My goals for film development⌗

There are a ton of people out there who love the expression that film development offers. They find creative control and satisfaction in the diversity of results that can be achieved by finding the exact right combintion of film stock, developer, and development coctail for their taste. I am not one of those people. I enjoy the process of shooting film for reasons I can’t really explain, and I don’t often share my photos with anybody. I prioritize flexibility of results and the room for some slack in my process. I want to be able to shoot in a variety of conditions and still know I’m going to get some kind of result, and I have a backlog of undeveloped film from the last couple years that I have zero notes about. When it comes down to brass tacks, there are really two things I care about when it care about when it comes to the film I develop, which are film grain and punchy contrast – the rest can be ironed out at scan time.

With all that in mind, I need a development process that more-or-less gets out of my way. Something with a lot of latitude, which allows me to be somewhat imprecise and still enjoy the results. That process should also be inexpensive if possible and involve keeping as few chemicals around as is reasonable. For me, the approach which most closly matches thes criteria is semi-stand development.

What is (semi) stand development?⌗

Semi-stand development is a method of black-and-white development which trades time for simplicity. It involves using an extremely diluted solution of rodinal (1 part per 100!) for an extended amount of time to achieve a result which is much more forgiving than standard development. The full process takes about an hour, and it can result in well-exposed negative somewhat independently of the actual exposure settings of the camera at the time of exposure. Of course there is a limit to this, you do have to be at least somewhat sane with you camera settings, but in a lot of cases stand development can save your images when shooting in wacky conditions or when you have to prioritize shutter speed over getting a full exposure. As someone who like to take a lot of photos indoors, that kind of situation pops up pretty frequently.

So how does this work, and what’s the catch? Well, the catch is that you don’t get as much control over your final negative. There is a bit of a look to stand developed photos, which can involve lowered contrast and exaggerated grain. This is related to the physical realities that allow stand development to work the way it does in the first place. For the sake of this discussion, you can look at film development as a process by which silver halide crystals brighten portions of the emulsion through physical contact. By diluting the concentration of the developer and waiting longer, you are giving the developer more time to develop details in the shadowy parts of your photo, saving your underexposed shots. However, since you do not agitate the tank like you do in a standard development, the developer that has been working in the brighter areas becomes exhausted and releases bromide byproducts, which block further development in that part of the emulsion, preventing your bright areas from blowing out. The resulting image will have more shadow detail and more controlled highlight, which ultimately means a lower contrast image.

But wait a minute, wasn’t punchy contrast one of the goals for my film process? Yes, it is. Sometimes that really is what I’m going for, although sometimes I do go for flatter images depending on what I’m trying to do. But there are a few factors that allow me to get the results I want from this process anyway. For one, I use semi-stand development, which involves agitating the tank one time in the middle of the process. This lessens the idiosyncratic look of stand development while maintaining most of the benefits and also reducing the risk of bromide drag. Another factor is that if I’m going for something dramatic (and I usually am if punchy contrast and black shadows is a goal), 90% of the time those scenes are naturally low key or dimly lit anyway. By biasing toward underexposure in these scenarios, I can get the grainy falloff-into-black I’m looking for even with semi-stand development. Past a certain point, if there’s no detail in the shadows, not even stand development will bring that back. That, combined with the extra detail recovery in the lighter (but still under-exposed) areas, means you can get some really unique effects with dramatic shadows if you’re willing to play around a bit with your settings – and you can do it on the same roll as other normally exposed photos in the same camera!

Since learning to develop this way, I’ve found that the focus of the photographic process has been shifted toward the actual process of taking the photos. I’m able to treat the actual development as a low-stress and meditative act, so I’m able to do it more often despite it taking longer. I no longer need to do any calculations or worry about temperature control, and I have a few more avenues for getting the results I’m looking for without taking excessive notes on what I was going for with each roll. It may not be for everyone, but for me semi-stand development has been the missing piece to make analog photography really make sense for me.

Required Materials⌗

  • Paterson tank / reel
  • Rodinal
  • Distilled water
  • Fixer (ilford rapid fixer is what I use)
  • Photo flo (technically optional, but come on)

Pre-Dev Prep⌗

  • Dilute rodinal 1:100 with distilled water
  • Dilute rapid fixer 1:4 with distilled water
  • Dilute photo flo 1:100 with water

Development Process⌗

  • Load film onto reel
  • Pour in Rodinal, invert tank 3 times and tap
  • Wait 30m, invert 3 times and tap
  • Wait 30m
  • Wash in stop bath (tap water) for 3m
  • Pour in fixer, agitate for 30s
  • Leaving fixer in, agitate every minute for 5m
  • Rinse tank several times to remove fixer
  • Do final rinse with photo flo
  • Hang reels to dry

Tips for good results⌗

  • Inversions are largely to distribute the chemicals into the parallel rolls of the film in the reel, keep that in mind
  • Always tap your tank against the table after inverting to prevent bubbles from ruining your negatives
  • You can leave your fixer in for a lot longer than 5m if needed
    • If you suspect your development process is not being sufficiently fixed, you can extend this time
  • Hold on to your fixer, you can use the same fixer for 20 rolls (not 20 developments, if you’re doing more than one roll per run)
  • Dump your rodinal after each run