Stand: Rodinal

I was gifted a roll of Fomapan 100. No box, so no idea what the expiry date was or indeed even if it was a viable film, for all I knew someone may have exposed it all and wound it back into the cassette! I quite often go to Poole for a walk, so decided that if it was a disaster, then not much would be lost, so I shot it as if it were a good fresh film. Then of course it turned out to be good light, I found good subjects and wished I’d used a good fresh film to be sure of having images. Always the way.

When I got back home I sat pondering for a while on how I was going to develop it. I decided as this was an “experimental” roll, I’d have a go at stand development. Something I’ve never tried before. Rodinal seems to be a favourite developer for this, and as I have a bottle on the go, I decided I’d use that. It’s a developer that at first use I decided I didn’t like, but since my last test’s with FP4, rather than a faster film, I’ve decided I can live with it for certain uses! I squirted 6ml of Rodinal into my 600ml of water, put all the chemistry into my water bath, while I loaded the film into the tank.

I poured in the developer, gave it 30 seconds of agitation, a couple of raps on the kitchen counter to dislodge any air bubbles, then sat the tank in the water bath, (something else I’ve never done) and had a coffee. After half and hour I came back, gave another 30 secs of agitation, and left it for another half-hour, drained the dev, and stopped, fixed and washed in the usual way.

Then came that moment when you first unwind the wet film from the spiral, sometimes it’ s a ohh ***t moment! Thankfully getting rare these days! Sometimes however you get one of those un-definable “Oh they look alright!” (meaning rather good) days. I’m pleased to report this was one of those. I had 36 good, well exposed, decent contrast negs – happy days.

Even further, to my surprise, upon scanning the images, they scanned well, and I actually liked to contrast and grain from Rodinal! I’ve recently decided/realised that certain developers and films make for good combinations. HP5 in D23 I’ve decided I like. This I think is another – Fomapan 100 in Rodinal 1+100 about 20 degrees for about an hour.