Acutance: Pyro & rotary vs intermittent and normal dev

[Tom Stanworth]

I would be curious to know if anyone has compared acutance with:

Rotary processing (or continuous agitation with, say, a paterson orbital) when using pyro type devs.

VS.

Regular tray or small tank development using normal intermittent agitation and a conventional developer, such as Xtol, D76 etc.

Does rotary and pyro (say Pyrocat HD) still trump the intermittently agitated regular dev combo?

 

[MVNelson]

I don't know the answer to that but can tell you that negatives in say dilute pyrocat /prescysol with minimal agitation would be had to beat..

 

[Tom Stanworth]

MVnelson,

Sure. However, this is not a question about max acutance only whether one gets more acurtance from pyro devs rotary processed or a normal dev using intermmitent agitation. I am not a fan of the minimal agitation technique for my work and have the choice of continuing rotary agitation for 10x8 in which I can do ONE neg at a time or adopting trays and doing,say 6 at a time. This makes even more sense if I am not really getting any acutance advantage by using pyro by virtue of rotary processing. I think I will have to test this myself.

 

[fhovie]

That is why I quit using rotary and have been using semi stand for much of my work in the last 4 years. Example - Tri-x using normal agitation or rotary has crisp grain but no enhanced chemical sharpening. At 30 minutes of semi stand processing an increase of accutance can be seen - both as an increase in sharpness and up close (10X loupe) a slight beginning of Mackie lines. At 60 minutes, the Mackie lines are distracting and no longer an improvement. If you prefer the look of snappy sharp - enhanced above what the lens did for you - do not mechanically erode your edges. These processes are of course dependent of the chemistry you use. Straight PC-TEA will not give you Mackie lines - I use pyrocat at 1:1:150.