Comparing Rodinal, HC110 & Xtol

Which is the best developer for me....
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[@ChasWG]

Thank you for this. It's been years since I developed any B&W film at all. I made the switch to Digital and I never looked back. I currently use a mirrorless Canon body and discovered the wonders of all these other manual lens that I can easily adapt to my Canon camera now days. Which led me to owning a fair collection of Konica Hexanon AR lenses (a very under rated series of amazing lenses). And in buy a lens I was after, I ended up with a great little, fully functional Konica FC-1 body. It sat there for a long time not getting any love or batteries. Then I put some batteries into it just to see if it worked and it did. And that's when the idea of shoot film started to grow in my head. I have a wonderful collection of Konica AR mount lenses to put onto both my Canon mirrorless and the Konica FC-1. And I have all the stuff to develop my own film. I just need new chemicals. D-76 lasts a long time, but not two decades! But to do this right, I would need to scan the film to digitize it. If I'm not gonna pay to have film developed, I'm not gonna pay for film to be scanned. And I already had a vintage macro bellows system. I just needed the slide copier which was an added part to the bellows system. I found that locally for cheap and in near perfect condition. Just add a nice RGBW LED panel behind the copier and I'm on my way. So I started by scanning some of the thousands of B&W negatives I have still to see if it was actually going to work. And it does, very well actually! Its doing what it was meant to do. There was no need to modify any of the parts. It already had a slot for 35mm film strips, which I found interesting. This bellows and copier was made back in the late 60's to early 70's. And it was mainly meant for copying Color slide film, which is a positive image. Hmmm... anyhow, it works perfectly because that's what it was made to do. Then just add an appropriate M42 mount 50mm lens (of which I have many to choose from) and I was scanning my B&W negative film. Now to start shoot some new stuff. Which led me to your channel and this review of XTOL. Thanks! LOL! If you want to do your own scanner/copier for super cheap, then go and buy a Asahi Pentax Bellows II with the correct Slide Copier (both are very cheap and easy to find on eBay) and an adapter for your camera mount to M42 along with a M42 mount 50mm lens (literally thousands of them to chose from on eBay for cheap). Asahi Takumar made some very nice ones. The Super-Multi-Coated Macro-Takumar 50mm f4 lens is a very, really nice lens for this task! Its very, very sharp, no radioactive glass, super easy to us and fairly cheap and easy to come by. But any other M42 mount 50mm will also work as you don't need the macro functionality of the lens. I like to use it for this because is so insanely sharp.

[@silekiernanphotography]

Thanks for taking the time to do this and share. And no, not lazy. A lazy person would not have gone to this trouble.

[@mkshffr4936]

I would love to see a similar test for traditional (cubic?) film stock such as FP4 to find the "best" option for those films.

[@davebeatty3666]

Xtol has an astonishing ability to tame grain. I recently developed some kentmere 400 pushed to 3200 and the images came out….ok

[@SprocketHoles]

I avoided delta and tmax 3200 until I found xtol. So damm good

[@39exposures]

did you try the Adox XT-3?

[@davebeatty3666]

Yeah I use that as I'm based in the UK and its much cheaper and easier to get hold of. Exactly the same and just as good!@@39exposures

[@peterfarr9591]

Really thorough video! Thank you

[@Cibeen]

Great video. I have been using Rodinal for many years and like the punchy looks produced by it. Xtol, to me, looks a bit dull, but obviously this is just personal preference.

[@Super.Quasar]

That's great, thanks. I abandoned Rodinal more than 20 years ago and have wondered what all the fuss was about, but I'm not going back. Been using HC110 for a long time and am quite happy, but following this video I'm going to covert to XTOL. Hopefully it'll suit all my film formats, especially 120. You created a very thorough vide and the outcome is clear. Be keen to see HP5 similarly tested. Cheers.

[@SprocketHoles]

thanks, Once I tried XTOL I was never going back. I'm on my second 5L pack now.

[@randallstewart1224]

The only virtue of Rodinal or HB110 is that their composition isolates the active developing agent(s) from oxidation far more than most other developers. On the other hand, if Kodak tells you that HC110 is the worst developer they sell, you should probably believe them. Having spent more than 60 years playing around with developers of every type, take my advice. If a developer gives you satisfactory results, stay with it until you know you want to change. Familiarity with one developer's performance is far more important than gadflying though a dozen different developers, looking for that secret sauce based on technically incompetent YT videos.

[@kevinbrowne3089]

HC110 for trad grain, XTOL for TGrain.

[@randallstewart175]

The results are what we should expect based on the characteristics of the developers, except that I expected a somewhat higher density difference between the intermittent and continuously agitated Xtol negatives. An extension of the comparison for a future video might be the difference between 30 second, 60 second intervals, and continuous agitation. In theory, the 60 second interval process should give the highest apparent sharpness and the continuous agitation the lowest. Would expect those differences to be very subtle. Nice video

[@wcrofford]

How come I can't find any comparisons with Ilfofsol 3?

[@peterskaan]

Great job. Thanks a lot👏🤘

[@Nirvanasiert]

Rodinal is my favorite for classic Films, if I don't like grain, I would use a digital Camera ....

[@seaneleven3244]

inspirational -thanks ill give it a go

[@ronaldmoravec2692]

Mid 1950 I used Plus X and Microdol X. Microdol is gone so time to move on. Rodinal tried and too much grain. Used D76 for decades 1:1 and was happy. When that film was discontinued, I tried Ilford 100 and 400. Decent results, but they changed 400 10/15 years ago and D76 went putrid with Delta 400. Xtol is choice developer for either 400 if you like 400. DDX is great for either also, but I dislike premade liquids. Xtol works fine with either 100 speed.

[@stefan_becker]

Thanks for the great video! I also prefer XTOL. The only better developer might be 510 Pyro, but unfotunately it's quite poisonous.

[@mjparker68]

Rodinal is nor recommended for Delta grain films. I get awesome results with Ilford films, just not the Delta grain, or T-max films, for that matter.

[@oudviola]

Thanks, very interesting although FP4 is my main film. I am trying out a new developer from Flic Film here in Canada, called Black&White&Green because it is supposedly eco-friendly. It seems to be the same chemistrt as Xtol, though a different formulation so maybe bot the same proportions. So far it is giving very similar resilts to HC-110 dil B inversion dev'ing. Pretty happy with it.

[@cecilsharps]

i have a 15 year old bottle of rodinal. the package list 5 seconds of agitation every 30 seconds. It wouldn't have made a difference.

[@SprocketHoles]

Aged like a fine whiskey.

[@peterfarr9591]

I’ll add to this that I do really love rodinal semi-stand development for low speed sheet film. On a 4x5 negative on 100 speed film (or lower) the grain pronouncing effect of rodinal is basically not even noticeable. It does however produce extremely sharp negatives, and really good highlight retention. For anything other than low speed sheet film though, it’s way too grainy for my tastes. Even on low speed medium format film I find it too grainy.

[@SprocketHoles]

I still use xtol for 4x5. The grain on delta 100 in such a large format is just gone.

[@peterfarr9591]

@@SprocketHoles sure, but it depends on the look you were going for. Compensating development can be really nice for improved shadow detail and highlight retention. Kind of like a very natural version of HDR

[@leifwiklund3001]

Have you got any experience of diluted rotation developement? Can it be a good idea to use 1+1 or 1+3 and use it as a one shot developer? I once had a Jobo ATL1000 machine and I liked it a lot.

[@therealchickentender]

Great comparison. I think home folks are finally catching on. I've only using the one lab in my region that uses XTOL for about 7 years now for roll that I really care about. Have been wanting to start a replenishment at home for nearly as long but just don't have the space for it. XTOL and Delta 400 pushed +1 is my absolutely favorite everyday b&w look.

[@Lektrolind]

Yeah i'm gonna buy some xtol i guess

[@nanddis]

I do like xtol too… or xt3 from adox. I used to work with d76 but this is my favourite now. I heard that it should be careful with it, suddenly it get’s corrupted

[@stefanbecker9526]

Another advantage of XTOL that it's less poisonous because it's based upon vitamin C.

[@SprocketHoles]

An isomer of it I believe.

[@MrPetermc199]

I have used X-tol on Agfapan APX100 and 400 ISO with underwhelming results, The combo didn't work for me. I'm giving HC-110 and Rodinal a try. I saw a video of someone mixing HC-110 and rodinal for semistand development with pretty nice results.

[@VariTimo]

Do you mean AgfaPhoto APX? AgfaPan wasn’t made since 2004 or so.

[@patcliffordfootballcoach]

very good, have you tried Pyrocat HD its also a fantastic developer

[@leifwiklund3001]

I mean with Xtol of course.

[@ronaldmoravec2692]

D76 is the same in Jobo or Nikon. Because of constant agitation, cut the time in Jobo. My testing.

[@robertpillow47]

Thanks for sharing your research. Are you still scanning medium format with the Epson V850 Perfection?

[@SprocketHoles]

No, I've switched back to the DSLR, I found a way to tame the dust.

[@robertpillow47]

@@SprocketHoles Is that dust reduction method something you've already shared in a video?

[@SprocketHoles]

@@robertpillow47 No but I think it has been in the background of a few shots.

[@ML-rm3vk]

Delta has contrast issue try fp4 great tonal range in perceptal.

[@ruehled]

was this xtol stock, 1+1 or some dilution? Sorry if I missed it in the video - I had read I needed 100 mL of xtol per roll in Jobo, i.e. 400 mL at 1+1, but I haven't shot any test/reference to see if I'm degrading the development.

[@SprocketHoles]

XTOL stock. I use a replenishment system for XTOL so stock makes sense.

[@eliyag1]

Great video but is it just me or there's less contrast with XTOL? The blacks aren't as deep and the highlights aren't as white as the other too. The grain looks incredible though.

[@michaelrasmussen3347]

Have you tried Kodak D-76 and if so, how would you compare it to XTOL?

[@SprocketHoles]

I've only developed 2 rolls with d76 so I'm not familiar enough to compare it

[@michaelrasmussen3347]

@@SprocketHoles Ok. I must conduct a test myself then ;-)

[@MrPetermc199]

Give D76 a go. It's a classic press photographer's developer, and if You can afford a Tri-x, that's a classic combination. I used to shoot D76/Tri-x when I was young and new to photography, it was a very easy film and developer to work with. I have actually ordered some D76 again for nostalgic reasons...

[@timbuckner8245]

@@MrPetermc199 D76 is great but I hate mixing it up. You also can't use it right after mixing its to hot.

[@erchata]

hola, me acabo de suscribir ya que veo muy interesante la compaqracion de estos reveladores, habria sido interesante probar el kodak D-76 en sus diluciones - stok,1+1, 1+2 1+3 yo utilizo 1+3 con rotacion y me da buenos resultados con Delta 100 y kodak 2238 25 asa muy nitidas como me gustan limpias y nitidas, gracias y un saludo desde BARCELONA ESPAÑA.

[@emotown1]

Sod it! Just bought a 1 litre bottle of HC. Oh well, this is when you watch a video and wish you had one of men in black memory erasing thingamys. I print in the darkroom from delta 100 and i can’t really complain about using HC - haven’t found graininess to be an issue for even quite large prints from 35mm negs. Just wonder if there’s something about photographing a negative with a digital capture device that exaggerates the graininess. I do see a bit of nasty grain in highlights of delta 400 with HC in prints, well, nasty-ish. But delta 100 only yields any kind of graininess when burning in really dense (like zone ‘12’) highlights like sky details etc. Anyway, sounds like Xtol might certainly be worth a try for delta 400, from my POV.

[@SprocketHoles]

Digital scans do show the grain a lot more than a print. I have moved away from delta 400 recently, Im on a low iso tri-x kick right now.

[@lensman5762]

Rodinal formula does not jave grain desolving agents or grain masking agents in its composition. It is a pure high acutance developer. Just use a developer matched to the film. Your test results were valid, your conclusions were not, sadly.

[@chris_jorge]

Can you explain for a newb pls 🙏 trying to figure out what developer to use

[@lensman5762]

Different films respond differently to different developers. My suggestion to all my friends in the past has been to use only one or at most two films, and start by using a liquid developer. Avoid at all costs falling into the trap of using ' exotic & flavour of the month ' films and developers. The liquid developers are much easier to use, last much longer as they are concentrates and are more economical. You really can no go wrong with HC 110 or its equivalent Ilford Ilfotec HC . Ilfotec LC29 is the same developer but is less concentrated for easier measuring. What film so use? @@chris_jorge

[@CRJines]

​@@chris_jorgeWrong film for Rodinal...

[@timbuckner8245]

@@CRJines Yup it sure was. Rodinal is not recommend for that roll of film.

[@DannerPlace]

Great video. I just wish you had used fresh XTOL as stock and 1:1.