A first attempt at semi-stand developing

A few weeks back I shot a roll of Agfa APX 100 during a trip to Lincoln. It was only as I went to rewind the roll of film after shooting all 36 frames that I realised I hadn’t set the ISO dial when I loaded the camera, and that the meter had been set to 400asa for every shot.

If I had been shooting Ilford HP5+ of something, I would have just push procesed the film -something I have done with good success in the past – and, indeed, I thought this would be my plan for the APX 100 too. Unfortunately, there is much less data available on push processing this particular film stock, at least beyond a one stop push to 200asa.

Asking around for advice resulted in a number of recommendations for stand or semi-stand development and, after looking into this further, I decided the semi-stand approach might be the best approach. However, as this would be the first time I’d ever attempted this method of developing film, and as I had an idea there would be some shots from my Lincoln trip that would be worth keeping, I decided that I would have a trial run on another roll of film first.

So, a week after visiting Lincoln, I took a shorter trip to the village of Whitwell and shot another roll of APX 100 at 400asa so I could test out semi-stand developing.

I have two developers to hand at present – Ilford DD-X, and Agfa Rodinal. As there was far more information available on performing semi-stand development with Rodinal, I opted for that. It also has the advantage of being much cheaper than DD-X. My research suggested that a 1+100 solution would be the best option, with a couple of extra millilitres of developer added to compensate for the push processing , so I made up a mixture of 500ml water, with 7ml of Rodinal (again, based on research online). This is more developer than I would need for a single roll of 35mm film, but I wasn’t sure how much extra developer to add to 300ml to compensate for the push as the online advice had stated a 500ml volume of water.

I’d also read that a pre-wash would be a good idea for semi-stand, so before adding the developer I gave it a soak in 20° water for 5 minutes, agitating it for a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if the agitation was necessary at all, but I didn’t think it would hurt.

After emptying the pre-wash water, I added the developer and agitated the developing tank with inversions for 1 minute. I then gave it a tap on the counter and left it to stand undisturbed for the next 30 minutes. After this first half an hour I gave it another single firm inversion, another firm tap on the counter to remove any air bubbles, and then let it stand for a further 30 minutes.

At the end of the hour I emptied the developer, used 20° water as a stop bath for 1 minute, and then a further 5 minutes in the fixer. After this I washed the negatives in tap water using the Ilford method, soaked them for a couple of minutes in a wetting agent solution, spun the reel in a salad spinner to remove most of the water, and then hung them to dry for 3 hours.

I was very happy to see nice looking negatives as I removed the film from the reels. They maybe looked slightly thin, but nothing to cause great concern and I was able to get results I was happy with when scanning and post processing the photographs.

The final results are pretty good, I think. There’s maybe a little more grain than there would have been had I shot and developed the film at 100asa, but it’s nothing I’m concerned about, and the images are sharp, have good contrast, and the highlights and shadows contain plenty of detail.

I don’t think I’ll use semi-stand development all the time, but I will certainly use it again in some situations. I’m already curious about shooting a single roll of film at different exposure settings, for instance, and I have a roll of Fompan 400 that I plan on shooting with my Holga sometime soon which I might develop as semi-stand.

Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Agfa APX 100. Rodinal 1+100 (+2ml) semi-stand 1 hour @ 20°

Taken on 8 March 2025