Delta 3200 and PCat HD

[Silverpixels5]

Has anyone ever tried this combination? I've been experimenting with Delta 3200 in different developers and since I now have PCat HD on hand, I was going to give it a go with a recently exposed roll of this film. Ed Buffalo has it on his site for semi-stand development, but its at 1600 and not 3200. So I was going to try this technique with about 50% more time than he reccomends for 1600 in order to properly develop this film at 3200. Does this sound about right? My film is 35mm and I plan to use a 1:1:200 dilution. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. Thanks!

 

[Silverpixels5]

I went ahead and developed the film last night for 45 minutes. Thirty seconds of agitation at the start, and then again at 15 and 30 minutes. I won't know for sure how it will print, but looking at the negatives there seems to be a lack of detail in the shadows. I guess this is why Ed only had a time for 1600 posted on his site. Everything else looks quite nice, not to mention that this developer results in VERY sharp negatives. I'll try printing some frames this evening on graded and VC paper to see how the tones and grain appear.

 

[Robert Kennedy]

Please do. It sounds interesting.

 

[Silverpixels5]

Well I printed some shots yesterday on Oriental Seagull RC grade 2 with very good results. Photos taken indoors showed a good amount of grain, but nothing that overpowered the image, as the grain wasnt' excessively large. Outdoor shots seemed to show much less grain. All shots were exceptionally sharp...much sharper than anything I've ever used. I have a new roll in my camera that I am going to expose at 1600 to see if I can get better detail in my low values. Looking at the negatives, there didn't seem to be much of anything there, but I was able to get a suprising amount, though not ideal, with careful exposure and development. I'm also going to experiment with a roll of EFKE 25 in 120 as well as APX and J&C200 in 4x5 with PCat stand development. Hopefully I can get some good results out of all this.

 

[Silverpixels5]

Forgot to mention that I got clear clean highlights with this as well as opposed to the slightly dull highlights I was getting with with D3200 in Tmax Dev. Just a FYI.

 

[sanking]

Well I printed some shots yesterday on Oriental Seagull RC grade 2 with very good results. All shots were exceptionally sharp...much sharper than anything I've ever used.

The exceptional sharpness is due to extreme adjacency effect that results from stand and semi-stand development. There is really nothing quite like it, except for the unsharp mask. I have some 6X9 TMAX 100 negatives that were processed in Pyrocat-HD with stand development and the sharpness is almost unreal.

But I recommend that you make several exposures of every scene because the possibillity of undesirable development artifacts is very high with stand and semi-stand development.

 

[clay]

This reminds me, Sandy. Did I ever email you the jpeg of a shot from the the first and only pyrocat stand-developed roll I have ever done? This were some night fog shots on Tmax400. I did 1:1:200 for 20 minutes. There was extreme contrast in the negatives from some street lights, and a few frames showed what I suppose is infectious development, where the hot spots in the neg where the lights were located just sort of 'took off' and started developing hot streaks through the frame. Other frames on the same roll were either fine or showed moderate amounts of this. I couldn't get anything this cool if I tried. Anyway, look in the gallery for the shot. I'll try to figure out how to post it. It'll be in the technical gallery.

 

[glbeas]

Hah! That was simply moving the camera with the shutter open. You using autoexposure mode at night? Camera not indicating the end of exposure?
Try a long exposure with a bunch of kids running around in the frame carrying small flashlights. Thats cool.

 

[clay]

Well, it was on a tripod, and the camera was a Fuji 6x9 manual exposure jobbie with no brains at all. I am pretty sure it is a development artifact, because the same thing occurs on some other frames in a less extreme way. And the hot streaks all start from a 'seed' where a streetlamp or light was in the scene.

 

[glbeas]

Well I can tell you infectious development don't do that, it makes the super high contrast that litho film has and also makes point sources get big on film etc. It doesn't make trails. My thought is you shot the scene then picked up the camera and toted it to another spot thinking the shutter was closed. It may have been set for a much longer time than you thought or it stuck open for a while. The original, correct part of the exposure made the seed part then the camera movement made the wild trails.
By any chance was it pretty cold where you shot? That could contribute to creating that problem.

 

[sanking]

Well I can tell you infectious development don't do that, it makes the super high contrast that litho film has and also makes point sources get big on film etc. It doesn't make trails. My thought is you shot the scene then picked up the camera and toted it to another spot thinking the shutter was closed. It may have been set for a much longer time than you thought or it stuck open for a while.

If Clay says he did not move the camera then I am sure he did not move the camera. So move forward to other possibilities.

The development artifact described can most definitely result from stand or semi/stand devilment in extreme contrast conditions. I personally have seen it many times with semi-stand development in this type of lighting.
The most probable cause is bromide drag, but with this type of development it is possible that infectious development could well play a role as well.

The major point is I want to make, however, is that you don't have to move the camera to get this result.

 

[clay]

The other clue is that it goes well into the unexposed rebate area in the really hot streaks. I am sure that I don't have a camera that selectively leaks light only occasionally into rebate areas of the negative. I really don't know if it technically is 'infectious' development, but there were definitely some weird artifacts on many of the frames on that roll that cannot be explained by execution goofs. Check out the streak on a portion of another frame from the same roll in the technical gallery.

 

[Josef Guay]

How are you closing the shutter on your Fuji rangefinder. I learned the hard way that if you close the shutter by advancing the film for long exposures that I got streaks from the extreme highlights since the film advanced before the shutter closed. I started closing the shutter by turning the speed dial; this eliminated the problem for me.

 

[glbeas]

The development artifact described can most definitely result from stand or semi/stand devilment in extreme contrast conditions. I personally have seen it many times with semi-stand development in this type of lighting.
The most probable cause is bromide drag, but with this type of development it is possible that infectious development could well play a role as well.

The major point is I want to make, however, is that you don't have to move the camera to get this result.

Sounds interesting, happen to have any around for comparison?

 

[sanking]

The major point is I want to make, however, is that you don't have to move the camera to get this result.

Sounds interesting, happen to have any around for comparison?

I will look through my negatives and see if I saved any negatives with this kind of artifact. However, I usually just discard this kind of thing rather than file it.