EFKE 25 Standing in PCAT

[Silverpixels5]

I have been experimenting with Pyrocat HD stand development lately, the first of which was with Delta 3200. I found that it gave extremely sharp negatives with really nice grain, but not enough shadow detail at 3200. I have a roll in the camera now rated at 1600, but its not finished yet. Next I tried two rolls of EFKE 25. One rated at 25 and the other at 20. The one rated at 25 was exposed indoors using flash. I had been developing this film in Rodinal with good results, although the stand development with PCAT gave me sharpness that I have never seen with this film. I felt that the shadows could use just a bit more detail so I rated the next roll at 20. This roll was shot outdoors at my local swamp. The weather was overcast, so everything was pretty much illuminated evenly. Again this resulted in very nice negatives, but I believe I overdeloped this roll, as it was twice as dense as the previous roll. There also seemed to be a bit of general stain that wasn't present in the last roll either. My times were 1 hour at 75F with at 1:1:200 dilution. The roll was given 30 seconds of initial agitation and another 30 seconds at 30 minutes. Water stop, and TF4 fixer. I'll try this again, but this time at 30 and 45 minutes of stand development...or I'll keep the hour and try a 1:1:300 dilution and see what happens. I've uploaded two pics of the same negative from the second roll. One is a straight print, and the other has a little manipulation.

 

[Donald Miller]

"The weather was overcast, so everything was pretty much illuminated evenly. Again this resulted in very nice negatives, but I believe I overdeloped this roll, as it was twice as dense as the previous roll."

Thanks for sharing this information and posting these images. What grade paper or filtration did you use to print these? It appears on my monitor that the highlights are beyond the scale of the paper. Is it my monitor, the scan, or are the highlights in fact base paper white? Considering the lighting, would this be a scene that would have been a N + development? Thanks for your time in replying.

 

[Silverpixels5]

Donald:

I used Oriental Seagull RC Grade 2 in Agfa Neutol WA 1:7. You are correct in the fact that the development was N+. How much I do not know though since I have no densitometer. Also, the algae on the lake surface does go to paper base white at the spot slightly above the base of the tree. I don't have the print to refer to, as I'm at work, so I can't say for sure whether its the scan or is the same with the print and negative. I suspect that its the print as this roll was somewhat overdevelped, but I will check when I get home to be sure. Thanks for your interest.