Help with Pyrocat-HD developing

Okay - I have my chemistry together, but want to make sure I have this right. I will be processing in a roller base, and hopefully moving up to a Jobo later on. Film will be 120 rolls as well as 4x5 and larger.

Presoak - 5 min. continuous agitation
Develop - 1:1:100 at 70 degrees, Time ????
Water stop bath - 1 min. continuous agitation
TF-4 Fixer - 5 min. continuous agitation
Wash - 5 min. continuous agitation
Photoflo - 30 sec. standing
Dry

I am coming from D-76 in tanks using intermittent agitation, though I done roller processing before. What is the recommended method for determining proper time / temp / dilution? I am aiming to be able to print on VC silver paper.

I don't have access to a sensitometer, and have previously used the rated speed and temps for D-76.

- Jeff

You've got the general idea. The massive developing chart (www.digitaltruth.com) lists times for some films, and the instructions for Pyrocat-HD give suggestions that will give you usable negatives, if not perfect ones. In the end, you will have to fine tune development times and developer dilutions to match your situation. One thing to remember is that Pyrocat-HD does not give the same film speed as D-76. You will probably have to rate the film at 2/3 to one stop slower that the ISO speed. Pyrocat-HD is an excellent developer. I hope you like it.

Just get on with it.Tests a film or two, I use this co0bo for all 0y films @ 15 mins at 26 C

Paul Cocklin said:

No.

Click to expand...

Ian

Jeff, I recommend that you read this article by Mr King:

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/PCat/pcat.html

Does anyone have a time for Delta 100 (1+1+100)- I tried a roll of 120 last night at 9 minutes in my Jobo and got a very thin negative. The Massive dev chart's time is 45 minutes?? Uhhh what?

That time is absurd. I would suggest about 12-15 minutes with the 1:1:100 dilution. That should give more than enough contrast.

Also, make sure you did not under expose the negatives. The number one reason for thin negatives is under exposure, not under development.

Sandy King

domaz said:

Does anyone have a time for Delta 100 (1+1+100)- I tried a roll of 120 last night at 9 minutes in my Jobo and got a very thin negative. The Massive dev chart's time is 45 minutes?? Uhhh what?

Click to expand...

Jeff,
I think you should be washing your film for at least 15 minutes if you want your negatives to last. You did not state what film you are using so it's not possible to recommend a starting point for a processing time.

sanking said:

That time is absurd. I would suggest about 12-15 minutes with the 1:1:100 dilution. That should give more than enough contrast.

Also, make sure you did not under expose the negatives. The number one reason for thin negatives is under exposure, not under development.

Sandy King

Click to expand...

That time on the Massive Chart is for semi-stand development, but there is no note to that effect. I've sent them a e-mail about it but it hasn't been fixed yet. Very misleading. My time for Delta 100 is 13.5 min. @ 70 1:1:100 with standard agitation.

Apart from the very good tips you are getting above. (It cannot get any better than "directly from the horses mouth". )
There are lots of information found on "Ilford washing method", which in short is that you should change the wash water some 10 times with 15-30 seconds constant agitation in between. (Start with a couple of 15 sec washes and then longer, towards 30 sec for the later washes.) That is enough for an archival wash and is good for conserving water. For the typical Jobo drum this takes some 5 liters of water.
If you are putting a hose with running water down the throat of the lid of the tank it should be OK with 5 minutes too. Maybe a bit on the short side, as others have noted. (Maybe this is what you do, but it's not clear.)
The final PhotoFlo treatment should be done outside of the drum and off the reels. Photoflo tends to build up and leave residues in the tank and on the reels, which makes it harder and harder to load the film on the reels. Also, if you get photoflo dissolving into bubbles when developing you will get very strange artifacts on your film. What I do is to have a small bowl/tray where I have some water and a drop of Photoflo. I either drop in my sheet film or "drag" my roll film through it just before I hang the film to dry.

//Björn

Lots of great advice. So 10 minutes would be enough washing with TF-4?

For film, I'm going to be shooting mainly FP-4, Foma 100 & Acros 100 right now.

If you feel that you are actively washing the film for ten minutes, that should definitely be enough, especially as you use TF-4.
But I recon that you don't use the fixer one-shot. At least you shouldn't do that. There is a very simple way of testing for fixer time, which is to take a test strip of undeveloped film (usually the leader of a 35mm film, but neither you nor me shoot much 35mm) and see how long it takes for it to clear, e.g. 40 sec. Note that on the bottle. The actual fixing time is double the clearing time (gives 80 sec in this example). Anything more is unnecessary and will actually bleach the film a little.
As you go along, test this clearing time every session. When the clearing time is double from what you had with the fresh fixer (with the above example, 80 sec), it's time to dispose of that fixer and replace it with a new batch.

A final note about the Acros 100. I don't know if that film comes out magenta or pink after fixing (as I havn't used it). In that case, you have to fix it longer so that the magenta stain is fixed out. (This is the same "problem" as with the Kodak TMax films.) Then the 5 minutes is more like it with fresh fixer.

//Björn

for foma100 i get great results rating it at 100.

1:1:100 for 12 min 20C and

2:2:100 for 8 min 20C

oh! i do it in trays

Thanks for the info so far.

Has anyone tried using TF-4 one shot?

sanking said:

That time is absurd. I would suggest about 12-15 minutes with the 1:1:100 dilution. That should give more than enough contrast.

Also, make sure you did not under expose the negatives. The number one reason for thin negatives is under exposure, not under development.

Sandy King

Click to expand...

Thanks I'll try 13 minutes next time. I am fairly sure it's underdevelopment as the frame numbers are pretty light too (much lighter than film I've developed in DD-X).

jbannow said:

Lots of great advice. So 10 minutes would be enough washing with TF-4?

For film, I'm going to be shooting mainly FP-4, Foma 100 & Acros 100 right now.

Click to expand...

I'm doing tray dev for 5x7 FP4+ EI 64 68F 1:1:100 for 8 min, rotating the stack through every 30 sec. I use semistand for + and - dev (you gotta figure those out yourself- no real guidelines- too many variables).

Don't forget to make the stop bath half strength- I believe it causes pinholes or something at full- the reason is in Sandy King's article, IIRC.

Tim

Oh- hypo clear too. Read Sandy's article- it covers everything. Also after reading many threads on presoaking, I reduced the time for trays to 3 minutes (I still do 5 min for semistand, because I was told to by Steve Sherman and I'm superstitious not to change what's working for me). I don't think you need to agitate for presoak though.

timbo10ca said:

I'm doing tray dev for 5x7 FP4+ EI 64 68F 1:1:100 for 8 min, rotating the stack through every 30 sec. I use semistand for + and - dev (you gotta figure those out yourself- no real guidelines- too many variables).

Don't forget to make the stop bath half strength- I believe it causes pinholes or something at full- the reason is in Sandy King's article, IIRC.

Tim

Click to expand...

Some thing's very strange with that Dev time Tim. This is what Sandy King says about Delta 100, I've processed Delta 100 & FP4 in the same tank and the negatives are quite similar..

sanking said:

That time is absurd. I would suggest about 12-15 minutes with the 1:1:100 dilution. That should give more than enough contrast.

Also, make sure you did not under expose the negatives. The number one reason for thin negatives is under exposure, not under development.

Sandy King

Click to expand...

I do process films for 8-9 minutes in Trays but with Pyrocat at 2+2+100 concentration @ 20°C (68°F)

Ian

jbannow said:

Thanks for the info so far.

Has anyone tried using TF-4 one shot?

Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with using the fixer one-shot, it's just bad economy (and bad for the environment...). Normally you can use the fixer for at least 10 films per quart/liter of fixer, which is why I mentioned the procedure of testing the fixer for clearing time etc.

//Björn

Ian Grant said:

Some thing's very strange with that Dev time Tim. This is what Sandy King says about Delta 100, I've processed Delta 100 & FP4 in the same tank and the negatives are quite similar..

Ian

Click to expand...

Figure 16. Ilford FP4+ in Pyrocat-HD, 1:1:100. BLUE for 70F, page 4 of Sandy King's article http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/PCat/PCat4/pcat4.html

developing to G of .47 to .52 for silver

8 minutes is right on the money. It's actually longer than the chart suggests, but I'm at 68F. This gives me a bang on contact print on grade 2 silver RC VC. I've used this neg to print Ziatype quite successfully and get a nice, easy print on FB VC at about grade 2 1/2. It's nice as a straight proof, but I like the added punch of the extra 1/2 grade.

I actually was going to try D100 in P-HD and found a start time on the AZO forum somewhere for 70F. I then adjusted it to 68F using a calculation from a post somewhere by Sandy King and I think my D100 time ended up being around 15 minutes or something. I didn't feel like shuffling sheets for that long so I decided to go to Rodinal for my D100.

Tim