Pyrocat HD vs. PMK Pyro

Awesome Idea Terry

Terry Christian said:

I'm still on my first-ever batch of Pyrocat. Instead of mixing it in water, I mixed it in an antifreeze that is primarily glycol. It has been working over a year now!

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Awesome idea, Terry - it would have never occurred to me to use anti-freeze as a source of glycol. THANKS for the tip.

Elaborate si vous plait

Patrick Robert James said:

I used PMK for a few years before I started using Pyrocat-P around 2005? I think. Neither has ever been my main developer, which has always been Rodinal. As long as you are developing for your purposes they are both fine. Pyrocat-P has been a little better for me for smaller formats. The large format negs I developed with PMK sure are pretty though.

Lots of great images have been done with both.

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Patrick: (a) would you kindly elaborate as to how Pyrocat has worked better for you for the smaller formats? (b) Do you mean 35mm only or also 120?

PMK for LF work vs. D76

Rick A said:

I ran out of P-cat HD and wanted to try something new. After reading all I could find on staining developers, I settled on PMK because I had read it shows atmospheric fog better than most. I live in an area that experiences lots of fog, and enjoy photographing the effect. It is about double the price of Pcat, just as easy to use. There is some difference in stain color, and IMO no real difference in printing capability. I've been in darkrooms for over 50 years, and tried very few developers, my mainstay has always been D-76, but I prefer PMK with my LF work. I also use Rodinal, always keep a bottle on hand. When I'm finished with these bottles of PMK I may return to Pcat, but only because of price.

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Thanks Rick.

Q: why PMK vs. D76 for LF work? 4x5? 8x10?

I have tried D76 (1+1) with 120 and love it. I tried PMK and Pyrocat (with 120) and truly do not see the benefit (unless the subject is very-high contrast).

For 8x10, my developer has been (for years) Rodinal (1+25). A few years ago, I ran a few tests to compare PMK with Rodinal and after a few prints side by side found that I was not getting anything superior from PMK vs Rodinal. My subjects were not contrast-extreme - important highlights fell on Zone VIII or VIII+

I am curious as to whether your experience Rodinal/PMK differs from mine and would appreciate you sharing it with me/us.

JackRosa said:

Thanks Rick.

Q: why PMK vs. D76 for LF work? 4x5? 8x10?

I have tried D76 (1+1) with 120 and love it. I tried PMK and Pyrocat (with 120) and truly do not see the benefit (unless the subject is very-high contrast).

For 8x10, my developer has been (for years) Rodinal (1+25). A few years ago, I ran a few tests to compare PMK with Rodinal and after a few prints side by side found that I was not getting anything superior from PMK vs Rodinal. My subjects were not contrast-extreme - important highlights fell on Zone VIII or VIII+

I am curious as to whether your experience Rodinal/PMK differs from mine and would appreciate you sharing it with me/us.

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Simple, economy. A very little goes a very long way with LF, where you are mixing liters of chems versus 225ml for 35mm or 450ml for 120. I do use Pyro developers with smaller formats at times, but these days I shoot so very little 35mm and have a gallon of D-76 to use up. I shoot a lot of 120, but that has gone down since the disappearance of my Mamiya 6, and I don't like lugging Mamiya TLR's around on walks. I also have started making carbon transfer prints, and love the negatives from Pyro for that. I am using in camera negatives to print them, and it seems to give excellent contact prints. I can get dep shadow detail and stunning highlights without them getting blown out. This is a scan of a print, it loses detail in the scan. The dust is in my scanner.



4x5 Arista EDU Ultra 100 /PMK pyro