Hi Shel -
I've mostly worked with high dilutions of HC110. I had the process worked
out very well with Classic Pan 200, and in that case I rated the film a full
stop slower than the nominal ISO of 200 and used a moderately dilute mixture
of HC110 and very low agitation. However, I'm not sure if that really is an
ISO 200 film, it looked to me to be more like ISO 160 or 125.
Virtually all of my B&W shooting is in the 120 format, and I use a hand held
spot meter and the 6x7 camera. I think 1/2 stop precision is about as good
as you can get with the camera - the shutter speed settings are in full
stops, most of the lenses let you set to the half stop (in theory the
aperture can be set in 1/4 stops by setting between clicks - I really don't
know how accurate that is though.)
So - I come up with what the meter suggests as the appropriate exposure, if
that falls between the exposure settings of the camera (usually does) I go
to the nearest setting that overexposes over the meter reading. Then I
bracket up and down a full stop if exposure is critical. Between the
uncertainties of metering, the imprecision of camera, and the added vagaries
of filters and filter-factors vis-a-vis different film's spectral
sensitivities - I don't think a 1/2 to 1/3rd stop adjustment in exposure is
something that can be done reliably with this setup in natural light. It
would be a different scenario working in a studio with controlled lighting.
I always set the exposure meter to what I believe the true ISO of the film
is - and for APX 100 I take that to be 100. Then I make a deliberate
decision to expose either at that setting or slightly over.
The theory behind the high dilution developer / low agitation is that the
developer is locally exhausted in the areas of high density, so development
stops. The less dense areas of the neg exhaust the developer more slowly, so
the development continues, and this bring out the shadow detail while not
blowing out the highlights. So, it does make sense that some degree of
overexposure would compliment the process.
I have not had as much luck with Rodinal at 1:100 as with HC110. I've heard
that you need a minimum of 10 CC's of Rodinal per roll of film, no matter
what the dilution level is. With my experiments with Rodinal at 1:100 I used
only 6 CC, so I may have shorted the mix too much.
HC110 is very high energy, and the minimum per 36 exposure 35mm film, or 120
roll (surface area is about the same) is something like 3 cc. I've always
used more than that, and being over that critical absolute volume threshold
may be why it has worked better for me.
HTH -
MCC
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Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
www.markcassino.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Shel Belinkoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: Getting That Old Fashioned Glow - Coming Along
Hi Mark ...
I'm not sure if I have another copy of "The Negative" here. I sold a copy
to Boris last year. Anyway, the area is filled with book stores, so it'll
be easy enough to check his comments.
When you use high dilutions of Rodinal, or the water bath system with APX
100, do you compensate at all with your exposure? Generally I've given
anywhere between 2/3 and a stop of additional exposure when using Rodinal
1:100, which is what Agfa suggested, but that was with APX 25.
As for R09, I figure I'll wait a little with that, and use some of the
regular, contemporary Rodinal first, as it's already in stock at Casa
Belinkoff, and that way I'd have a point of comparison.
Shel
[Original Message]
From: Mark Cassino
You might want to check out pages 226 and 229 in Adam's _The Negative_.
He
discusses using very dilute HC110 (1:119) with very minimal agitation (15
seconds every 3 minutes.) I did a lot of my development with Classic Pan
using a similar approach and liked the results.
Earlier today I tried the "water-bath" process that Adams describes,
using
APX 100. He cautions that it is not as effective with thin emulsion
films,
and I can't say that the result I got was much different than just a high
dilution / low agitation approach to developing, but the negs came out
with
excellent shadow detail in a very high contrast scene - so it did seem to
work.
I've found HC110, diluted 1:100, works great with APX - 14 minutes @ 20C.
I
stumbled into that somewhere on the internet - it's the only time I've
seen
HC 110 used at 1:100, but it works well with gentle, one per minute
agitation.
I'd be interested to hear your impressions of R09 if you give it a try.
Good luck!
- MCC
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Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
www.markcassino.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Shel Belinkoff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: Getting That Old Fashioned Glow - Coming Along
> Yep, Rodinal's been around a l-o-n-g time, and it seems that the
> formula
> has changed over the past hundred years or so. There are several
> different
> Rodinal formulas floating around and I think I'm going to try R09 in
> addition to the current stuff that's now in the darkroom. The
technique
> of
> high dilution and long development times is especially appealing. For
the
> most part I've used it @ 1:100 with five seconds of very gentle
agitation
> once per minute. I'd like to try about half that agitation cycle at
some
> point.
