Looking for grain

Hi folks,

after doing some large scale prints (appr. 1:20)I was a little bit

disappointed to see rather cloudy indifferent shapes instead of

pronounced grain, as visible with the focussing loupe.

Please give me some tips about the approach to achieve a really sharp

edged grain (like a printing raster):

-Film/Developer? (T-Max and Deltas might not be the first choice, but

why do I see grain with a loupe?

-Printing (would be the other topic section, I know)Afak a cold light

would be less grain sharp then my Durst with a bulb. Use hard

gradation paper?

-Anything I din`t think of?

Thanks,

Martin

Try pushing Tri-x in rodinal 1:50 for sharp grain. Also make sure you're focussing correctly. Use a scrap piece of the same type paper under your focussing aid. Another trick is to turn your enlarger on for about 20 seconds before you make the exposure to make the neg pop, like it does in a slide projector from the heat of the lamp, if you're not using a glass carrier.

If you want sharp grain, try Rodinal with a conventional film like Ilford HP5+.

 

Enlargements of 20x are beyond the optimum range of most enlarging lenses. You should expect some loss of sharpness at that magnification. Some enlarging lenses like the RODAGON-G 50mm f/2.8 are optimized for larger magnification levels.

Tri-X at EI 200 in Rodinal 1:350 for two hours of stand development. Agitate for thirty seconds at the beginning, then not again - just let it sit.

 

Grain like a gravel driveway - very distinctive, edgy, salt & peppery. Add 10ml Ilfosol-S to the brew for a chaser if you like. (You probably think I'm kidding - I'm not, I've tried this, it works.)

 

Stand development works best with stainless reels and tank. The higher flanges on plastic reels interfere with flow of chemistry to the film edges and will cause uneven development. No such problems with stainless reels.

Try Tri X with TEC developer. The grain is wonderful , prints have an etched looked. As with everything else in our world, it will all depend on what you want and what your version is; not mine.

Tri-x @ 400 in r09 1:40 for 11 min produces sharp grain structure. Also Classic Pan 400 (from JandC Photo) @ 250 in Gainers Metol-C-sodium carbonate 1:0 for 11 min will give a sharp, fairly pronounced grain that looks pretty nice for some subjects. Although I havn't tried it, this last one should show whacking big grain in Rodinal or r09.

 

Dean

Although technically not a push, rating Tri-X at 400 is generally considered so (as many people's EIs tend to be lower than the ISO ratings). I have to agree with the poster above... Rodinal 1:50 with Tri-X at 400, 13minutes, 68F, 35mm, 5seconds agitiation/minute, diffusion gives AWESOME tonality and attractive grain.

I'll join in the chorus and say Tri-X at 400 ASA in Rodinal at 1:50,

20 C, 13.5 minutes. But I would also agree with the comment

about the optimisation of enlarging lenses. A 20x enlargement is

asking a lot of a lens.

Hi folks,

thanks for the hints, whereas the chorus seems to be clear. Trad film like TriX or HP5 and Rodinal. I`ll definitively try the stand version with 1/350! (Does that really mean, we see not more then 3 ml Rodinal in the can, for more then 1 liter per film seems to be ridicolous?)

For explanation, we came to this scale with minox 8x11 negs, I`m gonna try if my 50/1.4 Nikkor camera lens will show definitiv better results then my old Schneider componon.

Thanks,

Martin

I don't know how you'd do 1:350. Agfa recommends 11ml of concentrate per 35mm roll or 120 roll. People claim they get away with 6.5, I use 7ml without any problems myself. I process two rolls at a time with 1414ml of solution. I don't have a tank that would hold 2450ml of solution. Whenever I've tried high dilutions I couldn't add my minimum of 7ml of rodinal and the negs came out a bit thin because the developer was exhausted.

You want nice sharp large grain? Use Tri X or HP5 or any other old emulsion film, over frame your subject as much as possible (wide abgle lenses),over expose it a stop or two, develope in Dektol at 10 or 12 mins with just a few inversions, and voila!!!! Grain to puncture a tire with.

If you can see the grain you want using the focusing device, you have an enlarging problem. Vibration might be the problem. Tap the enlarger while looking through the grain focuser and see how long it takes to settle down. Don't push the button until this time has passed. Are you using your enlarging lens at the optimum aperture, usually 2 stops down from wide open? Is your neg in a glass carrier. Even if you don't intend to print that way forever, just get a couple pieces of glass and sandwich the neg. You might also have a problem with the visual image not being in the same plane as the image the paper is sensitive to. More on that in Ctein's Post Exposure book. Try a graded paper, as the problem, if it occurs, is with VC paper. Your focuser could be out of adjustment. I've got some stuff on that buried in my web site. Look for the article on Darkroom Measurements, and also the one for the Beseler 23C series. Should be something there ther helps! http://members.rpa.net/~choffman/index.htm

I knew Agfa recommends more than 1 ml of Rodinal per tankful/roll which is why I was a bit leery of using it at 1:350. That's one reason why I tossed in a 10 ml Ilfosol-S chaser, which works out to a 1:32.5 ratio, a bit weaker than the 1:14 minimum recommended by Ilford.

 

What can I say? Worked fine for me with two hours of stand development. Maybe it was really the Ilfosol-S that worked. But I've used as little as 2 ml of Rodinal at 1:200 for stand development successfully (no Ilfosol-S, Xtol or other chasers).

 

Maybe it's just that very dilute Rodinal with less than the minimum recommended by Agfa doesn't work well with normal agitation. I dunno. Stand development is mostly voodoo - ain't much solid data, including my own.

Not sure if I would use the "new" Tri-X to get distinct grain. Reports are that it has finer grain than before, even finer grain than Tmax 400.