Pausing for a Drink

Hi Michael,

Thank you!

Too bad about the Brovira. You could have sold it on Fleabay for a lot of cash, or given it to me... I've actually never used it before, other than for lith printing, but I found two boxes of G2 and G3 that are both in excellent condition, and I am completely blown away.
PMK is interesting. I find the recommended times by both Photographers' Formulary (who made my developer kit) and other internet sources to be about 50% too long for me. I have used TMY-2, Acros, Tri-X, and Foma 400 with PMK, mainly to see what happens. It is correct that both TMY-2 and Acros stains way less than Tri-X, and the Foma is somewhere in between. But you never know how the developer affects printing until you actually print them, and I was fooled to believe that TMY-2 would not work well with PMK by visual inspection of the negatives. Then, as I put them in the enlarger and print on GRADED paper, I am blown away! But Tri-X is where the magic with PMK is at, if you ask me and my limited experience. My normal developing time, for good Grade 2 prints, is 9 minutes with one inversion agitation every 15s. That's Tri-X and TMY-2, both shot at EI 320 normal lighting. What I strongly dislike is printing the PMK negs on VC paper. I think my experience or tastes must be completely different to many others, but I can't stand the low contrast the negative stain yields. I find it tremendously difficult to get something I like on VC paper. For me it's all about graded paper when using PMK. I have the Brovira for now, some Ilford Galerie, some Kodak Ektalure that's still good, and some Fotokemika Emaks. Once my vintage stash is used up, I'm going to continue using Emaks, because it gives me a warm and beautiful print that is extremely rich in its blacks.

- Thomas

That's an interesting theory, Michael. I tried Acros with PMK, but did not like how it printed on graded paper. Have not tried VC yet.
My preferred treatment of Acros is:
Shoot at 64-80 in normal lighting.
Process in replenished Xtol for 10 minutes agitating for the full first minute, and then 10s, about three inversions, at 6m and 3m. That helps with the Acros highlights, and gives a tonality that I like very much for VC printing using Ilford MGIV matte. Very strong combination for a rich print.

Great print Thomas. Brovira was the BEST cool toned pure bromide based paper out there back in the day. I am lucky I got to try it while I could when living in England many years back. I also found this paper to be harder in grade than actually what was on the packet, and it was available in grade 5! Talk about punch! Slavich Unibrom is the closest currently available (not in G5 though :-( )

Interesting to see you doing PMK...

Thanks, Andy.

I just came across a couple of boxes of Brovira, and I can't get enough of it. I've even seen it in Grade 6, fwiw. I figure since I have a stash of it, I'll smoke 'em while I got 'em.
Not going the Slavich route either, because of the availability issues. Instead I think I'll use the trusty old Emaks. Warmer, yes, but gorgeous blacks, which is probably what I'll eventually shoot for.
PMK - the Leica has commanded more texture. Who am I to argue? I haven't tried something new out in earnest for three years, so it's fun for sure. Completely different from the replenished Xtol. I saw you've been going down the old Pyrocat route again too. Funny how the only thing that seems to be constant is 'change'.

My experience with PMK is a bit quite favorable with TMY-2 and Acros and printing on seagul vc quite nice ... My favorite pyro dev is probably prescysol-hc or pyrocat-mc because of the more controlled oxidation in tube processing ... The take away for me is that you really can't judge the stain effect by looking at the neg ... It must be printed ... The stain in Acros and TMY is there it's just a very neutral dark brown that almost looks "normal" and there is very little b+f staining which I think is very good. I am a bit set on using PMK cause I have it and it is working well and I might learn something too

Miles,

I agree 100%. You can't judge the negative by visual inspection when using a staining developer. It may well be that the stain Acros gets from PMK suits VC printing better. We shall see. But with Tri-X it is, to my senses, completely in favor of graded paper. But it isn't necessarily everybody's flavor, and I'll keep printing until I understand what to do all the time.

Thanks for the feedback. It's helpful.

- Thomas

T, I went the pyrocat route again as I am developing so infrequently anymore :-(.... and end up throwing away so much of my replensished TMAX dev. I used to love the negs pyrocat produced and it was suitable for both VC and graded papers. The only reason I moved away from it was due to the edge defects, bubbles, streaks and issues like that with both paterson, AND Hewes reels. Since moving to a constant agitation method, my issues have gone away. I use my usual stainless tanks and hewes reels with a spacer on my uniroller base... Seems to work well! Agree change is the constant!

Andy, that's interesting. I didn't realize the TMax developer went off so quickly. The Xtol I've been using can easily sit for months. Just replenish 100ml every two weeks if I'm not using it, and months later I can process rolls and they'll be just as good. Perhaps TMax is different in this regard, I don't know... But I'm glad you were able to fix your Pyrocat problems. I remember the days when we both used it and were satisfied with it, and right around the same time we both lost negatives that were very dear to us. I know I was very angry about it. PMK requires me to agitate every 15 seconds, and that takes care of any uneven development problems. So far, so good. It's giving me what I want, which is texture. Soon I will have it calibrated and it's going to be a blast printing them.

the thing is, I could have stretched the tMAX life a bit, but I never did the replenishing thing when not developing film, so there are sometimes 3 months between when I use it!! To not risk ruining film, I throw all but a third of it away. It works, but figured having pyrocat around for long range negatives also helps... Just another tool in the shed.