Rodinal

[Bill Welch <Bill.Welch@Pressroom.com>]

I've enjoyed this discussion of B&W film development. Thanks to 
Greg and others for the detailed description of their methods. Since so 
much has been written here about Rodinal, I wanted to contribute 
something about one of my very favorite brews.

	For those interested, the definitive discussion of Rodinal's 
properties and uses was contained in an article in the December 1979 
issue of Popular Photography by Bob Schwalberg. Anyone interested in this 
 subject would do well to find a copy.

	To keep this posting on-topic for the LUGs, note that the 
magazine ran side-by-side image comparisons, D-76 1+1 and Rodinal, with 
Tri-X shot with an M3 and 50mm (Summicron, I suppose).

	Just to hit a couple of its points: Rodinal is distinguished from 
most other commercial developers in that it is not a finegrain developer. 
It includes no silver solvents; its preservative does not act as sodium 
sulfite does. Simply put, with D-76, ID-11 and others, the sodium sulfite 
scatters some of the developed silver indiscriminately across the image. 
Rodinal, by contrast, brings out the inherent grain structure of the film 
itself, without such scattering. Thus a fine-grain film turns out fine 
grained in the Rodinal negative, and a grainy film produces a grainy 
Rodinal negative. What you get in return for giving up the fine-grain 
effects of the sodium sulifite is enhanced image sharpness, the "Eberhard 
edge," and adjacency effects -- in other words, accutance.

For me, Rodinal's payoff is also the beautiful tonal range it provides. 
It has a great ability to hold highlights while retaining shadows. 

By the way, the magazine provided recommended times at various dilutions. 
But those are probably impractical to try duplicating today because films 
have changed in the 17 years since then (perhaps even Tri-X). But the 
recommendation on dilution probably still holds. Basically 1+25 with 400 
ISO films is probably bested by D-76 or others. Dilution of 1+50 is where 
Rodinal really shines in brilliance, while 1+100 gives highest accutance.
It is useful for a variety of films and shouldn't be catagorized as a 
slow-speed film developer, in my opinion. 

Some add sodium sulfite to Rodinal. I've not done that more than a few 
times because it seemed to be counterproductive.

I'd also add that my experimentation with Rodinal led me to Edwal FG-7, 
which has some similar properties. It's also a great developer, and often 
overlooked. Many add sodium sulfite to it as well, though the same 
argument against doing so also holds. I find it gives increased sharpness 
at higher, for me, EIs.

Sorry for length here. Hope some find this of interest. 

Bill Welch