Parodinal anyone made it or used it?

[EdmundH]

I mixed a batch of this developer and have experimented with expired FP4+ in 35mm format.

The first film I unwisely used a rather dubious 1+200 dilution which was enthusiastically recommended on another forum. The resulting negatives were very thin but unusually sharp and grain free. I printed the shed photo at grade 5 on Ilford MGIV gloss paper, using Pararodinal at 1+50. The developer was amazingly quick acting on paper, with images appearing almost instantly. In hindsight a weaker solution would have been wise, as the caustic content took some of the shine off the paper and lifted the edges!

My second film went much better, developed in 1+50, it was almost overdeveloped, again very sharp, but slightly grainy. The train photos are from these negs, this time printed at grade 2 using Ilford PQ.

It's been an interesting exercise, I was impressed that both shadow and highlight detail are retained without any intervention during printing. I don't think I'll take up home brewed chemicals, but it has alerted me to the possibilities of using Rodinal.

[DavidMB]

Glad that worked. I saw some very old Agfa adverts for Rodinal that suggested it could do prints as well, but as paper has changed over the years and there was no info on dilution I did not try it. As to over developing at 1+50 it may be that the homebrew is a bit more potent than shop bought, rather like my Father's elderberry wine!! Just found a jar of potassium metabisulphite (label is from a chemist shop I know closed over 50 years ago) in a batch of bottles I picked up a year or so ago, together with some pure iodine and what may be some pure arsenic (will have to get my test kit out ) so may make a brew using the rodinal spreadsheet.

[Richard Gould]

At one time Rodinal was sold as a universal developer for both prints and film, I think that this was pre war,
Richard

[GoodOldNorm]

I made some Parodinal last week, it does not look good, the bottom 1/3rd of the developer has crystallised the top 2/3rds is milky and it has a layer of wax on the surface. Not sure if I will bother trying it on a film.