What dance rhythms are taught at dance schools, and how do the differences affect things? Take the samba and Brazil, for example? (For a similarly vague question, I’d only need to swap a few words :-)
But seriously. There are many developers and many guidelines on the subject. And then there are the textbooks, practical experience and manufacturers’ leaflets.
None of that is fundamentally bad. You just have to try things out. And just as one person loves to dance the samba whilst another is still looking for the waltz beat at the Rio Carnival, the same applies to film development.
For Rodinal, as with other developers, the basic rule with a constant development time is: lots of agitation, lots of noise in the negative. And also: plenty of grain as a free bonus. You can overdevelop any film, after all :-)
In my process, I use Rodinal at 18.5–19°C, agitate according to Agfa (i.e. completely every two seconds for the first minute, then once every 30 seconds), and that works out pretty well for me. To maintain the temperature, I place the can in a 10-litre bucket at 19°C. You didn’t care about the concentration or the film, did you? Good. Saves me having to copy out any recipes again.
But I’d like to give you one point of reference: HP5+/1600ASA/Rodinal 1+50/medium format:
http://www.borgerding.de//Dosenkohl/1600ASA/index.htm. That works. And what’s particularly nice about it is that after about 17 minutes, the solution is so flat that there’s only a slight peak in the mid-tones. Which is exactly what you need there.
Please no criticism of the subject matter or the shot. I just want to show what’s technically possible with HP5 and Rodinal. Once you’ve tested and tried out the solution.
And this was an 18x24 print from 6x6, scanned using rather medieval technology. Only the overall image was digitally sharpened. The cropped sections are exactly as they fell from the print into the scanner. One pixel in the scan corresponds to one pixel on the monitor.
Please do take note of the fine bokeh of this old Tessar in the last detail and treat it with care :-)
Best regards,
Franz
