Divided Pyrocat-HD

el wacho · Sep 21, 2010

just found this which i thought was relevant...

pH of 1% sodium hydroxide is 12.7:
http:www.pacia.org.au/_uploaditems/docs/3.sodium_hydroxide.pdf
pH of 10% sodium carbonate is 11.7:
http://www.intox.org/databank/documents/chemical/sodcarb/cie20.htm

thanks to Alan Johnson for this post.

sanking · Sep 22, 2010

eclarke said:
To take this astray, I needed to make new MC after about a year and a half. I used the Metol slurry last time but read Sandy's alternate advice about heating the Glycol to 250 degrees and decided to do that. Everyting dropped into solution almost instantly, just great!!! Thank you, Sandy...EC

Glad it worked, and thanks for mentioning it. I have not mixed any MC in quite a while and actually forgot about my suggestion to heat the Glcyol up to 250F.

Just be sure to be very careful working with Glycol that hot as it could do a lot of damage if you were to drop it on any body part.

Sandy

hkcs · Dec 29, 2010

I was wondering why the presoak is needed with the Divided Pyrocat-HD development? All over the APUG threads about divided development it is said that presoak shoud be avoid so that the emulsion should soak the developing agent, not the plain water. Can anyone tell, what is the practical reason of using presoak with Divided Pyrocat-HD?

Curt · Dec 29, 2010

Another question; A few drops of Photo Flo is used in part A and not part B, correct? Can LFN be substituted for Photo Flo?

pgomena · Dec 30, 2010

The presoak allows the gelatin of the emulsion to swell a little so the A bath can be more easily and evenly absorbed. At least that's the theory. Films like Acros and TMX have chemically hardened emulsions designed to withstand the high temperatures of machine development. A presoak allows them to loosen up a little.

Yes, the Photo Flo goes into part A. It allows the solution to drain off more easily before placing it in the B solution. Allow the film coming out of part A 15 seconds to drain before placing into B, and agitate vigorously in the B for the first minute.

Peter Gomena

mcilroy · Mar 23, 2011

I started my first tests with divided Pyrocat HD a few weeks ago. What bothers me a little is the fact that I need about 150ml of stock A and B for every run, since I'm using a Jobo 2500 drum.

For normal 1+1+100 use, 500ml stock lasts a long time (for me) but the higher concentrated two-bath approach eats it up in no time. Is it possible to mix the stock solutions in a higher concentration, at least for the A-part? Of course I could just mix larger quantities, but I like storing chemistry in handy bottles which fit in the (lockable) drawers of my darkroom-cabinet.

Will the ingredients for 1000ml stock A aslo be solubale in, let's say, 500ml? The B-part is less of a problem because i could just add the required amount of potassium carbonate to the working solution.

Richard Man · Sep 24, 2011

Does anyone has a copy of Sandy's original article? I have been using the 2 bath Pyrocat-HD on 35mm film (XPan format) with great success (Dead Link Removed). I want to write a follow up blog entry and it would be nice to have access to the original article. I checked the View Camera magazine site but they do not seem to sell back issue.

Thanks! richard @ richardmanphoto.com if you can.

Andrew O'Neill · Aug 23, 2015

This is an old thread but what the hey! Dug up a test I did comparing 2-bath and single bath. Film was HP5+. Done with BTZS tube. 1+10 for the two-bath. 6ml of A and B, each in their own cap with 60ml water. Temperature was held at 24C. Water presoak was given at same temperature for 3 minutes. Cap A got 5 drops of Drywell (Fuji's version of Photoflo). Film received vigorous agitation in both A and B, 5 minutes each.

For single bath (image on the left), BTZS tube as well, I gave N-7 development, which in my case is 4 minutes at 21C. No presoak was given.

Both negatives look very good. You can clearly see the 2-bath negative's highlight compensation. I should also add that I placed the darkest shadow under the chair on zone V. About a stop higher than normal.
These are straight scans. Only the black and white points were touched in the scanning software.

zonesys · Nov 3, 2015

Development problem with Divided Pyrocat-HD

Hello,

Yesterday, I did my first dev using Divided Pyrocat-HD. I followed the instructions provided by Pyrocat-HD website and got deeply underdeveloped results

Film : TMAX 400 35mm exposed at EI 320
Pre-soak : 3mn
Pyrocat HD A 480 ml at 1:15 (30:450) 5mn
Pyrocat HD B 480 ml at 1:15 (30:450) 5mn
Dev temp : 23°C
Dev of 2 reels in 500ml tank with intermittent agitation as described in website.
Standard stop bath and fixing.

Where did I do wrong?
Thank you for your answer

Jean-Bernard

Michael Wesik · Nov 5, 2015

zonesys said:
Hello,

Yesterday, I did my first dev using Divided Pyrocat-HD. I followed the instructions provided by Pyrocat-HD website and got deeply underdeveloped results

Film : TMAX 400 35mm exposed at EI 320
Pre-soak : 3mn
Pyrocat HD A 480 ml at 1:15 (30:450) 5mn
Pyrocat HD B 480 ml at 1:15 (30:450) 5mn
Dev temp : 23°C
Dev of 2 reels in 500ml tank with intermittent agitation as described in website.
Standard stop bath and fixing.

Where did I do wrong?
Thank you for your answer

Jean-Bernard

I typically cut the box speed in half and use a dilution between 1+7 and 1+10 with the purpose of silver printing.

ParkerSmithPhoto · Feb 21, 2016

sanking said:
I recently developed 36 rolls of 120 film, Efke 25, Fuji Acros and TMY2, from a four day shoot on Ossabaw Island near Savannah, Georgia. I developed the film four reels at a time in a stainless steel tank. Procedure was 5 minutes in Solution A and B, both 1:10 at 75 degrees F, with four agitation cycles in both solutions (initial agitation of 45 seconds, subsequent agitation of 10 seconds). I mixed two liters of both solutions and developed 16 rolls one evening, and 16 rolls the next day. The last batch of film was developed about eighteen hours after I mixed the solutions. I discarded the solutions at that point, though in fact I think they could have been used to develop more film that day if necessary.

I am experimenting with Divided P-HD. When using stainless tanks, are you filling through the cap or dropping the reels into a tank filled with Solution B? I was a little concerned that with the "instantaneous development" filling through the cap would cause some issues with uneven development.

ParkerSmithPhoto · Feb 21, 2016

ParkerSmithPhoto said:
I am experimenting with Divided P-HD. When using stainless tanks, are you filling through the cap or dropping the reels into a tank filled with Solution B? I was a little concerned that with the "instantaneous development" filling through the cap would cause some issues with uneven development.

Sandy replied to me via email:

I always remove the lid and pour the developer into the tank. Adding it through the fill cap would almost certainly cause uneven development.

ritternathan · Feb 21, 2016

If you are going to shoot TMY-2 and use divided Pyrocat, my experiences are that TMAX 400 likes a 1:15 (or even 1:10) dilution at 26C for 5-6min with an EI 200, or if you shoot it around EI 400, then you need to use the 1:10 dilution at at least 24C for 5-6min. Go to this website http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/html/TwoBathPyrocat.html and it has graph for the density of TMY-2. I have found this to be an absolutely beautiful combination and I often use it when I go on vacation and have 5 or 10 or more rolls to develop in different light conditions. I have not tried the -P Pyrocat, but most often use the -HDC or -MC versions for divided development.

ParkerSmithPhoto · Feb 21, 2016

ritternathan said:
If you are going to shoot TMY-2 and use divided Pyrocat, my experiences are that TMAX 400 likes a 1:15 (or even 1:10) dilution at 26C for 5-6min with an EI 200, or if you shoot it around EI 400, then you need to use the 1:10 dilution at at least 24C for 5-6min.

Yes, my firsts tests with TMY400 and TMX at 1:20 came out rather thin. (I'm ordering another kit to continue experiments, as I spilled about half of my first one. D'oh!) TMY will get the 1:10 treatment.

Here's a great result with HP5, details at the bottom. This is an 8x10 crop from a 20" print, with virtually no grain at normal print size (not zoomed in to the scan).

I'd attach here but the full resolution file really lets you see the details. For best results view in Photoshop and use VIEW --> PRINT SIZE.

Chris Livsey · Feb 21, 2016

ritternathan said:
Go to this website http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/html/TwoBathPyrocat.html and it has graph for the density of TMY-2.

When I printed that off at work there was much amusement as 14 sheets came off for the simplified methodology!!

ritternathan · Feb 21, 2016

Chris Livsey said:
When I printed that off at work there was much amusement as 14 sheets came off for the simplified methodology!!

Well, yes the graph is good place to start, and we can see that it was done at 1:10.

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