[Leica] B&W developers
Mark Rabiner
mark at rabinergroup.com
Thu Jun 15 08:59:23 PDT 2017
Rodinal is certainly a thick super concentrate that you need to get a thin glass measuring thing to measure the small amounts you use it with and it’s an easy thing to get used to and not worry so much about working with oxidized and or old developer out of a big bottle. Brown Rodinal still works just as well you maybe add a minute to it. I throw it out when it turned brown like that my nerves can only take so much.
But we ended up using that same thin glass measuring thing to measure out HC100 syrup with right out of the bottle when that came out -Ansel was using it so we had to try it. We didn’t pre-dilute it first like they told you too and then watch it get dark in the bottle and wonder if it was still good to use. It was easier to trust the super concentrates then working out of bigger bottles.
So, it was like using Rodinal as was the T-Max thick syrup which came after HC-110. Both Phenidone based great for pushing and great for horrible tonality and weak to no edge effects.
We (Portland photographers I knew) were starting to think T-Max T-grain film was horrible became of the T-Max developer they came out later to use with it. But before the T-Max developer (which gave you full film speed) they suggested you use D76 1:1 which is the developer and dilution they invented the film with. The first one being T-Max 100. And D76 1:1 worked great with it. When we quit using those Kodak Phenidone syrups and went back to using developers we already knew about and had been around awhile, Rodinal for instance we realized what a big deal tab grain technology was. It won an academy award and it wasn’t even a movie! The Iford Delta films were also T-grain as well as most of the later Fuji Neopan. Just about any tab grain film knocks any old-style film right out of the water despite the constant fawning over Tri-x on the internet lists and a few other old films. There is a ton of more information in Tab grain films as there was way higher resolution.
If you ever put a T-max 400 print next to a Tri-X print you’d never use Tri-X again it makes it look like kids’ stuff with toy cameras. And the stuff about T-max tonality being wanting is like what they said about digital a decade later. The people who didn’t want to use stuff they are not already checked out on and whose prints you never see the people with big opinions about processes and tools they never use and have nothing to show for.
Trading cameras back and forth and involving oneself in discussions on lists is not the same thing as putting a portfolio together of prints and or hanging a show. Or hitting deadlines. Its talking the talk vs walking the walk. Most avocations people take very seriously and you can’t get away with that level of BS. People are way more serious about their fun time than their work time. Yes, there are serious amateurs and pros but most people just dump on it. Its anything goes land. “But I just want to have fun with my photography!” If you many of you guys were stamp collectors the other stamp collectors would take out on a pike with tar and feathers.
Fun is when you know what the hell you are talking about and what the hell you are doing. All it really takes is doing it.
--
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
On 6/15/17, 7:09 AM, "LUG on behalf of Eddy Willems" <lug-bounces+mark=rabinergroup.com at leica-users.org on behalf of eddy at altphoto.be> wrote:
if you work wit rodinal 1+50 it has practical no grain with 135 film on
24x30 cm
but if your exposure is not correct you get a huge grain
the reason for me to chose rodinal is that if your production is low you
can use the bottle to the end without problem and results are consistent
if you use ID-11 or D76 the solution change in time and the results are
not consistent,
to have consistence with these developers I kept the developer in small
bottles just enough for the dilution
250cc or 100 cc bottles
Op 15/06/17 om 09:17 schreef Mark Rabiner:
> Don as you know I’m with you on the Xtol 1:3 it was my developer of choice too but an impressive article was written on Rodinal 1:25 stating the results were indistinguishable from D76 1:1 making for a hugely cost not effective situation. It would cost a fortune to pour that much of it in there. You’re the first person I ever knew to tried it and lived.
> Most felt maybe try it at an unpublished compromise 1:75 to tame the grain ever so much but then went back to 1:100 with all the good big boys (and girls). Even 1:50 got people scratching their fingers at you and your prints... Few people who tried it liked it not at full dilution.
> 1:100 made Rodinal Rodinal just as 1:3 made Xtol Xtol.
> Ansel said it didn’t matter which developer you used just as long as you use it at the right dilution.
> (to the effect)
>
> --
> Mark Rabiner Rabiner
>
>
>
> On 6/14/17, 11:02 AM, "LUG on behalf of Don Dory" <lug-bounces+mark=rabinergroup.com at leica-users.org on behalf of don.dory at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For easy compensating developing that is not insanely sensitive to time and
> temperature I would highly recommend Xtol dilute 1:3. Development time is
> a little long compared to others but that is why if you miss your temp by a
> degree and are distracted for thirty seconds you will still have great
> negatives. Edge detail is good but not Pyro or even some of the lower
> dilutions of Rodinal but much better than the high dilution Rodinal.
>
> All the best.
>
> On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 10:40 AM, Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at icloud.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks everyone. It is quite clear that nothing has changed since the last
> > time I processed b&w film those many years ago.
> >
> > Gerry
> >
> > Gerry Walden LRPS
> > www.gwpics.com
> > +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or
> > +44 (0)797 287 7932
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On 14 Jun 2017, at 15:00, George Lottermoser <george.imagist at icloud.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Jun 14, 2017, at 5:05 AM, Gerry Walden <gwpics at me.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> I don’t want to start and wars here, and I know this is a minefield in
> > which I will get a thousand and one answers, but is there any consensus of
> > opinion these days on a one-shot b&w developer?
> > >>
> > >> Insanely I am thinking of doing my own processing of film again.
> > >
> > > If you’ve never played with Pyro… you owe it to yourself to do so.
> > > A true difference in "edge."
> > >
> > > fond regards,
> > >
> > > George
> > >
> > > http://www.imagist.com/blog
> > > http://www.imagist.com
> > > http://www.linkedin.com/imagist
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Leica Users Group.
> > > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Leica Users Group.
> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Don
> don.dory at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
_______________________________________________
Leica Users Group.
See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
More information about the LUG
mailing list