Pyrocat-MC and Ultrafine Extreme 100 35mm

Cold weather has us locked in in good old Michigan so I've been doing a little experimenting. I had a bulk roll of Ultrafine Extreme 100 and thought I try it with several developer. Clayton's F76+/Arista Premium Liquid, Beutler home-brew both worked very well. I then switched to WD2D+ and Pyrocat-MC and both of those seemed darn good also. The WD2D+ negatives were spot-on for exposure and development, but the Pyrocat-MC was a little different in that I had very good shadow detail, but the highlights were slightly blown. Going to cut back to 7 1/2 min. and see what happens. I did notice the Pyrocat-MC negatives had slightly finer grain than the WD2D+ negatives, but in truth they were both close. The real difference was on the emulsion side of the film itself. The WD2D+ negatives emulsion had that normal etching, but the Pyrocat-MC negatives looked like the image was engraved into the emulsion. I've seen this before when I used FG7, but not to this extent. Has anyone else noticed this heavy etching? Right now I seem to like the WD2D+ negatives better, but maybe the Pyrocat-MC ones will win me over when I get it dialed in better. We'll see tomorrow. As for the Ultrafine Extreme 100? It seems like a very nice conventional film that has no blemishes that I can find and dries about as flat as any 35mm film I have ever used. JohnW

I like the film as well. the flat drying is a very big plus like you said. just wish there was a little more developing data for it. I also found that it does a great job when developed in a reversal process. It has given me the best B&W slides of any film I've tried yet.

I havent tried it yet in Pyro-HD (thats the only pyro developer I have) as I have no idea where to start. Some people say use the time for Kentmere 100 but the few developers I've tried it was not a good time fit. have a half shot roll that I'll try in pyro-HD when finished. Any ideas on a time and agitation scheme?

destroya said:

I like the film as well. the flat drying is a very big plus like you said. just wish there was a little more developing data for it. I also found that it does a great job when developed in a reversal process. It has given me the best B&W slides of any film I've tried yet.

I havent tried it yet in Pyro-HD (thats the only pyro developer I have) as I have no idea where to start. Some people say use the time for Kentmere 100 but the few developers I've tried it was not a good time fit. have a half shot roll that I'll try in pyro-HD when finished. Any ideas on a time and agitation scheme?

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Well, I think the times for Pyrocat-MC and Pyrocat-HD should be pretty close. I developed the roll I shot for 9 minutes @ 73 degrees with a 30 sec initial agitation and then 2 inversions evey 2 1/2 minutes. I think I should have used the times I read somewhere for Ilford FP4+ and that was like nearer to 7 1/2 minutes. I'm just playing around and testing some cameras that I plan on selling so a true test of the film/developer combination isn't necessary. Ballpark is close enough for me on this one. Like I said, I am going to cut it back some and see if the highlights come down just a bit. It was close, but a little hot in the snow and sky area compare to the WD2D+ negative. I'll know more tomorrow as I'm running a roll through an old Contaflex Super BC I really like. Oh, I also did some searching and came up with the reason for the deep etching. Minimal agitation and mild inversions. John