Rodinal - 1800's Technology..

Rodinal... what is this miracle drug from the 1800's?  In Canada it is known as Blazinol, due to some bizarre copyright law.
It's been coined as being "UGLY" for 35mm because of it being grainy, and yet, I find that it doesn't have to be grainy.
I prefer it with medium and large format films, but in 35mm you can get fine grain.  It's all about developing techniques.

"The second part is don't let your developer temperature go above 20°C —18°c is perfect. Agitation should not be over done, normally with D76 you'd agitate 10sec every 30 with bold inversions, doing that with Rodinal enhances grain and sometimes contrast.
I've found one circular swish and tap per min works well also initial agitation for 30sec with a slow roll and tap of the tank."

Having read that from the Rodinal Group on Flickr, posted by Photo Utopia, I decided to give it a try.
I, just so happened, to have finished a roll of Polypan F that I put through the Minolta Maxxum 7000.  Sure enough, some light agitation, I basically just swirled the tank and tapped it on the countertop, and making sure that the developer solution did not go above 20°C (which is pretty easy considering I started around 16°C) and at 9:00 at the finish point (Rodinal 1+50) the results speak quite nicely for themselves..

 

All above photos were taken on a Minolta Maxxum 7000 using Polypan F 50ASA film.  They were developed in a different developing technique.  Instead of the usual 5 inversions every minute (and the first initial 30s on first minute) I did absolute minimal inversions.  I gave the tank 2 gentle inversions in the first minute, with a good tap when I put it down on the counter.  I then gave the tank a gentle swirl every minute, with a good tap when I put it down on the counter.

Looks like the concept works quite well!

Until next time, keep those shutters firing!

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