Pyrocat HD versus Rodinal test

Willie Jan · Dec 18, 2006

I did a test with a landscape. Shot it in the afternoon, The whole scene was about 7 stops. I made 6x12 photos

I shot a roll of fuji across film rated at 100.

Next i cut the roll in pieces for development.

1st piece i developed in pyrocat HD at 1:1:100 for 13 minutes.
First minute continiously agitation after that once a minute.
Stopbath was plain water for 1 minute.
Fix was amaloco X89 (almost neutral fix)

2nd piece i developed in pyrocat HD at 1:1:150 for 20 minutes (semi stand).
First minute continiously agitation after that at 5,10 and 15 minutes 1 turn.
Stopbath was plain water for 1 minute.
Fix was amaloco X89 (almost neutral fix)

3rd piece i developed in Rodinal 1:100 for 18 minutes.
First minute continiously agitation after that once a minute
Stopbath was plain water for 1 minute.
Fix was amaloco X89 (almost neutral fix)

After that i printed 3 photos at ilford mgiv matt.
When i look at the photo's the 2nd pyro with semi stand look somewhat more detailed in the shadow details. But the rodinal just looks the same.

I would have expected the pyro to look completely different in tone due to what i have read here, but my experience until now is that rodinal is just as good.

I hope someone sees the error i made, or is the pyro hype just a written hype and no printed one...

I can scan the results and put them on the apug so you can see the results later on.

Fotohuis · Dec 18, 2006

Additional the remark that X89 is on pH about 6,5. We did a test in the past with Tanol 1+1+100 (Moersch) and Rodinal 1+100. Fix in both X89 (Amaloco) and ATS (Moersch) which has a pH of about 7,2. Tanol gives a clearer stain but I could not distinguish differences between the X89 and ATS with both developers.
Rodinal 1+100 gives already some stain. I have no experience with pyrocat HD, maybe Jay DeFehr can help you out. He's a pretty expert on pyro type developers.
http://pyrostains.blogspot.com/

best regards,

Robert

(Would you take care on the waste water with your pyrogallol and pyrocatechin experiments and the precautions which are necessary when working with these chemicals....)

noseoil · Dec 18, 2006

Willie, according to some "experts" there really is a very slight difference when using pyro developers, perhaps 5% is what I seem to remember as the amount of change you might expect. This is a very small difference. From what I have read, the advantage to using pyro comes into play most in the highlights. If there is a lot of detailed information in the high values of the negative, pyro is said to be the best way to preserve this detail in a print. Your test sounds very interesting with the landscape, but maybe you can find a situation where you are photographing filaments in light bulbs, white cloud details, or very bright reflections to actually see something. I think a lot of this may depend of the type of film and exposure as well. Best, tim

Willie Jan · Dec 18, 2006

so a better test would be to use grass with shiny white surface.

Tom Stanworth · Dec 18, 2006

In extreme lighting scenarios pyro comes into its own. Some also delivers good fine grain along with great acutance. Rodinal produces larger grain than Pyrocat but this will not be visible unless the enlargement size is right. Acros is esceptionally fine grained and will not reveal developer differences in the same way as say FP4+ might (an typical old tech film). Pyo is not a magic formula but certainly one I am happy to use when there are liquid high values about such as water, fog, haze, reflections,point light sources etc.

noseoil · Dec 18, 2006

Willie, you have found one good result from the pyrocat developer. With longer development and a dilute concentration, there is very good shadow separation because of the sharper edges along small areas of contrast. This is what happens when stand or minimal agitation development is used (not just with pyrocat). It is one reason I enjoy using pyrocat. Nice to be able to control contrast and still retain good detail in all areas of the print. This was not possible for me when I was using PMK pyro.

I think you might try doing what you have suggested, the shiny areas of a scene will show the most difference. Please remember, pyrocat has been made to work with alternative process materials as well as regular silver prints. One of the staining properties which isn't possible to see in a silver print comes from the nature of the stain itself. It reacts differently with UV light than the non-staining developers. It stops UV light more than a regular developer, because of this stain. This would be for things like azo, platinum and other printing which is different than a regular silver gelatin material. Best, tim

Tom Hoskinson · Dec 18, 2006

Pyrocatechol Stain (like Pyrocat-HD) blocks UV light and is most reliably evaluated by UV densitometry and/or by printing on Siver Choride, Platinum or Palladium. Attempts to visually evaluate image stain can be very misleading (lots of APUG posts on this subject).

Willie Jan · Dec 19, 2006

noseoil said:
pyrocat has been made to work with alternative process materials as well as regular silver prints. One of the staining properties which isn't possible to see in a silver print comes from the nature of the stain itself. It reacts differently with UV light than the non-staining developers. It stops UV light more than a regular developer, because of this stain. This would be for things like azo, platinum and other printing which is different than a regular silver gelatin material. Best, tim

I create cyanotypes to, but wanted to test it with silver based first. I create enlarged negatives from 4x5 and rollfilm onto ortho film. Would it help to develop these in the pyrocat for better negs or is this only the case when shot directly onto large format because the enlarger does not give uv light?

AlanC · Dec 19, 2006

Willie,
Two Questions.
Was the film you developed 35mm or 120?
What size enlargements did you make to check the relative sharpness?
Did you see any difference in tonality between the Pyrocat and the Rodinal?

Yes, I know; that's three!

Alan Clark

noseoil · Dec 19, 2006

Wilie, try the pyrocat on your enlarged negatives and see how they print. You might get better contrast and tonality with them, but the only way to be sure is to try it and see if there is enough difference to make the change. I've only done azo printing, so the other processes are not something I'm familiar with now. Will be interested to hear your opinion of the difference. Best, tim

Willie Jan · Dec 19, 2006

AlanC said:
Willie,
Two Questions.
Was the film you developed 35mm or 120?
What size enlargements did you make to check the relative sharpness?
Did you see any difference in tonality between the Pyrocat and the Rodinal?
Yes, I know; that's three!
Alan Clark

it was 120 format film (fuji across)

i printed a 30x15cm format picture (is aprox. 2.5x enlargement)

looked like the pyro had somewhat more visible tiny branches which could be seen by the eye in a darker part of the image. But you have to investigate it very carefully to see the difference. This is why i thought why taking a lot of time when there is almost no difference. when you read the threads some people say that it is the holy grail, but the extra is not that much....
When i have (studio) scenes that use max 4 stops, i still will use rodinal because the grain is not visible at 4x5".

George Collier · Dec 19, 2006

I did a similar test earlier this year using FP4 and the same two developers, generally the same process, with TF4 fixer. But my subject was a city scape with a deep blue sky and large fluffy clouds. The Rodinal was "edgier", which I preferred for this subject. But the impressive difference in the two developers was in the clouds (as referenced to highlights in other posts on this thread). The Pyro image was incredibly smoother transitioning from sky into the brightest parts of the clouds. The Rodinal image was grainer and rougher in these transitions, even though the lightest tones were carried in both negs (enlarging to 7x10 inches).
The two negs printed close to the same contrast image (I think I wound up using a half to one grade filter difference with a cold light V54 light).

gainer · Dec 19, 2006

It's difficult for me to tell what is meant by the term "Pyro". Pyrogallol and pyrocatechin are quite different in visibility of stain because the color is different. The part of the stain that makes the difference with so-called alternative printing methods is not all visible. PMK is much different from catechol, and it is different from hydroquinone which also stains.

An interesting experiment is to make 3 developers using the formula for Pyrocat HD, one with catechol, one with pyrogallol and one with hydroquinone. Number the bottles so that you know which is which and give them to someone else to use with the idea that you think you got 3 different batches of catechol. If you are truly honest with yourself, you can be the other experimenter as well. All are quite soluble in ethylene or propylene glycol. You can use a very small amount of ascorbic acid in place of the sulfite to "trigger" the synergism.

Two of these agents are dihydroxybenzene and pyrogallol is trihydroxybenzene. The same weight of pyrogallol will have less of the benzene part because of the molecular weight difference. You can treat them as being the same for first tests. The negatives, side by side, will show you three different colors, and they will print somewhat differently. It is good to print each one on both graded and VC paper. If you do one of the processes where UV is most important, compare those also. Of course, you can throw Rodinal into the fray as well, but be sure to make the same prints with it that you do with the other devs.

AlanC · Dec 19, 2006

Willie, I'm not suprised that you didn't see a difference in sharpness with only a 2.5x enlargement. I developed identical 5x4 delta 100 negatives in Pyrocat HD, Rodinal and Presyscol, enlarged them to 20 x 24 inches and couldn't see any differences in sharpness. But I did see differences in tonality.Delta and Pyrocat both tend to smooth things out. Put them both together and textures like gravel, peeling paint and weathered wood take on a sort of melted plastic look- almost a "digital" look! Not nice, though some people may like it. Rodinal gave these textures more bite but in the end I opted for for Efke 100 in Rodinal for even more bite when photographing subjects with strong textures.

Alan Clark

Curt · Dec 20, 2006

It appears some subjects are better in Rodinal and some in Pyro and there is no one developer for all but careful selection of film and developer gives the visual edge.

Willie Jan · Dec 20, 2006

My friend (age 73, photographer and artist) said to me:

You go through a fase which i had before to find the holy grail in development. After a while you will find out that it is not possible to shoot photo's which have more than 5 stops. So come back early in the morning or in the evening when the light is right.
Using exotic developers at 1:1000 dilution for 2 hours only ruines your pictures more, making them flat.
Just use rodinal as agfa provided in their catalogue 1:50 or 1:25 for the best result that shows the right gray tones for the picture.

Curt · Dec 20, 2006

That's reminds of what an older Radiologist once told me once. Why are you changing things when you already have what works. I used Rodinal at 1:75 for over 30 years. Then with all the exictment over pyro I started using it off and on. I don't have a problem with it but I am not convinced that it is the only one I should be using. I never considered myself part of the Rodinal "cult" I just come across it back before the internet and fine tuned to it.

Curt

Fotohuis · Dec 20, 2006

Our Tanol and Rodinal test shows some differences on 40x50cm format. The additional fix test was only to show if the stain was changed/affected or not. A pH difference of 0,7 is not critical. Even with an acid stop of 1,5% (or just plain water) we measured no difference with the Tanol developer. No idea how this reacts on Pyrocad-HD or PMK.
The only remark: Measured with a TRD-Z, so the accuracy for a stained negative could be a problem.

Regards,

Robert

Tom Hoskinson · Dec 20, 2006

Fotohuis said:
Our Tanol and Rodinal test shows some differences on 40x50cm format. The additional fix test was only to show if the stain was changed/affected or not. A pH difference of 0,7 is not critical. Even with an acid stop of 1,5% (or just plain water) we measured no difference with the Tanol developer. No idea how this reacts on Pyrocad-HD or PMK.
The only remark: Measured with a TRD-Z, so the accuracy for a stained negative could be a problem.

Regards,

Robert

Yes Robert, I've just visited the Heiland website and could not not find any information on the spectral characteristics of the TD-Z transmission densitometer. I suspect that the TD-Z can not measure UV transmission density.

I have sent Heiland an email requesting information for both the TC and TD-Z Heiland densitometers and will post their reply.

sanking · Dec 20, 2006

This thread appears to be jumping around all over the place.

I do not believe in the Holy Grail concept for developers. The best developer is the one you know the best, and as I have said many times, there are all about 95% right, and casual comparison testing is not going to reveal the 5% difference. If you want to see any real advantages with pyro staining/tanning developers ove traditional developers you must design your test to push the limits of the developer. That would include scenes of high contrast, especially ones with back lighted subjects (bare tree brances again a bright sky, as someone mentioned before), subjects that require a very delicate tonal scale, and printing very large. However, the main thing is that developer characteristics depend strongly on dilution and type of agitation.

Regarding the Pyrocat-HD/Rodinal comparison, it is even more involved than just the name since the dilution at which you use these developers has a big impact on results. For example, results with Pyrocat-HD at the 1:1:100 and 2:2:100 dilutions in continuous agitation give images with very smooth tonal values with good acutance, but if you use a weaker dilution with minimal agitation procedures you get greatly enhanced acutance from edge effects and a much more "edgy" look, to use the terminology from a previous message. I feel certain that you will get also get a different look with Rodinal at various dilutions, but have only limited experience with it.

As for densitometry, most B&W densitometers will give an accurate indication of effective printing density for graded silver papers if you take the reading through a Wratten 47 filter, zeroing it out first. This will not work for alternative processes, however, so you need a densitometer that reads UV for processes such as carbon, kallitype, pt./pd., vandyke, etc.

Sandy King

Tom Hoskinson · Dec 20, 2006

Tom Hoskinson said:
Yes Robert, I've just visited the Heiland website and could not not find any information on the spectral characteristics of the TD-Z transmission densitometer. I suspect that the TD-Z can not measure UV transmission density.

I have sent Heiland an email requesting information for both the TC and TD-Z Heiland densitometers and will post their reply.

Robert, here is Juergen Heiland's very timely and informative reply to my densitometer inquiry.

Dear Charles (Tom),
thank you for your inquiry about our densitometers.

The TDC model has 3 colour filters (RGB) and one for B&W measurement included. It is not capable to do UV measurements in the standard version. Never the less I am able to replace one of the standard filters against an UV pass filter without additional costs.
The TD-2 densitometer uses exchangeable probes or heads, which include one filter each. We have already an UV pass filter for the TD-2 and I am able to manufacture a probe with a filter for blue light measurement.

Prices are 748,28Euro for the TDC and 581,03 Euro for the TD-2 containing the UV pass filter. Additional probe are 90,52 Euro each.

Kind regards

Juergen Heiland

Heiland electronic GmbH
Schulstraße 8
35579 Wetzlar
Tel: 06441/26978
Fax: 06441/26988
email: heielec@t-online.de
www.heilandelectronic.de

Fotohuis · Dec 20, 2006

Yes, that's correct with the remark that those prices are excl. 16% German VAT and this will be 19% after 31-12-2006.
Customers in the EU have to add the additional 16% (19%) then.

Best regards,

Robert

Willie Jan · Dec 21, 2006

what i also learned is not to look to hard at the negative and all the theoretical figures, but investigate the print. A very nice negative can be a pain to print, and a awfull looking can sometimes be printed directly.

Pyrocat HD versus Rodinal test

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