Noob queston RE: stand developing

I was just about to ask this very question...spooky.... :thinking:
 
In my experience, setting everything up then leaving it on the kitchen side for a hour and getting on with something else. You can also put different film speeds in the same tub.

I need to scan and pick examples to compare tonality and grain and contrast but I think that'd be better served by getting a couple of control films (same film, same camera, same conditions, etc.) to remove variables and right now I'm scanning various test films instead.

Good idea for a weekend project though :)
 
It's good for dealing with very contrasty scenes or when you realise you've set the wrong box speed. It produces a very flat negative which I understand is hard to print but is quite acceptable for scanning where you can just crank up the contrast slider to 11.

It's very frugal with the concentrate to boot.

Plus as Strappy says it's quite handy when you don't have time to supervise the tank.


I generally only use it for cheap films where I'm not convinced by the rating or when I've made a mess of something.
 
steveo_mcg said:
It produces a very flat negative which I understand is hard to print but is quite acceptable for scanning ...
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That makes sense based on the negatives I was scanning last night.

Do you get better/worse results depending on the film? My HP5 was quite flat but the Rollei Retro I'd done in the same way seemed rather crisp in the basic scans last night.
 
Strappy said:
That makes sense based on the negatives I was scanning last night.

Do you get better/worse results depending on the film? My HP5 was quite flat but the Rollei Retro I'd done in the same way seemed rather crisp in the basic scans last night.
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I've only done it with a couple of types of film, gp3 mostly, so I'm not sure but that makes sense. I wonder if it's the nominal rating affects the result, retro is 80 isn't it so maybe it responds better.
 
I'll assume you're using something like Rodinal for this.
The main benefit of stand dev (other than being able to do other things without babysitting it) is that the dev depletes quicker in "brighter" regions and less quickly in darker regions, this stops your highlights blowing whilst being able to extract plenty of shadow detail.

This means you may spend a little more time in post processing adding some contrast back in.

Another benefit is that you can throw any old film in the tank and use the same conditions. I've devved a roll of PanF at box speed and Tri-X pushed to 1600 in the same tank with no issues.
 
It's handy when you haven't got a clue as to what you should be doing. For example, when developing Poundland Vista 200 as B&W - I just chuck it in Rodinal for an hour and hope for the best. Usually it comes out OK after a lot of tweaking in Gimp!
 
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