Gast
Hello everyone,
I’ve been given a box of Efke PL 100 M. Unfortunately, there’s no instruction leaflet inside. Can anyone tell me whether this film should be developed with Rodinal or Neofin Blaue? I’ve also read that it needs a lid when developing in a tray. Does it work without one? Or what’s the name of that kind of lid?
Thanks for your help.
Regards, Boris
cfb_de
Hi Boris,
For some initial useful pointers, have a look at
Digitaltruth. I’m sure there are a few people in the large-format forum (I don’t know the link off the top of my head) who’ll know what you’re talking about.
Hüter... That goes straight into the stop bath. As for ready-made solutions, LP-Geladur is one option (and forget what the manufacturer says about Geladur in the developer – it’s complete rubbish!), whilst homemade mixtures work wonderfully with chromium alum.
Best regards,
Franz
Gast
Hi Boris, I develop Efke PL 100 in Rodinal 1:50 or R09 1:40 for 13 minutes in a tray. I don’t use a developing tray, but I develop each sheet individually or two at a time in two 13x18 cm trays.
Best regards, Uwe
uworischki
Hi Boris, I develop the Efke PL 100 in Rodinal 1:50 or R09 1:40 for 13 minutes in a tray. I don’t use a developing tray, but develop each sheet individually or two at a time in two 13x18 cm trays.
Regards, Uwe
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Gast
Hello...,
Thanks for the help. I’m going to expose some sheet films today and develop them in Rodinal. 1+50 for 13 minutes. Can anyone tell me how many sheet films I can develop in 510 ml or 1020 ml without the developer losing its potency? I’ve loaded three cassettes.
Am I right in thinking that the sheet films need to be pre-soaked first so that the antihalation agent dissolves? For how long?
Sorry for the silly questions, but these will be the first sheet films I’ve ever developed.
Thanks!!
Regards, Boris
cfb_de
Hi Boris,
how many sheet films can I develop with 510ml or 1020ml without the developer losing its potency?
That depends on the format and how you process them.
Four 4x5" sheet films are roughly equivalent to the area of a 35mm film. So 510ml of Rodinal 1+50 would be sufficient.
If you’re conducting development in a tray, however, I’d change the developer after each sheet, as Rodinal doesn’t last much longer than 20 minutes, and certainly not in an open tray.
And here’s some further reading:
Alexander Selzer – Grosskabinett
Best regards,
Franz
Gast
Hi Franz,
Where on earth did the idea come from that Rodinal doesn’t last longer than 20 minutes? Back in the day, when my grandfather used to develop his glass plates, that developer was used for paper, wasn’t it?
Or does it depend on the dilution? If so, I’d go back to diluting it 1:10 when using a tray, just like my grandfather did.
Roland
cfb_de
Hello Roland,
Oxidation depends on time and concentration. With a 1+10 dilution, as is standard for paper developers, this results in a longer working life.
Roman R. once measured the approx. 20-minute processing time for a 1:50 dilution as an additional result in his Sensir series. I can verify and confirm this figure here; as far as I know, Agfa itself has not specified any times exceeding 19 minutes for Rodinal. I wonder why ;-)
However, you’re unlikely to be particularly happy with a 1:10 ratio for your sheet film films. Use a 1:50 ratio and throw the solution away after development. Anyone who can manage to work with sheet film can surely spare the 17 cents for the Rodinal solution.
Best regards,
Franz
RomanJRohleder
Roland,
I’ve given it a go.
However, this applies to hand-processing at 3 tilts per minute – in that case, a 1+50 Rodinal solution at 20°C takes between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on the film.
The stories from Kaiser’s time refer to
- tray development, where nothing is stirred
- strong solutions in the range of 1+10 and stronger.
Roman
Wolfgg
I cannot understand the claims that Rodinal deteriorates quickly. After all, how could the following have worked: to test the truth of the balancing effect of stand development, I recently developed a piece of PanF (a 3-frame section of 4.5x6 roll film) for 60 minutes in Rodinal 1+100 and 120 minutes (i.e. 2 hours) in Rodinal 1+200 at 20°C. I only agitated it during the first 30 seconds. I used a Jobo 1500 tank with an airtight lid (which slowly bulges inwards during development). The result was good, density OK, exposure normal at 18 DIN. Why should the Rodinal in an airtight tank give up the ghost after just a few minutes?
Regards, Wolfgang
cfb_de
Hello Wolfgang,
These two tests don’t tell us much. Have you tried stand development and, say, using a 1+100 ratio for the following sequence: 20 mins, 30 mins, 45 mins, 60 mins?
That’s how we noticed something interesting with a 1+50 ratio and tilt-tank development: from about 20 minutes onwards, the dmax stopped increasing.
However, the effect should be less pronounced with stand development, as there is less mixing with air.
Best regards,
Franz
Wolfgg
Franz: If the ‘developing capacity’ of a 1+200 solution had already been exhausted after, say, 30 minutes of stand development – meaning that the remaining 90 minutes would have produced no further increase in density – I would surely have ended up with a noticeably faint negative. And with a 1+200 solution, the development would have stopped sooner than with a 1+50 solution. By the way: at the start of my film developing career a few decades ago, I worked exclusively with Rodinal. Back then, I developed 35mm film strips containing about 4 exposures for the first time. I didn’t pour away the 1+50 batch afterwards, but as a thrifty beginner I kept it in a plastic bottle (permeable to oxygen) for the next batch (or even for the next day). And to the untrained eye of a beginner, nothing stood out on the developed film strips; the used developer still had good bite even after 24 hours – there was always ‘something on it’. Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps the formula was more robust back then; who knows. I suppose I should try squeezing out today’s Rodinal like I did back then. Or is your water full of heavy metals (lead, etc.)? Why not try it with distilled water? Perhaps I’ll have time for a few test develops at the weekend.
Regards, Wolfgang
P.S.: For the dilutions 1+100 and 1+200, I used water that had been purified using a reverse osmosis system.
micha
In my opinion, Rodinal and Efke go together really well.
I use a 1:50 dilution and develop 6 rolls of 9x12 film in 270ml. It works a treat. The development time at 24°C is about 10 minutes. But that’s tailored to my paper and enlarger.
By the way, the large-format forum is called www.grossformatfotografie.de.
Regards, Micha
Wolfgg
Franz: here’s something to think about; I carried out the following experiment:
A 600ml Schott Duran beaker, 300ml tap water at 20°C, with 3ml of Rodinal concentrate added, resulting in a 1+100 dilution. Left open for 60 minutes, stirring vigorously with a glass rod roughly every 2 minutes to introduce oxygen. Then I dropped in a small piece of TMax400; it slowly turned black over about 30 minutes, so the developer was still capable of reduction after 60 minutes. I waited until 120 minutes had passed since dilution, dropped in another small piece of TMax400, and it again slowly turned black over about 30 minutes, so the developer was still capable of reduction even after 120 minutes. Now left the beaker with 1+100 developer open for a further 8 hours, then added a small piece of TMax400; it still slowly turned black over about 30 minutes, but slightly slower than 8 hours ago, so the developer was still capable of reduction even after 10 hours of exposure to air.
Result: The Rodinal behaves exactly as it did when I first started, i.e. the nice plastic bottle probably contains the same as the venerable glass bottle with rubber stopper once did. Why does your Rodinal lose its potency so early; what are you doing differently?
Regards, Wolfgang
Gast
Hello everyone,
I use Calbe’s R09 – it is, after all, the original Rodinal, so what I say applies to Rodinal as well – but I haven’t had any problems at all, whether at 1:40, 1:80 or 1:100. I always work at 24 degrees in a rotary processor and, for example, with 6 sheets of 4 x 5-inch sheet films in 270 ml at 1:100, I get a development time of 26.15 minutes (Classic 400) – perfectly suited to my processor (LPL/Jobo/Heiland/mixed light) and my papers. With Rollei R3 at f/3 (ISO 2500) pushed, even at 36.30 minutes; – all without any problems, the negatives are perfectly dense and well-defined!
I believe that, in practice, most developers perform better than their theoretical specifications suggest. Even the somewhat ‘eccentric’ CG512, which is supposed to be used at a ratio of 1:4 / 24°C and theoretically requires at least 50 ml per film, works for me with just 32 ml and produces good negatives, although the development time for R3 (e.g. ISO 200 etc.) films is always over 25 minutes.
Generally speaking, based on my many years of development experience, I would say that whilst you should stick to the manufacturer’s recommendations (minimum volume per film, dilution, minimum time, etc.) as a starting point or for initial trials, in practice most developers end up using quite different methods, volumes, etc.
Best regards
Lothar
huehnerhose
Hello,
Even though I don’t have much experience to draw on: a while back, I was experimenting with some old Orwo film and Rodinal. The first sheet was developed in about 5 minutes, but the next one, which had more exposure, didn’t develop at all. There was a processing time of about 40 minutes between these sheets, using Agfa Rodinal 1+100 with distilled water.
So I can support the theory of ‘rapid’ development.
Regards
Sebastian
P.S. With a suitable tray, you only need about 400–500ml of developer solution, i.e. 4–5ml of concentrate at 1+100... I’d weigh up which is more expensive: time + film or Rodinal.
cfb_de
Hello Wolfgang,
You do realise that the mere fact that a weakening occurs and that the solution is capable of reducing in principle isn’t enough, don’t you? Take a Sensist strip, treat it in the solution and measure it afterwards.
That’s what Roman and I mean. The broth does still reduce, but no longer in a way that’s useful for film development.
Best regards,
Franz
Wolfgg
Hi Franz,
I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. Up until now, I’d assumed that your Rodinal stops reducing altogether after a certain time – in other words, that the aminophenol gets completely oxidised, the pH drops too far, and so on. That’s why I dropped some test film strips (with heavy overexposure, of course) into the Rodinal 1+100 to see if the reducing capacity would eventually fail completely. The film strips all have a density above 3, even after standing for 10 hours in an open beaker.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any sensitivity strips here, because as a zone system user I prefer to calibrate my chain in a single go using a self-exposed grey scale (including shutter speed, aperture, etc.). However, I have just developed a correctly exposed piece of HP5 in the Rodinal 1+100 that has now been standing open in the beaker for 26 hours, again with a 60-minute stand development time. Snow at Zone 8 during exposure, and what do I measure? The density there is 1.1 above the fog; 1.2 would be correct for N. The negative is perfectly usable. Density at the film tail is a hefty 3.7. According to various reports here, I shouldn’t have been able to see any image at all. Of course, these aren’t exact measurements like with a densitry strip, but doesn’t this show that things are working a bit differently for you than they are for me? Even Sebastian’s (huehnerhose) observation above – no visible density after just 40 minutes of development time with correct exposure – doesn’t match my test results at all. What now?
Regards, Wolfgang
RomanJRohleder
Wolfgang,
Well then. I’ll have to dig out the old test strips.
Until then, you’ll have to make do with the link to my exposure/time curve in the Efke/ADOX thread and the example I’ve included below – sorry about that.
With ADOX, you can see the curve dipping. The contrast doesn’t increase linearly in relation to the development time; it dips.
The attached example shows my TMZ in HC110 – whether developed for 840 or 630 seconds, the curves were practically identical from peak to trough. I verified it again with intermediate times; nothing changed at all.
With Rodinal, it always looks a little different. I haven’t yet pinned down the ‘final time’ for the complete processing settings – nor was that the aim of the exercise – but I was able to discern a trend. So, with development times longer than about 15 to 20 minutes, the curve does shift the base fog or the highlights up by a tiny bit, but there is no further gain in achievable contrast. So I can’t get the current R50/CHS50 past a certain gamma (g≈0.65; after that I didn’t feel like carrying on).
A real-world example – there is often a demand for HP5+ in Rodinal 1+50. Why didn’t Agfa specify any times? Because the processing technique couldn’t achieve a gamma of 0.65 (if I recall correctly, it stopped at 0.61) and the combination was therefore classified as ‘not recommended’.
For me, this combination works brilliantly – around ISO 200 and with a condenser enlarger.
But you have to accept that there are combinations that simply cannot lead to success.
> That’s why I developed test film sections in light (which were, of course, subject to severe overexposure)
That alone can skew the results.
> into the Rodinal 1+100 to see if the reducing capacity eventually > fails completely. The film strips all have a density above 3, even after a > standing time of 10 hours in an open beaker.
The crux of the matter: when did this density stabilise? And can you quantify this increase in density?
Then there’s the frantic shaking – standing around in the open air is quite different from being shaken to death in a can.
> Unfortunately, I don’t have any Sensist strips here, because as a zone system user I prefer to calibrate my camera in > a single go using a self-exposed grey scale (including shutter speed, aperture > etc.).
That’s nothing other than a test strip. Actually better, because it receives exposure in daylight – i.e. the light under which the film will be used – and not just under green or blue light.
I factor in shutter speed, aperture etc. in a separate step, which is where the ISO comes in too (admittedly, quite a few ISOs still need to be determined; I’m a bit lazy there).
> However, I have just developed a correctly exposed piece of HP5 in the Rodinal 1+100 that has now been standing in the beaker for 26 hours, again with a 60-minute stand development.
> According to various reports here, I shouldn’t have been able to see any image at all.
But no.
> Of course, these aren’t exact measurements like with the densitry strip, but doesn’t this > show that things are working a bit differently for you than they do for me?
No. :-)
And don’t give me any of that ‘minimum quantities’ or similar – the streak is 15cm long, and I’d prepared the 500ml solution with 10ml of Rodinal. Always.
> So what now?
Did I mention that I don’t think much of stand development at all? ;-)
Roman
Oleksander
Hi Roman,
You know, with Rodinal 1+50, the maximum effect on a film is reached after 20 minutes; you’d have to develop a second film in the same developer to see if it still works.
I don’t believe what you’re saying either; with agitation development, even more oxygen is introduced because you’re moving the tray back and forth.
I don’t have any film here that needs developing at 1+50 for 20 minutes or more; otherwise, I’d try it myself.
Regards,
Oleksander
PS: Kodak Tmax 3200 at 1+50 takes 25 minutes according to Agfa
