PL100 Efke developing

I would like to develop 12 sheets 4X5 of PL100 Efke in my Yankee tank,exposed the film at rated ASA 100. The scenes were normal contrast . I have been using it for a Year now with good results as long as you use 1.5 l of solution.I am also in process of learning to use pyro developers. I have PMK and Pyro-HD. Agitation I use is a figure "8" motion in a 16X20 chemical tray because you can not invert this tank, and I always spill some.My dark room is always 70deg.
There is a lot of information out there but only bits and pieces, and my Pyro book did not arrive yet.What time should I use to develop this film in your personal experience? What agitation method ?continuous or semi standing? (I definitely like my 6X6 negs in PMK.)What about high contrast scene?like sunshine after the storm?
Any thoughts and personal experiences for a newbe?
Thanks to all Greg

Buster6X6 said:

I would like to develop 12 sheets 4X5 of PL100 Efke in my Yankee tank,exposed the film at rated ASA 100. The scenes were normal contrast . I have been using it for a Year now with good results as long as you use 1.5 l of solution.I am also in process of learning to use pyro developers. I have PMK and Pyro-HD. Agitation I use is a figure "8" motion in a 16X20 chemical tray because you can not invert this tank, and I always spill some.My dark room is always 70deg.
There is a lot of information out there but only bits and pieces, and my Pyro book did not arrive yet.What time should I use to develop this film in your personal experience? What agitation method ?continuous or semi standing? (I definitely like my 6X6 negs in PMK.)What about high contrast scene?like sunshine after the storm?
Any thoughts and personal experiences for a newbe?
Thanks to all Greg

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What will you be printing with these negatives? Silver gelatin VC, Pt/Pd, albumen, AZO #2, VDB, kallitype, salted paper?

Sandy King

I've had problems with developing in a 4X5 Yankee daylight tank - uneven development that shows especially in sky areas. Switched to the old metal hangers in open tanks, and haven't had a problem. You also might consider tubes - I made some out of electricians conduit pipe & screw fittings. Efke 100 is easily scratched, so the above methods work better than trays.

Have to agree that a Yankee tank can be a problem with uneven skies. I finally gave up on mine and try as I might, I could never get a perfectly even rendering of a blue sky. Do one of these shots first to see what I mean.

That having been stated, if you are using a variable contrast enlarging paper, diffusion enlarger, Efke 100, PMK at 70f and hand agitation, try running your film at asa 64 and 10-13 minutes of agitation for development (every 15 seconds for even staining). Do not use the "pyro afterbath" as stated in the Book of Pyro, Gordon Hutchings no longer recommends this method of development. It will increase stain, but is unnecessary for decent prints and will, in fact, decrease contrast and provide muddy shadow values. This development time varies due to scene brightness, but it is in the ballpark. You will have to do your own tests to determine exact values for zone VIII.

doughowk said:

... uneven development that shows especially in sky areas.....

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Another useful method to avoid uneven skies (or uneven anything) is to brush-develop your negative. This method works well for me. It is more time consuming as you can (should) only do one neg at a time but is well worth it IMO. Get a good quality 2" soft brush from an Art store and use 500ml of solution per 8x10 sheet in an 8x10 tray. I soak the neg in water for a couple minutes and transfer it (emulsion up) into the dev tray and I "paint" the negative in an up-down and left-right motion without applying much pressure at all. Do this for the entire dev time and you should have no uneven skies anymore. BTW, this method was first used by astronomers back when they used sheet film to avoid just that - uneven, and streaky negatives which were giving them false readings.

PL 100 developing

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies.
Sandy I will be using silver gelatin and VC paper, I would like to get good or better in something basic before I can venture in more advanced printing.
I have been with this for over a Year now and I developed about 40-50 sheets in 4X5 much more in 6X6. Somehow I felt comfortable with feeding sheets with a guide closing the lid and turning lights on setting egg timer .The fellow who sold me his dark room equipment showed to me how to use it( he was using it in the sixties).Now I feel confident in using it myself.When I joined this forum I found out there is number of different methods that I read in many books I have , and did not understand the need to use something else when I had good results with my tank.I used D76 in the beginning and Rodinal lately.In the mean time I got 4 different sizes of Unicolor tubes for my color developing with a motor base.I also have hard rubber tanks with ss hangers, wandering how do you accomplish time setting and monitoring in total darkness?when some developing times are critical like 11.25 min.Every day that I can learn something new it feels good. Greg

Ernst, the easiest way I know of doing timing in complete darkness is to use a timer with luminous numbers and a large dial. The luminous face won't affect films, but I don't keep the timer directly in front of a tray, it sits to one side on a small corner shelf in the bathroom. I have an old Graylab 300 which I set to the correct time for completion. Once the film goes into the developer, I use it to monitor the 15 second intervals needed to agitate with PMK. Having an audible alarm helps to not have to watch for a completion time, although with PMK, you are usually "watching the clock" anyway.

One note of caution with PMK, keep agitation cycles consistent and add 30 seconds to your overall times if you are using a presoak for your films.

Ernst , I recorded a 15 second and minute countdown on my computer then burned it to CD. Now I just turn my walkman on and I can hear the time counted in compleat darkness .

J. Smith,
What a great idea to record time on disk and play it back,it would be like blind people would use maybe there is a talking clock for blind that could be used?Thanks for suggestion.

Yes, there are lots of talking clocks and talking timers. I use $10.00 Talking Timers for timing all my LF film processing.