Crazy mix – Rodinal and HC110 in one cocktail.
I never mixed chemicals together before. Even though I learned chemistry in the special advanced class during three years of the basic comprehensive Soviet school, the chemical elements which we mixed were too far from the photography chemicals. Shame on the Soviet school program. As I remember now, we spent much more time on sports and military training, when we learned to disassemble and assemble a Kalashnikov rifle with closed eyes. today and I’m not proud of it and prefer to mix the photography developers together with the goal to get some more peaceful stuff. i
Well, today my post is about the inspiration I got from “Stephen Schaub” and the explanatory vlog post in his “Youtube channel” about the interesting idea to mix two classic developers into one cocktail and to develop a film for 45 min instead of 1 hour of stand developing process. 2ml of Rodinal plus 2ml of HC110, 500ml of water and 45 min of patience. Occasionally I had all of these.
My biggest problem was mixing these super small amounts of components. Another problem was the film by itself. A few months ago I put this roll of the Ilford HP5 135 film inside of the waterproof with the idea to photograph it during rainy days without worrying to get the camera wet. Finally, it’s why I got this camera. When I got prepared for the pouring rain days, those days are gone, and I’m left with only windy days on the coast and the foggy days in the mountain forest with very poor rainy drops here and there. I’m almost done photographing this roll and one day accidentally opened the back of Nikonos, forgetting that there are still a few frames. I will show you the remains of some images, luckily, most of the film was not damaged, but the forest images.
Some technical details: ilford HP5 exposed manually at box speed. Rodinal 2ml Kodak HC110 2ml 500ml of 20C water. 45 minutes of semi-stand developing process – yes, I made a correction and gently agitated the tank in the middle. Stop 1min with water and the regular fixing process. I moved to the alkaline Ilford Rapid Fixer, instead of the fast but very aggressive acid-based Fomafix, which I finished recently and don’t think about to return using it again.
In the next post I will write about this wonderful location – the Arabs Fisherman’s Village of Jisr Zarqa, located in the Center of the country. Now the photographs. Some successful, some damaged, but very moody.
Additionally, don’t hesitate to visit my Youtube channel with a few slideshows
wow.. you never stop searching…I didn’t know that you had problem. ::):) I have no clue what you are saying.about technical :):):) . Technically I don’ t know anything about beside your photo is inspiring. Whether action, live stage and these simple elements are beauty!
Thank you Naomi 😉 There are always small technical problems with film here and there. But not something serious. Maximum, it’s always possible to shoot again to another roll 😉 These cameras are old. Sometimes the film rolls are old and expired as well. Sometimes the chemicals don’t work as expected due to the long storage or bad conditions. Because of this I’m always trying to be very exact with the amounts of metering and temperature, and the clean gear. But you know. Shit is still happening 😉
You never know when the ability to disassemble and reassemble the Kalishnikov will be useful.
I’m still trying to figure out if I like 400-speed film or not. It would never have occurred to me to mix chemistry like this.
I like your results, though. Very cool.
Thank you Matt. Mostly i use 400. With the manual exposure metering its the most appropriate for the 16 Sunny rule as a basic for my walks. Plus very flexible for the different light conditions because i love to take images in the evenings as well with the same roll which is already inside. It was my first try of this mix and i will try it also on medium format. Im using an Holga camera a lot and exposure is absolutely limited to just one shutter speed and kind of 2 aperture sets. So i always prefer to use semi-stand for the rolls exposed with Holga.
I just finished a 100′ roll of HP5+… But it’s not just B&W film — I’ve been a bit underwhelmed with Portra 400, too.
But all the reasons you like 400 are all the reasons it’s a go-to film speed for a lot of us. (I’ve actually shot through two 100-foot rolls of 400-speed film). But I’ve never really dug my results. Occasionally, but not consistently.
Were these images shot with a Holga?
I’ve been using semi-stand more lately as well: 1+100 Rodinal.
I see. Pushing is never my favorite process, but sometimes it’s just a need not a desire. All my Holga’s exposed rolls are in the same blog category. Sending you the link to. Every post is the whole roll. Go to the oldest – i think they were more interesting when i started this combo Holga-Rodinal-Stand.
http://www.victorbezrukov.com/category/holga/
That was a cool series of posts, Victor. I think the Fomapan 400 is a good film for that Holga look.
I’ve been thinking of dabbling a bit in multiple exposures with my Bronica; maybe I should just do it.
Hey Matt huge thank you for walking through the whole series. Yes Fomapan is great for experiments and also the cheapest film of the market today.
I’m also doing multi exposures with my Hasselblad. I hope to see your results with Bronica
Oh, now I’ve got your hopes up, I’ll have to actually do some! haha.
its very interesting challenge to do, really. to plan the results in your imagination! Good luck with this
Fascinating results, dear Victor.
Hi Mary Thank you very much !
I wonder what the superadditivity is of HC110 with Rodinal. The results look very nice.
I am not a Rodinal user, but HC110 is my go to premixed developer; otherwise I make my own metol based developers as I like the softer working action.
Thank you for taking a look Michael. Homemade chemicals is a dream. One day i will learn to do this 😉
It can be very simple, like D23, which is metol, sulfite and water. Most of mine are in that ilk.
👌👌👌 great shots Victor📷
Thank you very much!
Great images, and interesting developer combination. I had a roll of very expired T-Max 100, and semi stand developed it in Rodinal, was amazed at the results.
Thank you very much. The semi-stand, or stand process is great for any kind of unknown conditions of films or exposure conditions.