agentlossing
Well-known
Isn't it interesting how stand development with a compensating developer creates almost the same kind of sharpening/haloing artifacts as overdoing a digital file?
Freakscene
Obscure member
That’s local exhaustion and bromide drag. As the silver develops it releases the halide molecules that the silver is bound to in the film. Bromide, in particular, is a quite powerful inhibitor of development. This is why we agitate - to move the bromide and introduce fresh developer so it doesn’t exhaust around areas of intense development or at high contrast edges. It is also why stand developed film almost always has some unevenness in the developed negative. I do like the look otherwise. What I do is develop 2 135 rolls in 6mL of Rodinal in 1L of water, and agitate gently. After about 25 min the developer is exhausted and the film is developed. Developing in highly dilute Rodinal for longer than 25-30 min makes no difference, unless you develop in the refrigerator, which was popular for a while. There are grain advantages to developing using Rodinal at 18C, but no cooler. I did a pile of experiments once, but I gave up after people kept arguing finer and finer details and it became clear that they were not interested in information, just affirmation of their own ‘special approach’.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
I did a similar thing back in the early 2010s. I heard all these myths about stand developing, and the only one that was provably true was that stand developing meant you didn't need to know an exact development time for a film (good for found or unlabelled film), and that by extension you could develop different films together at the same time (if you had a big enough tank).
"Stand developing means you can shoot multiple EI on the same roll" was patently bullshit, and the first thing I proved wrong. I don't know how people got away with claiming that. I've not seen it written anywhere for about a decade, so it looks like that's been thoroughly debunked.
But in all honesty, I've never had better results with stand developing than I have with proper agitation methods. And when you factor in inconsistencies due to temperature fluctuations and the ever-present threat of streaking... it's just not worth the time, as far as I'm concerned.
p.giannakis
Pan Giannakis
Amen...
Wasted 3 rolls a decade ago and never went back. With Rodinal going down to 1:100 was the maximum dilution and didn't seem any benefit over 1:50 or 1:25.
I would advise people against stand developing. There is just no reason to do it.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
I think this was the last roll I stand developed (XP2, not Fomapan):
This sort of streaking was far more common than I'm happy to tolerate. I then dialled in a conventional development routine for XP2 in Rodinal and never looked back.
With regards to Fomapan 100:
This was with the standard recommendation of 8:00 at 20ºC and Rodinal at 1:50 dilution, 10/15 seconds of agitation every minute. I don't see a need to deviate from this. Blacks are lovely, mid-tones have good separation, highlights rarely look blown out, and grain is present but unobtrusive. I'm a big fan of that combo. It's a lot faster than stand developing for an hour, too!
This sort of streaking was far more common than I'm happy to tolerate. I then dialled in a conventional development routine for XP2 in Rodinal and never looked back.
With regards to Fomapan 100:
This was with the standard recommendation of 8:00 at 20ºC and Rodinal at 1:50 dilution, 10/15 seconds of agitation every minute. I don't see a need to deviate from this. Blacks are lovely, mid-tones have good separation, highlights rarely look blown out, and grain is present but unobtrusive. I'm a big fan of that combo. It's a lot faster than stand developing for an hour, too!
agentlossing
Well-known
Yes, I look at stand development as for when you screw up, and need a very gentle touch with developing the results.
titrisol
Bottom Feeder
Stand developing was awesome in college basketball season, you put the film in Rodinal 1+200, agitate for 1 minute, go watch the 1st half come back, fix and done.
Yes there might be some bromine drag but the contrast tended to be low and negatives were very printable.
And yes Rodinal at 17-18C works well. My guess is that water temp in Germany in the late 1800s was colder than 20C and Rodinal was tested under such conditions
