Thanks. I have developed around 30-50 rolls of XP-2 using Rodinal 1-hour stand. The only difference is that I do it at 1 hour room temperature which is around 31C here. Also, I typically use 3ml + (300 – 3ml water) in a half-tank development.

BTW, XP-2 on private label, carried by Ultrafine online is quite cheap, at about 1.50 a roll.

cheers!

raytoei

Kind regards,
Anthony

As to getting the developing time that suits me best, I simply choose the time that gives me good skin tones on straight prints from what I think is a well-exposed frame. (I do a few test portrait shots on each make of film. It’s probably best to use an incident meter for this – but I usually manage without – and to use lighting that’s diffuse and even).

Forgive me for saying what you probably already know but rodinal is extremely sensitive to agitation, and the benefits of this particular form of minimal agitation (which I’d like to refer to as Cardwell’s method) only come from very very gentle agitation : 15 secs once it’s all in the tank and then 5 secs every fifth minute. In practice this is equivalent, for me, to 3 or 4 very gentle and slow inversions initially, and then two, and only two, very gentle and slow inversions after each 5 min period. This not only helps the tonal results but grain too.

I know that it’s very tempting to give a bit more each time, thinking that it just can’t be enough, but one has to resist these thoughts in the interest of true art as well as science, and remind oneself that rodinal is powerful enough to do it all by itself!

A thing that may be important to note is that on the basis of the Agfa graphs that give time adjustments for temperature differences, rodinal seems perhaps a bit less sensitive to temp differences than other developers, at least for some films. Data isn’t available for any films that I use but using estimates from the Agfa data for Agfapan 400 I’ve chosen to adjust by 1 min for each 1C up or down (or part thereof). Still, at 25 mins total time some slight errors here are not going to make much difference to the results.

By the way, if you find persistent problems with contrast or grain or both when using rodinal despite trying every method that seems to exist, my suggestion is not to give up! It might, for example, be something else, like some feature of the subsequent scanning. I don’t myself have the trouble of scanning cos I can’t be bothered to scan negatives (I’m utterly sick and tired of any sort of digital work) so I try to process negs so that they can be printed easily without manipulation. Rodinal does this for me, and then I send the negs to ILFORD/HARMAN for scanning and printing on Multigrade RC.

I’d be happy to show you a few print examples, if you’d like, that show the full range of tones that rodinal can give with Tri-X, including some wonderful mid greys, and also the fine grain (just email me). I particularly like the “grey colour” it gives to properly exposed skin tones, quite different from those from HP5+ and Neopan 400.

It’s a funny thing but rodinal seems to me to show more of the intrinsic qualities of each film than other developers that I’ve used. So I now use the same developing method for all my 400 iso films, and simply vary the image qualities, if I wish, by choosing a different film to put in the camera.

Good luck, and thanks again for a great site and blog.

Anthony

Ben, thanks for the tip. I’ll give that some thought.

Anthony, I’ve tried a few semi-stand or minimal agitation methods, but the results have always had too much grain and too much contrast for my tastes. Using the method you articulate, for how long do you soup TriX?

As to the question of how these would have looked if shot at 400, I’d expect less shadow detail, but I’d be surprised if the highlights or midtones were much different. XP2 is supposed to be highly tolerant of over exposure. Many folks just rate it at 200 for normal C41 development.

Max, I’m looking forward to seeing what Delta 400 looks like in stand rodinal. The T-grain films often behave more like C-41 films, so the results may well be similar to this.

Anthony’s comments about Rodinal are all well-taken. With fine grain films, Rodinal really shines as it produces really sharp effects and excellent contrast ranges. With faster films – silver films anyway – the grain can become an issue. I’ll bet that with XP2 and other chromo films, the grain remains very fine.

I have to try this!

The rodinal minimal agitation method gives great richness in both middle and dark tones, and wonderful detail in the highlights yet preserves the overall contrast. Sharpness is perfect (not too much to look like an engraving rather then a photo), and there are none of those weird or excessive effects that sometimes mar full-stand methods. Once you get the times right the images are never flat but at the same time are never too contrasty, all this with just 6 ccs of rodinal in 300 of water! Marvellous.

Kind regards,
Anthony

While I don’t think they’re over-exposed I wonder how they would have looked had the film been exposed at 400 iso? The reason I make the point is that I have recently found some rolls of XP2 that were exposed at 400 iso a few years ago and were half-forgotten about. Following wise, experienced and brilliant advice from Don Cardwell on apug forums I now use rodinal 1+50 with 5 min agitation cycles for all my films (usually Tri-X, HP5+ and Neopan 400). I’m astounded at the exceptional quality this gives in all areas, especially the tonal values and what I consider as fine grain. Rodinal is an amazing developer. As Don Cardwell so tellingly puts it, rodinal and this method give both hard and soft tones at the same time!

I’m thus going to develop my rolls of XP2 in rodinal using this semi-stand or minimal agitation technique. I hope it will complement your full-stand method, and I’ll let you know the results. The thing is, I don’t know the best starting point for the development time so it’s going to be hit or miss to begin with.

Thanks for your original idea in the first place, and for writing about it.

Kind regards,
Anthony

Just curious

I’d almost given up on Rodinal before this. It always seemed a bit too contrasty.

I like the contrast on the first shot, but the highlights on the last couple seem blown, at least on this monitor.

Love Rodinal – never would have tried it on XP2 or any such C41 film. Interesting.

It was a little early in the morning for vodka, but I was tempted ;-)