Response to Film/developer testing

I favor traditional films over tabular grain films, and I prefer high accutance developer over "fine-grain" developer, generally. My favorite combination is Ilford Pan F+ developed in Rodinal. With this film/developer pairing one gets the fine grain inherent in slow films, such as Pan F+ (EI 50). If one were to use a faster film together with a "fine grain" developer one would get managable grain but the accutance would be compromised. With Pan F+ and Rodinal, one eliminates the visual compromises (as I see it) and suffers only the compromise in convenience caused by the slow film speed. When I got out there and actually did more shooting at EI 50, I found the slow film speed to be not so inconvenient after all. - On a sunny day f5.6 at 1/125th or 1/250th was typical. 11" X 14" enlargements from a 35mm negative look wonderfully detailed and sharp with this combination. If you would like to see a few Pan F+/Rodinal photos they are at my web site: http://www.web-graphics.com/steinerphoto

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