa APX400 in Rodinal 1+25, 5 min at 68F/20C, never longer. In summer I rated the film at ISO200 and developed for 4 min. Less grain, fairly good acutance and a tonal range that I never got with 1+50, which generally delivers muddy contrasts, unless you 're shooting sunlit snowlands with black charcoals mounts on it........ Other 400 films must react accordingly, but stick to 1+25 and control all conditions well, too warm is lethal at this dilution!! The product is outdated, but still good. Technical Pan likes it.....

-- Folkert van Galen (fvangalen@aol.com), October 15, 1999.