I did make a video on my experience with Fonapan 200 and Rodinal and here it is if you want to see how I got on. Go To Video

I am so pleased Gary Geezer sent me this Fonapan 200 in 35mm to play or I don’t think I would have ever tried it as much as I did with this experiment. I wanted to see how Fomapan 200 and Rodial would suit my kind of photography without going through all the tests to find the perfect speed with my development process. Thats boring to me. Just go and shoot it and find out.

So I decided to shoot a roll at a time and develop in Rodinal 1:25 at various times and also do a stand development. From there I can serif this film and a particular time in Rodinal would suit me.

From doing this test I found that 1:25 Rodinal for 4 minutes with 5 inversions every minute suited me best in various outside lighting conditions.

As I mentioned in the video my first two rolls I stupidly used 25ml of Rodinal! Should have been 16ml and 384ml of water making 400 (1:25). I’m not sure why I did this but in a way I am glad I did! I learned that a bit of misjudgement with Rodinal doesn’t make that much of a difference.

These images were scanned using my DSLR and I let Photoshop Auto Correct the levels.

Roll 1. 1:16 for 5 minutes. Leica MP, 50mm Voigtlander APO lens.

Roll 2. 1:16 for 4 minutes. Leica MP, 50mm Voigtlander APO lens.

Roll 4. 1:25 for 5 minutes. Leica MP, 50mm Voigtlander APO lens. (as per MDC)

Roll 5. 1:25 for 4 minutes. Leica MP, 50mm Voigtlander APO lens. (my best time)

Roll 6. 1:16 for 3.5 minutes. Nikon F5, 28mm lens (just wanted to see)

Roll 7. 1:25 for 3 minutes. Nikon F5

So these were all scanned images and as I said I let Photoshop auto correct the levels.

I took the negatives into the darkroom and made a print from each set using just a 2.5 grade filter and Ilford Multigrade Paper (resin).

The stand develop negatives printed well but I preferred the 1:25 at 4 minutes. That seemed to give me good detail on the paper so that is what I will stick to in future with this combination.

Of course, always try your own combo. What works for me may not work for you.