Rodinal Developing Concentrations Compared and Reviewed

Today’s video discusses Rodinal, also called R09, which are, insofar as I can tell, chemically identical. Rodinal is a developer for black and white film stocks. What we’re discussing can also, largely, apply to Paranol S, which is apparently a chemically identical Rodinal clone, but I will do a separate video on that chemistry in the future because, for some reason, I’ve had different results with it than with Rodinal.

Rodinal is one of the elder statesmen of the film chemistry scene. Rodinal was patented on 27 January 1891 by Momme Andresen in Berlin and was, if not the first, one of the first liquid developer concentrates to be released to the market.

As quick note, Rodinal is a developer I really dislike. It’s too active for my tastes and that, especially at 1+25, can cause cloud-like fogging on some film emulsions. As I’m writing this script, I just developed four 8X10 Tri-X 320 sheets and two 8X10 Zebra plates in Rodinal (before learning that Zebra recommends against using Rodinal on their plates at all) and all those shots were pretty much unusable for the fogging. So that was a USD $184 mistake. Rodinal is not the best developer for every film and honestly now that this video is made it will never enter my home again.

Personally, I do not have a preferred concentration for Rodinal. I’ve used it at 1+25, 1+50, 1+75, and 1+100 for stand developing and in general the one thing that I like about Rodinal is that it is shelf stable. Rodinal is incredibly shelf stable and I’ve personally used, with good results by Rodinal standards, Rodinal from an unopened bottle that had sat in a non-temperature controlled storage locker in the desert for more than 25 years, and some photographers report that it can be used for nearly half-a-century after being opened. That said, my experience with Rodinal after opening is a bit different and I found that it starts to precipitate solids after about eight months, which renders it ineffective. The chemistry will change colors as it oxidizes after opening but that does not mean it is bad. As a general tip with developers, it’s always a good idea to drop your 35mm film leader into your working solution before using the chemistry on real film if you have even a slight concern that it might be dead. Take the leader out of the working solution after however long is needed for your real film and if the leader looks black and developed then your working solution is good.

For concentrations, the two common non-stand concentrations are 1+25 and 1+50 with 1+100 being a typical stand developing concentration for film.

For paper, 1+10 is typically used.

Other developer concentrations exist with people having used 1+200 and 1+500 for overnight stand development. 23+1,000, which is functionally 1+50, also exists and frankly adds nothing of value to the data sets. One final interesting concentration that people use is 1+75, which I have tested and found to provide images with excellent detail, pleasing grain, but with the tradeoff of causing exceptional image muddiness.

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Video Index:
0:00 - Intro
0:08 - Rodinal and R09 Developing Solutions Review
0:54 - Rodinal and R09 Tips and Tricks
4:51 - How to Mix Rodinal and R09
6:50 - Rodinal and R09 Performance Comparison

References:
Developing Solutions Comparison Shot Library: https://davidhancock.smugmug.com/Deve...
https://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart...

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