Pyro for beginners

[Aggie]

I took Gordon's workshop back in Dec. of 2002 also. He did suggest that we needed to agitate frequently, but what we settled on then was 5 sec. every 45 sec. All workshop negatives came out fine. I know once I got to talking (as if I am ever quiet) and forgot to agitate my tank once. I agitated once in the 8 minutes I was developing the film for. It came out fine. Scared me to death that I had ruined that roll. I just think that there has not really other than Patricks article any real experimentation on the stand development of PMK. I'm just to darn cheap to waste a few rolls to test it.This is why I rely on most here to do that part of it.

BTW, are you going to the LF conference in Monterey? If so bring the comparison prints. I would like to see them (and not to put you donw either. I just would like to see what differences you came up with)

 

[steve simmons]

Let me respond to a few comments above.
In the early 1980s I tried ABC, PMK, W2D2,and a Pyrocatechin developer forumula that had been around for many years.

Here are my comments
ABC - the grainiest of the three. Significant film speed loss - about 2 stops. There were warnings that the B solution was not stable although I did not use the formula long enough to experience a problem

Pyrocatechin - good for severe contrast scenes and minus development times. Film speed loss of about 1 stop. Dev times were too long, for my taste, for normal and plus scenes. Grain was better than ABC (better means finer). The results were slightly grainier than the next two developers.

W2D2 - this is the formula that got me started using pyrogallol. The addition of the metol gave a more normal film speed and the grain was much finer than ABC.

PMK - this was the best of the four. Essentially normal film speeds (this does not mean mfg speeds but speeds on my films that were essentially the same as what other people were getting with Tri-X, Super XX, etc). I also was able to print the best delicate high values and with good zone 1 densities I also got very good shadow detail and mid-values as well. Perhaps not quite as good for minus scenes as pyrocatechin but so close that I selected this formula because it was much more of a general purpose developer - dev times for normal and plus were much more user friendly. Sharpness was equal to or better than the W2D2 as was sharpness.

For this reason I decided to use this formula and from then on concentrate on my vision and stop looking for the 'best'developer. I have been printing on variable contrast paper for years and have continued to get the samme delicate high values I initially got on graded appers in the early 1980s.

The comment attributed to Hutchings about ABC for contact printing is something people should ask Hutchings directly rather than rely on a 3rd party source. There is some question about whether or not he really feels that way or made such a statement.

With regards to the article in progress by Jorge I have agreed to publish the article in an upcoming issue of View Camera contingent upon the following

receiving the article

having his testing procedure reviewed by people qualified to do so

either pairing his article with one of mine in the same issue or doing a followup in a subsequent issue

steve simmons

 

[Jorge]

Well Steve, I dont want to give it away, but I think you will be surprised with the results I am getting.Specially concerning the properties of Pyrocat HD in comparison with PMK and WD2D.

 

[sanking]

I am not prepared to state categorically that one can not use minimal agitation procedures with PMK. My current thinking on the matter results not from my own experiments but from the fact that both Hutchings and Wimberlely have been so insistent on the need for frequen agitation cycles with PMK, and the former in particular offers sound reasons why this is important. To quote from Hutchings, "tests have shown that the primary oxidation products of pyro developers have strong staining effects and will leave a path of stained gelatin as they move across the film if the agitation is inadequate." (p. 21, 1991 edition of The Book of Pyro).

But there may be reason to revist the issue. As I mentioned earlier I myself have had some limited success with PMK and minimal agitation. In fact, when I made the tests with Tmax 100 to compare resolution of PMK and Pyrocat-HD I developed both negative sets side by side in tanks on spiral reeds, using exactly the same agitation procedure, i.e. for one minute initially and for ten seconds every three minutes thereafter. And frankly I can see no indication of uneven staining on the negatives developed in PMK. However, to be completely objective I should point out that the test target itself did not contain the large areas of high density that typically serve as the locus from which developer byproducts begin to streak.

I will not be able to attend the large format conference in Monterey. Unfortunately the dates fall near the end of my spring semester when I am always swamped with work at the university.

Sandy King

 

[sanking]

The comment attributed to Hutchings about ABC for contact printing is something people should ask Hutchings directly rather than rely on a 3rd party source. There is some question about whether or not he really feels that way or made such a statement.

steve simmons

In fact I myself heard Hutchings make a similar statement about ABC for contact printing at the large format conference you sponsored in Albuquerque year before last.

However, to be fair it needs to be pointed out that the remark was made in the context of a discussion on contact prnting with AZO and Pt/Pd. These processes require negatives of much greater contrast than negatives meant for silver printing and a very energetic developer like ABC Pyro is much more practical for getting the necessary contrast in a reasonable develoment time. My take on what Hutchings meant by the comment was simply that there are other developers, including ABC Pyro, that are more suitable than PMK for developing negatives destined for printing with AZO and Pt/Pd.

Sandy King

 

[gainer]

That article I wrote entitled "Agitate or Ruminate" did not prove that stand development produced completely even development for either PMK or Rodinal. True, the unevenness I saw might not be noticed in most aplications, but it was there and in cases of a bright object against a darker background might be quite noticeable. Even stand development with the negative lying flat can show runs from very bright areas. I have done some experiments with Pyrocat-HD and a couple of variations of it using stand development with what appear to be good results. I think the critical issue is the difference between the specific gravity of the main part of the developer and the part next to the film. The less difference, the less likely to run.

I just wanted to clarify what I found from my experiments. I don't think any of you is wrong in an absolute sense, but there are conditions where everyone of us could be wrong, even I. Usually, these conditions are different for each of us, which may lead to comparing oranges and grapefruit.

 

[Snapper]

Well, thanks to everyone who replied. Probably a little too much detail for me right now, but great none the less.

I've now got hold of some PMK from Silverprint and will try it out soon.

One final question - I usually shoot mf with FP4+, Neopan 400 and recently Efke 25, and develop in Rodinal. Which one of these films is going to benefit most from using PMK?