Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/01/14
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At 11:41 PM 1/13/97, Bill Welch wrote:
> 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.
>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.
>
My impetus for developing (pun intended) the Hyper-Dilute HC-110 "scheme"
that I now use was, in fact, to acheive these effects with a more
"commercially available" developer...
My Hyper-Dilute technique gives me negatives that are pretty much
indistinguishable from FG-7 developed negatives... because the solvents in
HC-110 are more drastically affected by the dilution, than are the
developing agents.
Again... the REAL KEY to acheiving good results with very dilute developers
is... DON'T AGITATE!!!
At the risk of sounding like an "Anti-Agitation Agitator"... I'll say it
again. DON'T AGITATE!!
I agitate ONCE during a developing period... at the halfway point... and
TWICE when the the development will take longer than 20 minutes... at the
one-third points. I just invert the tank ONCE, tap it to clear bubbles (I
doubt that there are any, but I see no reason NOT to rap the tank), and
leave it alone, afterwards.
Any user of HC-110 Developer, or T-MAX films, that doesn't like the
highlights that they are getting, can benefit by NOT AGITATING.
It's OK to not agitate. I fully guarantee that, if you stop agitating, the
Development Police will NOT break down your darkroom door, and confiscate
your reels. :-)
Greg.
Greg Mironchuk
409 Central St, Saugus, MA 01906
617-941-8030 * 617-362-7417 page
gregm@world.std.com