Grain

[oriecat]

What are all of the factors that affect the grain of a negative?

Last Friday I shot a 10 shot roll (my first bulk loaded roll!) of HP5+ 400 iso. Shot outdoors in early evening, sunny day, still loads of light. I used all auto exposure, due to shooting my nephew (2 year old on the go, needed to be quick!) Developed in Rodinal for 6 minutes. Might have been a little over zealous on the agitation.

The skin tones are all much grainier than I think I have ever noticed my HP5 to be. Clearly noticeable even just looking at the negs in the loupe. The dark tones look fine.

I am just wondering if something I did may have caused it (such as the agitation, or using Rodinal with HP5 (which I don't think I've done before)), or if it's the product of all the factors combined, or maybe the roll of film I got is just grainy, or what...

 

[Soulreaver]

Time and dillution affect the size of the grain.
If you overdevelop a neg you'll get bigger grain.
That could happen with a higher temp too.
More dilluted solutions and more time give you a finer grain.

Since you bulk loaded ( congrats!) did you set the iso manually?

Mmmm, just read you can see the grain in the neg...
Thats quite a big grain :shock: .Must be something else...
If you agitate too much you can cause uneven development, or somehow getting the chemicals between the layers of the film.

And thats all I know ( if I got i right )

 

[oriecat]

Thanks for your thoughts! I used the Rodinal at 1+25. Maybe next time I will try the 1+50 times and see how that looks.

I bought dx-coded canisters, so the cam should have set it to 400 automatically.

 

[ksmattfish]

Rodinal tends to produce grainier results than say D76 or ID11.

All of the following tend to increase grain size:
More concentrated developer
Higher dev temp
Greater agitation
Increased development times
Overexposure

 

[oriecat]

Thanks Matt!