Adox Adonal (Rodinal) and Ilford PanF+ (Rated at 100 ISO)

After being less-than-mega-impressed with my results using Rodinal and Delta 100, I was excited to try it out on some traditional-grained films to see if I liked it any better. I'd read lots of good things about PanF+ and Rodinal, and happen to have pretty easy access to PanF+, so I went for it.

Here are some samples from a roll of 35mm PanF+ I shot in the mountains nearby. I rated the PanF+ at 100 and developed accordingly. Funnily enough, the Massive Dev Chart had no data for PanF+ in Rodinal at 100, using 1:50 dilution, so I guessed, and developed for 15 minutes, with reduced agitation to try and help control the contrast.

Despite the low agitation (5 seconds for every 3 minutes of development), it's contrast city here. Now for this frame, I actually kind of like that. It gave me a really full tonal range in a scene that was pretty much entirely in flat shade. For many of the photos that I didn't post, it was WAY too much contrast. I'm talking, almost pure black and pure white.

 

Here the grain is pretty noticeable. Not what I've come to expect out of PanF+, but it is what I've come to expect out of Rodinal. This isn't grainy enough that I would just throw the image away purely out of grain fascism, but it's definitely more than I like. But I pretty much never shoot landscapes on 35mm anyway, so I'm not sure how much of a problem that is.

Here you can see a prime example of Rodinal robbing me of film speed. However, I can't get over how awesome it made that backlight glow look on the trees near the top of the frame. I don't know for certain if that's Rodinal's fault, or PanF+'s fault, or just the light's fault, but I love it.

Then I zoom in on it, and my love fizzles out pretty quick. Waaaay too grainy for me.

I didn't see a marked improvement in sharpness between Rodinal and HC-110 when using PanF+. I did see a large difference in the amount of grain. But it has become obvious that Rodinal plays much more nicely with traditional-grain films than it does with T-grains.

I'm inclined to attribute the huge jumps in grain and contrast to the fact that I pushed the film a stop, rather than blaming it all on the developer. There is still hope for this developer in my eyes, I just have to tinker around with the dilution a little, and I think try some stuff with agitation as well. I'm getting more and more convinced to try stand development, or at least semi-stand.

I also have a post waiting to be written about PanF+ rated at 50 ISO like usual, developed in 1:50 Rodinal. I was much happier with those results, and will post them when I get the time.

So the verdict on this particular recipe? Don't bother pushing PanF+ to 100 in Rodinal 1:50 unless you don't care much about grain, and absolutely need as much contrast as you can handle, or more.

Next order of business before I do any more testing: Find out what the deal is with Rodinal giving me thin negatives all the time. I have yet to see negatives come out of the soup that weren't 2 stops (or more) darker than I anticipated.