Thor's developing question

[Sanders McNew]

On May 13, 2014, at 1:13 AM, Richard Knoppow wrote:

The point of all this is that precise exposure is not
important for negative film provided its not to little.

I cannot say anything useful about the rest of Richard's
post but I concur with his takeaway. So long as you get
enough light on Tri-X, you will get a printable negative.
At some point you will overwhelm the film to the point
that it loses its full range of greys but within the extremes
the film is forgiving. I set my meter at 200, err on the
side of overexposure, and don't sweat the half-stops.

On another point: I read somewhere that you (Thor)
will be souping in Rodinal in a Jobo tank. Melanie does
just that with her Tri-X roll film and swears by it, though
she's using a 1:100 solution for 15 minutes with a pre-
rinse @ 68F. I prefer HC-110 in the recipe I posted on
the other list, because the grain is more pronounced
when processing in Rodinal with constant agitation.
Melanie prefers the more prominent grain. You might
too but be aware how the process will contribute to
how grain appears in the developed negatives.

Sanders McNew
www.flickr.com/sandersnyc<http://www.flickr.com/sandersnyc>

[Thor Legvold]

Hi Sanders,

I’ve been getting really good results with Rodinal 1:25 and APX100 in the Jobo, 5 min @ 24C.

Today I processed the last of the films I’ve had lying around waiting to be developed, and tomorrow plan to move on to a handful of “special case” rolls - APX100 that was pushed to 400, and Tri-X shot at 400, all 120 roll film.

I remember you posting somewhere that you don’t really see any compensating effect of high dilution/low agitation stand developing, as it’s one of the solutions I’m considering for the remaining rolls. OTOH, with 6x6 negs I don’t know if a bit more grain will really be a problem. It’s really convenient to be able to just drop a tank filled with loaded reels into the Jobo and walk away, although I suppose stand development (Rodinal 1:100 for 60 minutes or so) isn’t exactly labor intensive either.

Is Melanie shooting with a Leica, or is she on a Rollei or some other MF camera?

I’d love to try HC-110, but don’t want to go out and buy more developer now. I have a few old cans of D-76 and a bottle of Rodinal, one of them will get the nod to develop the rest of the films.

As I’m starting to amass quite a few negatives and have that part of the darkroom working, do you (or others) have any recommendations for paper? It’s still a while off, but it would be good to test out a few (fiber) papers to see what gives me a look I like and fits with the negatives I have. The biggest problem I have is finding space to rinse/wash them and then dry them.

Best regards,
Thor

Post by Sanders McNew

Post by Sanders McNew
The point of all this is that precise exposure is not
important for negative film provided its not to little.

I cannot say anything useful about the rest of Richard's
post but I concur with his takeaway. So long as you get
enough light on Tri-X, you will get a printable negative.
At some point you will overwhelm the film to the point
that it loses its full range of greys but within the extremes
the film is forgiving. I set my meter at 200, err on the
side of overexposure, and don't sweat the half-stops.
On another point: I read somewhere that you (Thor)
will be souping in Rodinal in a Jobo tank. Melanie does
just that with her Tri-X roll film and swears by it, though
she's using a 1:100 solution for 15 minutes with a pre-
the other list, because the grain is more pronounced
when processing in Rodinal with constant agitation.
Melanie prefers the more prominent grain. You might
too but be aware how the process will contribute to
how grain appears in the developed negatives.
Sanders McNew
www.flickr.com/sandersnyc