They say you should use Rodinal only with films under ISO 400 or you’ll get grain the size of bowling balls. But Kodak’s T-Max films are so smooooooooth. I hoped that would offset graininess when I developed a 35mm roll of Kodak T-Max 400 in Rodinal recently.
T-Max 400 is not as smooth in Rodinal as it is in D-76, which is what my favorite lab uses to develop its black-and-white films. Also, my flatbed scanner isn’t lab quality, and that probably contributes to these results. But these photos are entirely tolerable, at least to my eye.
If I had a roll of T-Max 400 with critical images on it I’d want to develop it in D-76 to get “that T-Max look” from it. But for everyday la-de-da shooting Rodinal is more than fine.
I made these photos in my Pentax ME Super with my fabulous 50mm f/1.7 lens attached. We were all locked down at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. One stir-crazy Saturday afternoon I couldn’t take it in my home anymore and went for a long drive. I stopped for a few photos along the way, in deserted places.
I also made some photos around the house, since I was in it pretty much all the time. This is why I chose the T-Max 400, actually: so I could shoot handheld indoors.
I diluted Rodinal to 1+50 to develop this roll. The solution clocked in at 19.3° C, so I adjusted my development time accordingly, from 12:00 to 12:42. I used the Massive Dev Chart’s converter to calculate this time. As usual, I agitated in my Paterson tank using the swizzle stick to rotate the film on its reel. I agitated continuously for the first minute, then for ten seconds every minute thereafter.
Kodak T-Max 400 is perfectly acceptable in Rodinal. I’ll use this combination again, I’m sure.
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