January 4, 2015

densitometry

Inspired by a discussion on a german board I made a new test with the  Kodak Technical Pan in Caffenol-C-L, compared with older results of Rodinal. The film was exposed @ EI 25, developed in Caffenol-C-L with 0.1 g/l pot. bromide, 11 minutes 20°C, constant agitation for the first 30 seconds, then 3 turns every minute.

No presoak here. I recommend using destilled or demin. water, the thin emulsion is very sensitive for spots. Check if your fixer is clean! And make a clearing test, fix for double clearing time, not longer, you can overfix these films quite easy. Here I fixed for 1 minute total with my regular strength fixer. Development was perfectly even, so I guess there is no need at all to use pot. bromide and maybe get a little bit more speed. After development I made 3 intermediate rinses (tap water this time) with shaky agitation to reduce possible spots. The final rinse was again made with demin water and the film carefully wiped with a V-folded paper tissue.

As you can see, the real speed is like ISO 20, with both developers Rodinal and C-C-L. But the red Rodinal curve is more contrasty. The blue C-C-L curve is better suitable for wet prints. Quite a nice result for a film that is said to be very difficult to handle, isn't it?

On my walk to do the test shots I met 4 young photographers and they were eager models for the test. Thank you very much, guys. I exposed @ EI 25, short before dawn I shot with 1/30 and f/1.4.

Happy developings - Reinhold



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