[Todd Adamson]

I guess I've jumped head first into doing my own B/W processing. After some reading, I decided to start with Rodinal stand developing, for a few reasons: it seems easy, the stuff will last forever, and most of all I like the look of some of the scans I've seen using R09 stand protocols. I received the chemistry in the mail yesterday, so I went for it last night. Loaded up a roll of LegacyPro 400 and shot it very quickly, not really trying to get interesting photos, but rather trying to get some good tonal varieties to my scenes, and assess how much of the detail at both ends I could retain.

Basic protocol was a 1:100 dilution of Rodinal, ~1-minute continuous agitation (40 slow inversions), followed by 50' stand, with a brief gentle inversion at about 25'. Room temp, which I didn't measure, but was probably very close to 20 C. Developer, fix, and distilled water (which I used as a 2-minute presoak and as a final rinse) were well-equilibrated to this temp, but I did 2 stop washes, and 2 post-fix washes with tap water, which I guestimated by feeling the water with my hand.

I am honestly a little bit shocked by how well this worked, and impressed with the result, but I would like some experienced eyes to tell me how I might improve. If anything, these seem a bit grainy to me for 400, but I haven't used this film before. First I'll post 10-web-size shots. These mostly were untouched except to resize and remove some of the dust in Photoshop. On a couple I did very slight (maybe 5%) cropping, and on the shot of the shed door with padlock, which I overexposed, I did a small Curves adjustment. Following the web-size shots, I've linked several of the "raw" files, untouched from the scan. I'd love to hear some opinions on these, particularly to know if anyone spots any processing artifacts I haven't noticed, and opinions on the graininess. Is it about right for this film, etc. Any criticism, suggestions, or other input is most appreciated!





















And here are some full-res scans:

http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/16_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/lumina_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/net_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/padlock_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/planter_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/porch_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/pots_raw-scan.jpg
http://pentaxforums.s3.amazonaws.com/first-process/trellis_raw-scan.jpg

[blackcloudbrew]

I'm using Lauder 761 (D-76) developer and am unfamiliar with your setup (I may need to educate myself on it though). In looking at these shots they seem really good (this is 35mm film right?). I think this is better grain than what I'm getting on Ilford HP5 400ISO film. Honestly your reaction was similar to mine when I printed 8x10 size some of my 400ISO shots. Uwe...grainy, thought I, my instructor remarked, what do you expect it's 400ISO, shoot 100ISO. I've gone back to Plus-X equivalents (125 ISO).

Bottom line is that except for the granularity of the first, eighth, and last image, all of these look good to my eyes and show very nice tonality. Exposure might be an element to consider too. Bracketing exposures with film may become a way of life too. It can help, but again nice first effort.

[Todd Adamson]

Hi, yes, it's 35mm. The grain may be perfectly normal, I don't know. I actually like it, but if it's grainier than it "should" be, I'd like to know, and figure out if I'm doing something wrong.

I will soon be trying some Acros 100 Neopan, and I've shot that before, so will have some idea what to expect. And yes, you're right, I should start bracketing exposures, at least on shots I care about....I haven't done that yet.

[blackcloudbrew]

Bracketing will give you options. And oh, that Neopan is nice stuff.

[vparseval]

Those are nice!

The grain you are seeing is probably to be expected for ASA-400 film and Rodinal. Rodinal is a high acutance-developer and therefore increases the appearance of grain.

Rodinal is one of the two developers I use myself (next to HC-110). I am normally wary of using it with 35mm film due its grain characteristics but have less scruples with MF or LF negatives.

Note that if you want to reduce grain, you can add 4g Sodium Ascorbate to your developer solution. It acts as an accelerator so with 4g you would use the development times for 1+50 if you were using a 1+100 dilution. You can see some of my results with Rodinal and Sodium Ascorbate here. For those, I was using Fuji Acros, arguably a film with significantly lower noise levels than LegacyPro 400.

Cheers,
Tassilo

[fs999]

Thy are really nice ! I love the soft tone.

I made also my first attempt in stand development with a Rollei Retro 100 roll. R09 1+100. Slow agitation (20x) the first minute. 30 mins. stand, one agitation, 30 mins. stand. Water stop, fix and wash and agepon at last. All at 20°C.

image 1

image 2

[Aristophanes]

I agree. Excellent for a first time. Get's me thinking, it does.

With what/how did you scan? Are you going to a wet darkroom as well?

Those are nice!

[goddo31]

Hi, yes, it's 35mm. The grain may be perfectly normal, I don't know. I actually like it, but if it's grainier than it "should" be, I'd like to know, and figure out if I'm doing something wrong.

I will soon be trying some Acros 100 Neopan, and I've shot that before, so will have some idea what to expect. And yes, you're right, I should start bracketing exposures, at least on shots I care about....I haven't done that yet.

I am by no means an experienced film shooter or developer, but from what I have seen in my own results the grain seems pretty good. Even fairly low.
Well done for your first time!

[stevebrot]

Todd...I have a roll of Legacy Pro 400 that I will be developing sometime this weekend using a more conventional development process. With any luck, I be able to provide a few points of comparison.


Steve

[Todd Adamson]

Thank you everyone for your comments, photos, and suggestions! I'm definitely excited to try more of this, and it's sounding like maybe the grain I'm seeing is in the range of normal.

I agree. Excellent for a first time. Get's me thinking, it does.

With what/how did you scan? Are you going to a wet darkroom as well?

No plans for a wet darkroom....don't have the space or the time. Of course, at one point fairly recently I said I was not going to get involved in doing my own processing.

I think I either had a good dose of beginner's luck here, or Rodinal is just idiot-proof. Hopefully it's the latter.

These were scanned with an Epson V500, using the included Epson software. I bought VueScan shortly after getting the scanner, but so far I've found it to be a monstrous pain in the ass, and I'm getting reasonable scans with the Epson software. Pretty sure VueScan has to be better, and it's just got a slow learning curve, so I'll get back to it one of these days, but for now, very happy with my scans.

Todd...I have a roll of Legacy Pro 400 that I will be developing sometime this weekend using a more conventional development process. With any luck, I be able to provide a few points of comparison.


Steve

Steve, thanks so much, that would be very interesting to see. I'll look forward to your posts!

[GeneV]

I've also had great results with that film and developer combo without a lot of misstep. I haven't gone with a higher dilution that 1:50 yet for a true stand development.

[stevebrot]

Todd...I have a roll of Legacy Pro 400 that I will be developing sometime this weekend using a more conventional development process. With any luck, I be able to provide a few points of comparison.


Steve

I finally did the Legacy Pro 400 last night and posted the first batch to the Film image thread....

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-film-slr-discussion/53503-cool-let...ml#post1455929

All were taken in fairly dead light, but should give some indication of grain, contrast, etc.. Exposure was for EI 800 and processing was in Edwal FG-7 (1+15) for 12' @ 21C.


Steve

[lithos]

Remember folks, Legacy Pro 400 = Fuji Neopan 400.

So Todd, if you're looking for examples, type Neopan 400 into filmdev.org.

[PGillin]

That's definitely a bit grainy, but that's what rodinal does to ISO 400 films. I have a few shots on Neopan 100 in Rodinal, if I can find them we can do a grain comparison....

In all, though, that looks like Rodinal/Neopan. I don't find the grain obtrusive, but some do. Personally, I like it, it's (part of) what separates B&W film from de-saturated digital.

[GeneV]

That's definitely a bit grainy, but that's what rodinal does to ISO 400 films. I have a few shots on Neopan 100 in Rodinal, if I can find them we can do a grain comparison....

In all, though, that looks like Rodinal/Neopan. I don't find the grain obtrusive, but some do. Personally, I like it, it's (part of) what separates B&W film from de-saturated digital.

Right. I use that combination if I want to emphasize that this is film or need to emphasize that things have edges. Rodinal with LegPro 100 is always a thing of beauty IMHO. The grain is so fine that I don't care that it is slightly emphasized by the extra sharpness the developer imparts.