Pyrocat questions

[Scott Wainer]

Hi all,

I'm a new member to the APUG list and had a couple of questions regarding Pyrocat. Several friends of mine recently went digital and gave me their remaining film stock. Having spent some time completely digital, I want to return to film for silver gelatin and alternative processes and was searching the net for development times Pyrocat-HD when I came across the -m and -p variations on the APUG and Azo forums.

I noticed that the potassium bromide has been dropped in the -m and -p formulas and there is an optional addition of potassium iodide. In a posting on the Azo forum, Sandy King stated that "...I am inclined to believe at this point is there is no need at all for the potassum iodide restrainer...". My main question is, would the -hd version be cleaner working without a restrainer or would it cause fogging? Also, would there be a speed increase without using a restrainer since it wouldn't hold back development of the shadows?

Another question regards the fact that the -m version appears the same as the -hd version with the amount of metol reduced and the potassium bromide eliminated; if you exclude the optional addition of potassium iodide. I develop in small tanks and trays and am using dimezone, rather than metol. Should I keep the dimezone at 0.2gms/100ml or should I reduce it to 0.02gms/100ml in accordance with Sandy's reduction of the metol?

My final question deals with the addition of potassium iodide to the formula. As I understand it, the addition of potassium iodide is primarily to increase the accutance (percieved sharpness) of the film developer combination. I will be shooting 35mm, 120/220, 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 and will be enlarging and contact printing the negatives. Is there enough of a difference in accutance to warrant the addition of potassium iodide? Also, in looking at Sandy's -m and -p formulas vs. Crawley's FX-1 stock formula, the amount of potassium iodide (1gm/1000ml) looks rather high. Is this correct? Is my calculation off?

Thanks in advance, Scott

 

[Jim Noel]

Pyrocat HD, and its off-shoot Pyrocat M both produce beautiful negatives. I find the HD yields slightly higher film speeds, in fact I use box speeds with this. Sandy says the M version gives slightly sharper negatives. I haven't seen this.

Both are very clean working and produce negatives with little base stain which print quickly in all the alt processes I like to use.

 

[Scott Wainer]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the reply.

I used Pyrocat for several years before going digital and liked what I got very much. I never got box speed with Pyrocat, my EI was always about 1 stop less. The only time speed was an issue was when I was shooting some 5x7 Super XX and had to rate it at EI12. Even then Pyrocat gave very little b+f. When I came across the Pyrocat variants I was interested in the differences I saw.

The Best, Scott