I thought I'd share the results of some testing I did over the weekend. I'm starting a project that I think Delta 3200 (120 format) would be good for so I ran some tests.
I shot a roll and cut it in half. I developed one half with Pyrocat, using semistand. I took the times from Ed Buffaloe's site: 1:1:200, 30 min. with 30 sec. agitation at the start and at the 15 minute mark. @ 68 F
The second half was developed in Ilford DDX, again using the times recommended on unblinkingeye.com: 1:4, 11 min. @ 75 F, standard agitation.
Both films look pretty good, The DDX negs show a nice fine grain, while the P-cat negs show sharp detail and some evidence of edge effects. In printing, the DDX negs are about one stop denser, but the overall contrast is pretty similar. The P-cat negs show slightly better shadow seperation and seem to be sharper, but they are quite close. This is pretty much as expected. The odd thing is that the P-cat negs show a speckled grain pattern, as if some grains have "clumped up" for lack of a better term. The first two attached files are scans directly from these negs.
I suspected that this speckled appearence was the result of the stand development so I did an addtional test using Pyrocat in a Jobo ATL processor. 1:1:100, 14 min. @ 75F. These negs did not show the grain speckling, but they do seem to have similar edge effects and sharpness compared to the semi-stand negs. The third file is a scan from one of these negs.
I also made test prints to see how the grain looks enlarged. I will post thThese are sections from a 12x16 enlargement of each type of neg. The grain in the DDX and the P-cat Jobo negs looks very similar, with the DDX looking a little finer. The grain in the semi-stand is more pronounced, and the speckling gives the print something of a mezotint appearance. Could be interesting in some cases. Edge effects are also in evidence.
I shot a roll and cut it in half. I developed one half with Pyrocat, using semistand. I took the times from Ed Buffaloe's site: 1:1:200, 30 min. with 30 sec. agitation at the start and at the 15 minute mark. @ 68 F
The second half was developed in Ilford DDX, again using the times recommended on unblinkingeye.com: 1:4, 11 min. @ 75 F, standard agitation.
Both films look pretty good, The DDX negs show a nice fine grain, while the P-cat negs show sharp detail and some evidence of edge effects. In printing, the DDX negs are about one stop denser, but the overall contrast is pretty similar. The P-cat negs show slightly better shadow seperation and seem to be sharper, but they are quite close. This is pretty much as expected. The odd thing is that the P-cat negs show a speckled grain pattern, as if some grains have "clumped up" for lack of a better term. The first two attached files are scans directly from these negs.
I suspected that this speckled appearence was the result of the stand development so I did an addtional test using Pyrocat in a Jobo ATL processor. 1:1:100, 14 min. @ 75F. These negs did not show the grain speckling, but they do seem to have similar edge effects and sharpness compared to the semi-stand negs. The third file is a scan from one of these negs.
I also made test prints to see how the grain looks enlarged. I will post thThese are sections from a 12x16 enlargement of each type of neg. The grain in the DDX and the P-cat Jobo negs looks very similar, with the DDX looking a little finer. The grain in the semi-stand is more pronounced, and the speckling gives the print something of a mezotint appearance. Could be interesting in some cases. Edge effects are also in evidence.
