PyroCat-HD, Minimal Agitation, Landscapes

This question is for anyone experienced with the minimum agitation techniques with Pyrocat-HD.

How does the technique work with landscapes (contact printed on Azo)? I know from the various threads that it works very well where there is lots of surface texture but I got a hint in a recent thread that maybe there wasn't much advantage to it in landscapes with large ground vegetation and sky areas. Anyone have an opinion and to share?

Alex Hawley said:

This question is for anyone experienced with the minimum agitation techniques with Pyrocat-HD.

How does the technique work with landscapes (contact printed on Azo)? I know from the various threads that it works very well where there is lots of surface texture but I got a hint in a recent thread that maybe there wasn't much advantage to it in landscapes with large ground vegetation and sky areas. Anyone have an opinion and to share?

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Alex,
My experience with this technique/developer has been primarily with Efke PL 100. This film will develop incredible edge effects and apparent sharpness. Anything that has defined edges will benefit from this...however, I would imagine that broad areas of ill defined textural material would not show as great an effect. I can't comment on other films.

You are right Alex, in particular sky areas are at riisk of having "artifacts" - i.e. unsmooth areas of tone and/or streak-like appearances. I would not use minimal agitation if the sky/cloud area represented more than 30 percent of the scene. My experience is with Efke PL100 as well.

Francesco said:

You are right Alex, in particular sky areas are at riisk of having "artifacts" - i.e. unsmooth areas of tone and/or streak-like appearances. I would not use minimal agitation if the sky/cloud area represented more than 30 percent of the scene. My experience is with Efke PL100 as well.

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I just had an interesting experience with some artifacts caused by reduced agitation. I was developing two rolls of 120 400TX in a tank at 1:1:100 for 13 minutes and decided to go with a modified reduced agitation schedule, hoping to tame some highlights a bit and possibly induce a shoulder. So I agitated for the first 45 seconds, and then for 5-10 seconds every 3 minutes after that. When I put the first roll on the light table, I noticed a very thin light area at the top of all my negatives. Oh well, I thought, I was just a little short on the solution volume in the tank. To my surprise, the next set of negatives from the reel at the bottom of the tank had the same 1/4 inch irregular light band across the top. After reconstructing orientation and so forth, it appeared that the top of each roll near the spirals in the reel was getting irregular development. Well, back to 5 seconds every minute! The negatives were salvagable since they were from a Holga. Just adds some extra charm.

My experience with both PL100 and HP5+ is that skies give problems with this method of development. I have also noticed the same artifacts on a couple of shots containing a large amount of smooth beach sand, but that problem is not consistent, so I may have screwed something up. I have not noticed any problem with large areas of ground vegetation (the prairies we have in Florida). For negatives with a large amount of sky, I have returned to brush development.
juan

Thanks everyone. I just wanted to confirm or deny what someone mentioned in another thread before I went out and did something. Save the minimal agitaion for those high texture shots.