# Grain



## oriecat (Jun 29, 2004)

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...


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## Soulreaver (Jun 29, 2004)

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   )


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## oriecat (Jun 29, 2004)

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.


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## ksmattfish (Jun 29, 2004)

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


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## oriecat (Jun 29, 2004)

Thanks Matt!


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