Pyrocat HD and TMY using 120 in tanks for dev.

This is my first post on this forum after having just re entered the photography realm after a 6 year break. I am dusting off all of my equipment from MF to LF and a lot has changed. My favorite film (APX 100) is no longer available without buying Rollie's expensive version, and I feel it is time to get energized into something new.

So I started looking through this forum, and the LF forum's and saw that TMY and Pyrocat HD came up quite a bit, and I stumbled upon a great website that 'Ken Lee' built that has some superb images using TMY and Pyrocat HD. It was his site that really started my journey back into playing with B+W again! So I continued my searches on past posts, and am very interested in pursuing using the TMY and Pyrocat HD combination. I am starting out slowly again with my MF gear (Mamiya 6 MF) and as I dev all my film in daylight tanks, I need to know a good starting dev time for regular 'Normal' Dev using a 1:1:100 dilution, and minimal/stand agitation. TMY 120 film will be rated at 400, unless folks recommend otherwise?

There were some threads on using 2:2:100 dilutions, and those times are certainly close to what I am used to souping my films at in previous years. How much different will 1:1:100 times be?

This forum is a superb tool by the way!

Andrew Moxom said:

This is my first post on this forum after having just re entered the photography realm after a 6 year break. I am dusting off all of my equipment from MF to LF and a lot has changed. My favorite film (APX 100) is no longer available without buying Rollie's expensive version, and I feel it is time to get energized into something new.

So I started looking through this forum, and the LF forum's and saw that TMY and Pyrocat HD came up quite a bit, and I stumbled upon a great website that 'Ken Lee' built that has some superb images using TMY and Pyrocat HD. It was his site that really started my journey back into playing with B+W again! So I continued my searches on past posts, and am very interested in pursuing using the TMY and Pyrocat HD combination. I am starting out slowly again with my MF gear (Mamiya 6 MF) and as I dev all my film in daylight tanks, I need to know a good starting dev time for regular 'Normal' Dev using a 1:1:100 dilution, and minimal/stand agitation. TMY 120 film will be rated at 400, unless folks recommend otherwise?

There were some threads on using 2:2:100 dilutions, and those times are certainly close to what I am used to souping my films at in previous years. How much different will 1:1:100 times be?

This forum is a superb tool by the way!

Click to expand...

Andrew,

TMY is one of my favorite films and I have a fair amount of development data on it in Pyrocat-HD. But first, will you be printing on silver papers, and if so, VC or graded, and what kind of enlarger? Or will you be developing the film for scanning?

Sandy King

Quick response and from Pyrocat's designer no less! Sandy, I will be printing on silver based papers, and most likely a combination of VC and graded. Enlarger I use is a Beseler 45 MXT with dichroic head. For grade work, I may use a cold light head I also have. Scanning may happen at a later point if I can bring myself to play with the endless possibilities of piezography. Thanks again for such a quick response!

Andrew,

If you are going to be printing on both graded and VC papers you will have to make something of a compromise for best all-around results when printing with a staining developer like Pyrocat-HD. You have basically two options. The basic issue is that a stained negative will print with greater contrast on graded papers than VC papers, so to use the same negative for both types of printing you will have to develop for one or the other, and then use filtration to adjust for the second. Here are your options.

1. Develop the negatives for the fairly low CI needed for graded papers, which would be about .55, and then control contrast by adding green filtration, or by increasing the ratio of green:blue exposure with split filter printing.

2. Develop the negative for the fairly high CI needed for VC papers, say about .75, and then reduce contrast for graded papers by adding yellow filtration, which will reduce the ratio of blue light to green light.


In theory both options have pluses and minuses. In Option 1 blocking green light will result in loss of highlight compensation with VC papers, but may minimize grain size. Option 2 will retain highlight compensation with VC papers, but at the risk of somewhat larger grain size. In practice the actual differences are probably too insignificant to argue about, so choose whichever method you like. In lieu of other observations I would recommend Option 1 for 35mm users, and Option 2 for MF and LF workers. However, in practice actual differences would, IMO, be insignificant.

Assuming that you choose Option 1, and will be developing in a tank with normal agitation at 72F with Pyrocat 1:1:100 I would suggest a time of 12 minutes. If you choose Option 2, increase time to 16 minutes. This should get you in the stadium, but test first for important negatives as actual results vary a lot according.

Sandy King

Thank you Sandy, I will be using option# 2 as VC papers will likely be the most utilized paper I use and MF and LF film will be the only formats I use.

Apologies for the barrage of questions!. Normal agitation for me means 5 seconds of tank inversion every 30 seconds. I know that Pyrocat has many options and variations for agitation. What would you conisder normal in this instance?

Thanks again for your support

Andrew Moxom said:

Thank you Sandy, I will be using option# 2 as VC papers will likely be the most utilized paper I use and MF and LF film will be the only formats I use.

Apologies for the barrage of questions!. Normal agitation for me means 5 seconds of tank inversion every 30 seconds. I know that Pyrocat has many options and variations for agitation. What would you conisder normal in this instance?

Thanks again for your support

Click to expand...

Andrew,

I consider normal agitation to be 10 seconds every minute for times over 10-12 minutes, and 5 seconds every 30 seconds for times in the 6-8 minute range.

My own method of agitation for roll film in tanks is something I call extreme minimal agitation, which is four agitation periods during the entire development period, regardless of total time. First agitation is for 1.5 minutes at the beginnng, and then for 10-15 seconds at the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 points of total development.

This is a very good compromise IMO in that you get very enhanced adjacency effects with little risk of uneven development. I use a 1:1:100 dilution for this type of development, and increase develoment time by about 30% over normal agitation.

Sandy King

Perfect Sandy, Thank you for your time and insight. I'll try this and see what happens!

Well, I tried some TMY with Pyrocat HD for the first time yesterday and used Sandy's extreme minimal agitation. My 120 film was exposed at EI400, and I used a 1:1:100 dilution at 72deg for 16 minutes. I agitated for 1.5 minutes, then for 15 seconds @ 12 mins, 15 seconds @ 8 mins, and 15 seconds @ 4 mins. Images were very contrasty, (ice/snow, and deep shadows on bright day) Negs were very crisp with no blocking up of highlights and plenty of shadow detail. As Sandy stated, edge effects were evident, and no grain or uneven development was visible. The negs printed well onto Agfa MC111 FB with 80 units of Magenta dialed in. I look forward to experimenting some more with this combination. I am hooked so far and will try to find a way to post results. (no scanner).

Sandy, thank you for your assistance in my search for a new film and dev combination.