Developing Ilford XP2 Super in Rodinal
One of the first shots from a roll of Ilford XP2 super, developed in Rodinal – my first foray in to the world of home developing.
Film: Ilford XP2 Super, ISO400
Camera: Yashica Electro 35GT set with the ISO as-rated for the film
Development: Since XP2 is designed for a C-41 process (colour processed, but resulting in B&W negs, apparently to make it cheaper/easier to get processed on the high street) I thought I’d made a mistake in loading this in to the Yashica if I wanted to home develop. A bit of Googling turned up some excellent articles (references below) about processing XP2 in a B&W developer called ‘Rodinal’, or ‘R09′, so I decided to give it a try.
The process is a bit different to a normal B&W method and opinions vary on best way, so I thought it was worth putting what I did out there as it may help someone get a second opinion. This is a brief overview of what I did, if you want more info on any point, let me know!
- Rodinal and tap water at 1+100, approx 20deg C when added to the tank
- Agitate for 60 seconds, a few firm taps on the side to remove any bubbles from the film surface then left the tank to sit in a bath of 20deg C water for 60mins.
- Drain developer from tank, add Stop solution (I used Ilfostop) at a dilution of 1+25, agitate for 15 seconds then drain.
- Add Fixer (I used Ilford Rapid Fixer) at a dilution of 1+4 and agitate every 30 seconds over a 5min period.
- Rinse by removing the top of the tank and running the cold tap in to the top for about 15mins (sit it in the sink and let the tank overflow constantly)
- Add a couple of drop of wetting agent (I used Tetenal Mirasol) and leave to stand for a few minutes, then finally hang and dry.
The negs came out an odd purple/pink colour but I’d read that would happen, its a by-product of processing XP2 this way and scanning in grey-scale soon corrects the problem.
As it turned out, I found the hardest part was working out how to calculate the dilutions, my maths is really terrible! If you need 300ml of solution at 1+25, you work out 300/26 = 11.5 so, 11.5ml of chemical and 288.5ml water – but 12ml and 290ml, which is way easier to measure, won’t do any harm.
References used for the info, read over and over before I started doing anything!
1pt4.com/blog/ilford-xp2-stand-developed-in-rodinal/
www.flickr.com/groups/rodinal/discuss/72157622703641006/
www.apug.org/forums/forum37/69815-ilford-xp2-rodinal.html