In my search for “better” developer options to pair with Berger’s Pancro 400, I did a test yesterday using good old D-23 on an 8x10 sheet of Pancro 400, metered for 100 ASA. The results surprised me: excellent tonal rendering, good shadow information, and excellent highlight retention, in spite of the fact that the brightly lit clouds were way brighter than everything else in the scene, by far. I metered the wood shingles on the front face of the building (to the left side of the door) as middle gray and left it at that.
Processing was in a tray, as is my standard, with 30 seconds agitation at first, and three seconds every 30 seconds, for a total of 17 minutes at 68F.
This scan does not employ any dodging or burning, only an adjustment to create pleasing contrast, plus a bit of vignette. Otherwise it’s as the scan provided. A Rodinal-processed negative would not look like this.
Processing was in a tray, as is my standard, with 30 seconds agitation at first, and three seconds every 30 seconds, for a total of 17 minutes at 68F.
This scan does not employ any dodging or burning, only an adjustment to create pleasing contrast, plus a bit of vignette. Otherwise it’s as the scan provided. A Rodinal-processed negative would not look like this.