I've been mixing my own PCatHD almost from the day Sandy posted his recipe and it has always been flawless in every application over the eons. Until now.
The film is Kodak 3404 Aerial Reconnaissance 35mm 1998 vintage, 3 mil thick Estar base from a 200ft. roll. The lines through the images go right through the borders into the next image and can even be seen in the sprocket area.
Here's what I've done. I suspected the film. It's in surprisingly good shape. Very little film base plus fog and with the PCat the grain structure is just glorious. I opened a second box of same, I have 800 feet of it, and shot some from the unopened box, shot some more from the original box, and also shot some 4mil Panatomic X to throw in the mix.
The Panatomic came out of the soup just fine. Both of the Plus X had the lines. AHA! I said. Bad Yellow Box. Almost impossible to even fathom. But both PlusX examples from two different sources had the same lines.
Then before I took 800 feet of glorious old Kodak to the dumpster I said, I'd better try a different developer. So I shot a bunch of nothing like you see, on the original source Plus X and developed it in Dektol stand. 1:100, stand develop for 13 minutes and toss the dektol. Very weak and also quite inexpensive. 500ml is 5 grams of Dektol powder. That film came out glorious. Same Plus X 3404. I would do it all that way but the Dektol even with a stand development creates pretty harsh grain. But no lines.
Then I said, AHA it's the PCat. It likes Panatomic and it likes Aviphot (80 + 200) and it likes almost anything I put into it, but it doesn't like Plus X Aerial Reconnaissance 3 mil 3404. Bizarre.
Then I held the A syrup up to the light and it had floaties. Particulates. Oh horrors. So I filtered it through a coffee filter and took another roll of 3404 to try it after the clean up. Same lines.
That's my workflow so far. What do the developer gods recommend I try next. I'm thinking perhaps mix up some new PCatHD Part A and give it a go with newly mixed soup. But again, all the other films have worked fine in the stuff I'm using. I probably mixed up that A solution 3 - 4 months ago.
If you lay awake thinking about this one . . . . I'm sorry. Here's an image from the Dektol stand;
The film is Kodak 3404 Aerial Reconnaissance 35mm 1998 vintage, 3 mil thick Estar base from a 200ft. roll. The lines through the images go right through the borders into the next image and can even be seen in the sprocket area.
Here's what I've done. I suspected the film. It's in surprisingly good shape. Very little film base plus fog and with the PCat the grain structure is just glorious. I opened a second box of same, I have 800 feet of it, and shot some from the unopened box, shot some more from the original box, and also shot some 4mil Panatomic X to throw in the mix.
The Panatomic came out of the soup just fine. Both of the Plus X had the lines. AHA! I said. Bad Yellow Box. Almost impossible to even fathom. But both PlusX examples from two different sources had the same lines.
Then before I took 800 feet of glorious old Kodak to the dumpster I said, I'd better try a different developer. So I shot a bunch of nothing like you see, on the original source Plus X and developed it in Dektol stand. 1:100, stand develop for 13 minutes and toss the dektol. Very weak and also quite inexpensive. 500ml is 5 grams of Dektol powder. That film came out glorious. Same Plus X 3404. I would do it all that way but the Dektol even with a stand development creates pretty harsh grain. But no lines.
Then I said, AHA it's the PCat. It likes Panatomic and it likes Aviphot (80 + 200) and it likes almost anything I put into it, but it doesn't like Plus X Aerial Reconnaissance 3 mil 3404. Bizarre.
Then I held the A syrup up to the light and it had floaties. Particulates. Oh horrors. So I filtered it through a coffee filter and took another roll of 3404 to try it after the clean up. Same lines.
That's my workflow so far. What do the developer gods recommend I try next. I'm thinking perhaps mix up some new PCatHD Part A and give it a go with newly mixed soup. But again, all the other films have worked fine in the stuff I'm using. I probably mixed up that A solution 3 - 4 months ago.
If you lay awake thinking about this one . . . . I'm sorry. Here's an image from the Dektol stand;
