I’ve written before about the technique of “stand” or “semi-stand” development. If I’m totally honest, whilst I’ve done it since I wrote that piece when the film required, it’s still not my favourite technique. So, I was very surprised when I chose it as my development technique of choice for the FP4Party. Coincidentally, I then found that I was out of D76 and was going to need to make up 5 litres of ID11, the powder I’d bought as D76 has been hard to get hold of recently … but the raw chemicals for FX55 are due any day and 5 litres of stock ID11 would be in the way of my plans to experiment with that for a few months alongside a couple of fellow photographers.
So, my last six films, FT12, Ilford FP4+, FERRANIA P30 and OrwoUN54 have all found themselves sitting in Rodinal at 1+100 for between 40minutes and an hour.
FILM
Ilford FP4+
Ilford FP4+
Ilford FP4+
FERRANIA P30
Orwo UN54
FT12
TIME
45mins
45 mins
45 mins
60 mins
40 mins
45 mins
TEMP
22°
20°
18°
20°
18°
20°
I used Rodinal, diluted at one part Rodinal to one hundred parts water for all the films. Where the tank size required less than 500ml of developer I still made solution at 5+500 and simply discarded the excess. Temperature was based on ambient temperatures in my kitchen at the time of development apart from one roll of FP4+ where I chose to increase temperature to 22° without changing the timings to see if it made an appreciable difference.
Development times were based on recommendations I found online with the exception of the Orwo film. At around twenty five minutes, the times I found for UN54 seemed too short so I made an educated guess at forty minutes. Agitation of each film varied depending on the length of the semi-stand. For the forty five minute developments it was ten seconds initially then ten seconds at the twenty three minute mark. The sixty minute development had an initial sixty seconds agitation the ten seconds at fifteen, thirty and forty-five minutes. Each of the films was processed individually. Last but not least, the forty minute development received forty five seconds initially and then ten seconds at fifteen and thirty minutes.
I’m going to write about each film in future posts but suffice to say the results with FP4+ far surpassed my expectations. Indeed, I was happy with how each film turned out and I’m looking forward to printing some of these negatives over the coming weeks.
Dave's Place 
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