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Argued with my lab buddy about stand development vs. agitation, and the negs settled it
I've been agitating my Tri-X every 30 seconds for a while, but a friend in Denver kept pushing me to try stand development with Rodinal at 1:100 for one hour. I finally ran two rolls side by side from the same shoot, and the stand-developed negs had way smoother highlights and held detail in the shadows that my agitated roll just crushed. The tradeoff is you get less contrast and it takes forever, so I get why some people hate it. Which side are you on, do you stand develop or stick with regular agitation?
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taylorc4024d ago
The contrast thing is real and it's why I stopped using it for everything. Flat negs are great for scanning because you can pull them around in post, but printing them in the darkroom is a headache. Grade 3 paper just to get something that looks like a normal grade 2 print. Where it really earns its keep is high contrast scenes, like a sunny day with deep shade. That's when the shadow detail shows up and the highlights don't turn into a solid white blob. For flat light I still agitate every 30 seconds and move on with my life.
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