Pyrocat-HD: which dilutions for constant agitation with little dev?

Hi,
I found answer for similar question already either from somewhere else at the Net or from this forums. But cannot found it any more, spend two hours using search :rolleyes:

I have adopted paterson orbital for developing sheet films. The main problem is that it maximum amount of developer for 4 sheet films is 200-300ml. With 300ml, you are always in risk to spill developer all around when orbital does it's rotary and tilting agitation pattern.

If I recall right, the minimum for one sheet film (4x5) 75ml Pyrocat-HD 1:1:100, so it is on the limits for four sheets.

What to do if I have to use less, say 200ml or 250ml for four sheets?

In the answer that I read S.King stated that in such cases the dilution 2:2:100 or 3:2:100 is good option. But do I remember correctly?

I guess that the more there is solution A compared to B, the less aggressive is the stain effect.

Is there any rules of thumb for that? Say, Adox CHS 100 is quite silver rich and stains easily, should I use then 3:2:100 instead of 2:2:100? Or do I have to run test series with both dilutions?

Or modern T-grain films which has less silver, am I right when guessing that then 2:2:100 would be good?

Thanks for helping,
Jukka

Jukka,

You should be able to develop four sheets of 4X5 film with 250ml of the 1:1:100 dilution of Pyrocat-HD. I may have stated somewhere a minimum of 75ml per sheet, but in fact in my own work I only use about 60ml per sheet, and all of my calculations for CI are based on this.

Sandy King

Thank you very much Sandy!