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  #1  
Old 24th May 2016, 05:57 PM
Svend Svend is offline
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Default Effect of agitation - D76/ID11, Perceptol

In my other thread re. alternatives to D76/ID11 and Perceptol, there was some feedback by the users of Rodinal about the effect of agitation on grain, contrast, etc. -- specifically to reduce agitation significantly in order to control contrast. And I've seen the same chats around Rodinal on other boards as well, esp. for Tmax films. At least one other contributor here also mentioned it in the context of general development (Marty, if I recall). That got me thinking about what effect agitation would have on controlling tonality, local contrast, gradation with my standard developers, D76/ID11 and Perceptol. I know the answer to this question with respect to overall image contrast. But I am not clear as to the effect on the look of an image when it comes to tonality, local contrast / gradation with these developers. What happens in the highlight and shadows, for instance?

My standard routine is to agitate for the first 10 seconds, then every minute for 10 sec (4 inversions) if time is longer than 10 minutes; or every 30 sec for 5 secs (2 inversions) if less than 10 minutes. Pretty much by the book. Vessels are Paterson roll film tanks.

So are there any subtle changes or improvements that can be gained by modifying the agitation regimen? What would happen if, say, I agitated only 2 inversions every minute (for times longer than 10 min.)? Effectively giving half the agitation?

Also, is there any effect on grain with reduced agitation?

Any insight, pro or contra, is most welcome. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Svend

Last edited by Svend; 24th May 2016 at 06:05 PM.
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  #2  
Old 24th May 2016, 06:42 PM
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If you are using general panchromatic film exposed to average contrast and lighting, the effect of variation in agitation will be minimal and still bath development could be detrimental.
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Old 25th May 2016, 11:50 AM
Svend Svend is offline
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Thanks Clive. I'm probably not going to try stand development any time soon, as I'm happy with what I'm getting for control of wide-contrast scenes using dilute developers like Perceptol. The question was aimed at modifying the conventional agitation regimen using my most often-used developers D76/ID11 and Perceptol.

Regards,
Svend
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Old 25th May 2016, 12:34 PM
JOReynolds JOReynolds is offline
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I've been using Delta 100 and Rodinal 1:50 for decades and lately I've been getting sloppy about scheduling agitation, although I do it more often when summer heats the darkroom up. It doesn't seem to make much difference to results (I rarely enlarge 6x6 to bigger that 40x50, Multigrade 500 lightsource).
I expect that someone, somewhere, in the last century, worked out the best timing. Any research published?
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Old 25th May 2016, 01:21 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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In reality I have never been that strict about agitation, sometimes I use the twiddle stick, sometimes I use invertion, sometimes, when I feel like being strict I will carefully agitate by inversion twice every 30 seconds, sometimes I will invert 4 times every 30 seconds. sometimes I will use the 30 seconds/4 or 5 times per minute, as long as you do agitate the developer I have yet to find that it makes a difference in the real world. this applies to D76/Firstcall film developer and rodinal, the three developers I use. others more techinally minded than I will probably hold their hands up in horror at this, but I can't see any differences in my films
Richard
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Old 25th May 2016, 04:16 PM
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http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rodinal/rodinal.html
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Old 25th May 2016, 04:44 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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If I recall correctly and it is possible that I do not, then I think I saw a thread on FADU many years ago which touched on agitation for film and its subsequent effect on the correct grade for the print, all other things being equal.

I think it was Dave Miller whose post it was and he was recalling a darkroom workshop that he had attended, run by Les McLean.

As an experiment the group split into two using the same developer. One half used the usual manufacturer's recommendation on agitation and the other used what Dave described as the cocktail shaker method i.e. very vigorous, almost manic agitation. The difference was less than half a grade. I cannot now recall if Dave mentioned whether the agitation was both much more vigorous and longer or simply more vigorous.

Mike
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Old 26th May 2016, 10:45 AM
DaveP DaveP is offline
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I have developped a fair bit of b&w film in a Jobo system with constant agitation. I don't see the horrendous contrast buildup that you'd think you'd get if perceived wisdom on the subtleties of manual film agitation were true.

I almost suspect that any form of manual agitation along the classic lines of "agitate a fair bit at the start then do a little bit regularly through the dev time" will give fairly identical results with most mainstream film and dev combos.
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Old 26th May 2016, 11:34 AM
Svend Svend is offline
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Mike, Dave -- I think the time variable plays into this. In a Jobo tank, if I recall, development times are reduced to compensate for the continuous agitation (about -15% I think?) and keep contrast under control. I'd be interested to hear what happens if one were to keep the development time the same (manual agitation), but reduce agitation to, say, 2 inversions per minute (for times longer than 10 minutes) rather than the usual 4 inversions. Would image quality improve? Better gradation, tonality? Less grain? Or would things worsen?

There may be no clear, obvious answer to this, but worth tossing the question out there to see what comes back.

Cheers,
Svend

Last edited by Svend; 26th May 2016 at 11:42 AM.
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Old 26th May 2016, 01:39 PM
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In my old Rodinal pamphlet Agfa say (after the initial minutes' gentle agitation) "one gentle tilt every 30 seconds" - I ended up adhering to that as I was getting pretty damn contrasty results with the bog standard 5 or 10 seconds every minute. But it is a very variable thing and as is always the case, one man's meat and all that, someone will approach something with a totally different approach to someone else
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