I usually semi-stand develop my pinhole pictures in Foma Fomadon R09, which is as far as I know, basically rodinal. Results I got with this combination are low contrast and most of the time pretty heavy bromide drag, especially from sprocket holes.
This is typical result I get this way. No contrast added just inverted colors. For my “final” picture I add a relatively lot of contrast at least.
Now, I don’t mind adding contrast, but the sprocket bromide drag really bothers me. That is the main reason I don’t really like stand development – that I haven’t found a way to get rid of it consistently. So I tried other developers ( Fomadon LQR), stopped using stand development whenever I can and develop the standard way, according to developer manufacturer. And I like results – very good contrast and no bromide drag.
But I cannot develop my pinhole pictures standard way – stand development levels the exposure mistakes, which I surely make a lot since I estimate exposure times very loosely. I don’t use any meter and even any stopwatch, i just count.
This time I developed my pinhole pictures with Adox Adonal, which is as far as I know, also basically rodinal. I stand developed it but with three agitations every 15 minutes. I tried this also with mentioned Fomadon R09 with no real advantage, but this time, with Adonal, no bromide drag and very contrasty images! And the grain how i like it.
I added no contrast to this picture in post. Just inverted colors and did minor distortion correction and added border.
Basically, I have no idea what is going on. Negative is pretty dark and contrasty, absolutely no bromide drag. I’m a little bit flabbergasted. Results looks like if I developed them the with standard times and with contrasty Fomadon LQR. I really like them!
Also, no camera shake, velcro zip tying camera to things works nicely.
So, there we go. I got some thinking to do and more tests to do. I’m not sure I can solve this mystery and reproduce these results, but I surely would like to. Was exposure in camera better? Is my bottle Foma R09 old and weak? Is Adonal just this good? So many variables…