Pyrocat - which one?

dslater · May 8, 2007

Hi all,
The other day I tried processing some FP4+ in Pyrocat-HD using minimal agitation. My negatives came out quite thin and had a pinkish cast to them. As the Pyrocat-HD was about a year old, I have chalked it up to the developer being too old.
So - I'm going to get some new Pyrocat, but now there is quite a variety of options
Pyrocat-HD
Pyrocat-HD in Glycol
Pyrocat-MC

of these, which has the longest shelf life? Which is best for use in a Jobo processor?
Is the only difference between Pyrocat-HD and Pyrocat-MC that Pyrocat-MC seems to be a little sharper and produces a more yellowish stain?

Thanks,

Dan

Scott Peters · May 9, 2007

Shelf life - glycol. MC produces a little 'less' stain for me in longer tray development times....I haven't used the jobo in awhile. I prefer the MC from Photoraphers Forumulary...seems to have a good shelf life too.

chrisofwlp · May 9, 2007

Try increasing the amount of carbonate (part b), if that doesn't work you can always increase your exposure.

I have tried Pmk, Pyrocat hd and Abc Pyro. of the three abc was my favorite.

I was shooting efke 50 film. i tried several different exposure Indexs combined with dillution and development time and never got what I thought was an acceptable neg. Abc imparts a luminescent qulity to the neg.

Sincerely,

Tom Hoskinson · May 9, 2007

Scott Peters said:
Shelf life - glycol. MC produces a little 'less' stain for me in longer tray development times....I haven't used the jobo in awhile. I prefer the MC from Photoraphers Forumulary...seems to have a good shelf life too.

I agree with Scott, glycol for max shelf life. I mix my own Pyrocat-HD from scratch in glycol.

I also mix my own Pyrocat-MC from scratch (thus a smidgin of TEA plus glycol). I find that the Pyrocat-HD and Pyrocat-MC give very similar results - the Pyrocat-MC arguably may give slightly higher acutance than the Pyrocat-HD.

I process in trays and BTZS type tubes. I have a Jobo but I don't use it because I mostly process with Semi-Stand and Extreme Minimal Agitation.

vet173 · May 9, 2007

Just curious how old the developer was?

matti · May 9, 2007

Hi Tom, I just got curious, how do you use semi-stant and extreme minimal agitation with BTZS-tubes or trays? Do you fill the tubes or use only one film in each tray?

/matti

Tom Hoskinson said:
I agree with Scott, glycol for max shelf life. I mix my own Pyrocat-HD from scratch in glycol.

I also mix my own Pyrocat-MC from scratch (thus a smidgin of TEA plus glycol). I find that the Pyrocat-HD and Pyrocat-MC give very similar results - the Pyrocat-MC arguably may give slightly higher acutance than the Pyrocat-HD.

I process in trays and BTZS type tubes. I have a Jobo but I don't use it because I mostly process with Semi-Stand and Extreme Minimal Agitation.

juan · May 9, 2007

If you kept Pyrocat around long enough to go bad, I would recommend one of the glycol formulations. I'm now using Pyrocat PC, as I had all the chemicals to make it. I don't see any significant difference in the various versions I've tried over the years, but I mostly contact print.
juan

Cor · May 9, 2007

Tom,

Do you observe differences in processing time (same film) between PyrocatHD (with or without glycol, but that should not give a difference, right?)) and PyrocatMC?

Thanks,

best,

Cor

Tom Hoskinson said:
I agree with Scott, glycol for max shelf life. I mix my own Pyrocat-HD from scratch in glycol.

I also mix my own Pyrocat-MC from scratch (thus a smidgin of TEA plus glycol). I find that the Pyrocat-HD and Pyrocat-MC give very similar results - the Pyrocat-MC arguably may give slightly higher acutance than the Pyrocat-HD.

I process in trays and BTZS type tubes. I have a Jobo but I don't use it because I mostly process with Semi-Stand and Extreme Minimal Agitation.

sanking · May 9, 2007

As others have pointed out, the glycol version of Pyrocat-HD is recommened if you don't anticipate using all of the stock solution in 8-12 months. There is no difference in results, however, between fresh Pyrocat-HD in water and Pyrocat-HD in glycol.

Pyrocat-MC was developed primarily to give higher accutance in rotary type processing. It will also give slightly less general or B+F stain with long development times, especially with rotary processing. Most people also find the stain color of -MC to be slightly reddish brown in color, compared to the rather neutral brown of -HD.

Any development tables that work well for Pyrocat-HD should give very similar results with -MC, though some minor corrections should be expected depending on film type and type of paper being used.

For contact printing with LF and ULF film most people probably won't see any difference in results between the two developers. I personally use -HD with minimum development procedures and -MC with rotary processing.

Sandy King

dslater · May 9, 2007

vet173 said:
Just curious how old the developer was?

Hi,
The developer was about a year old.

dslater · May 9, 2007

chrisofwlp said:
Try increasing the amount of carbonate (part b), if that doesn't work you can always increase your exposure.

Sincerely,

Thanks for the suggestion.
I could try increasing the amount of carbonate, but if the developer has degraded, I would prefer simply replacing it with a new developer that has known properties.
As far as exposure, I believe my exposure was O.K. I had an identical negative that I developed in PMK Pyro and it came out just fine. In fact the negative I developed in Pyrocat-HD actually had good shadow detail - it was just very under-developed and had to be printed on grade 4 paper with my enlarger stopped down to f/22 to get a reasonable exposure time.

dslater · May 9, 2007

sanking said:
As others have pointed out, the glycol version of Pyrocat-HD is recommened if you don't anticipate using all of the stock solution in 8-12 months. There is no difference in results, however, between fresh Pyrocat-HD in water and Pyrocat-HD in glycol.

Pyrocat-MC was developed primarily to give higher accutance in rotary type processing. It will also give slightly less general or B+F stain with long development times, especially with rotary processing. Most people also find the stain color of -MC to be slightly reddish brown in color, compared to the rather neutral brown of -HD.

Any development tables that work well for Pyrocat-HD should give very similar results with -MC, though some minor corrections should be expected depending on film type and type of paper being used.

For contact printing with LF and ULF film most people probably won't see any difference in results between the two developers. I personally use -HD with minimum development procedures and -MC with rotary processing.

Sandy King

Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your reply. I had read a post of yours from several years ago when you were just developing Pyrocat-MC in which you stated that Pyrocat-MC produces a stronger image stain than Pyrocat-HD does. Do you still believe this to be the case? Would you say that the printing characteristics of a Pyrocat-MC negative on VC paper is closer to PMK Pyro than Pyrocat-HD is? The reason I ask is I like to shoot landscapes with interesting cloud detail. I have found the compensation effect of PMK Pyro to be really beneficial for these kinds of scenes. My interest in Pyrocat stems from the slight speed increase it provides and the fact that it seems to be more suitable for rotary processing in a Jobo.

Also, is the mixing procedure for glycol versions of Pyrocat different from water based versions? When I mix up Pyrocat or PMK, my procedure is to add the B solution to my water, then add the A solution. I read a description of mixing up Pyrocat-HD in glycol in which the person said he first mixed the A and B solutions together and then poured the resulting solution into water to make the working solution. Which procedure do you recommend?

Thanks,

Dan

dslater · May 9, 2007

chrisofwlp said:
I was shooting efke 50 film. i tried several different exposure Indexs combined with dillution and development time and never got what I thought was an acceptable neg. Abc imparts a luminescent qulity to the neg.

Sincerely,

I'm curious, how different is ABC pyro from PMK pyro? It was my understanding that ABC pyro is somewhat unstable and unpredictable. This was what motivated Gordon Hutchings to develop PMK Pyro.

Dan

Tom Hoskinson · May 9, 2007

matti said:
Hi Tom, I just got curious, how do you use semi-stand and extreme minimal agitation with BTZS-tubes or trays? Do you fill the tubes or use only one film in each tray?

/matti

Hi Matti, I fill the BTZS-tubes with developer. I also use slosher trays with 4 individual film compartments - I fill the tray with developer.

Tom Hoskinson · May 9, 2007

Cor said:
Tom,

Do you observe differences in processing time (same film) between PyrocatHD (with or without glycol, but that should not give a difference, right?)) and PyrocatMC?

Thanks,

best,

Cor

Hi COR, I see no differences in processsing time between Pyrocat-HD, Pyrocat-P and Pyrocat-MC.

The use of glycol as the A stock solution solvent (instead of water) does not affect the processing time.

sanking · May 9, 2007

dslater said:
I'm curious, how different is ABC pyro from PMK pyro? It was my understanding that ABC pyro is somewhat unstable and unpredictable. This was what motivated Gordon Hutchings to develop PMK Pyro.

Dan

ABC Pyro has only one reducer, pyrogallol. Ths results in reduced film speed compared to both PMK and Pyrocat-HD or -MC, or WD2D+ for that matter, which all contain a secondary reducer, either metol or phenidone, which regnerates the primary reducer and gives slightly more real film speed.

ABC Pyro is only unstable because of the sulfite solution. Sulfite solutions in water go bad quickly, and in the case of ABC Pyro this results in much heaveir B+F or general stain. If you just add powder sulfite directly to the working solution you avoid this problem, and the other two solutions are quite stable.

However, ABC Pyro gives a lot of film grain, so I would definitley not recommend it for 35mm or medium format film. PMK, Pyrocat-HD or WD2D+ would all be much better, unless you just like golf-ball size grain a la Rodinol.

Sandy King

sanking · May 9, 2007

dslater said:
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your reply. I had read a post of yours from several years ago when you were just developing Pyrocat-MC in which you stated that Pyrocat-MC produces a stronger image stain than Pyrocat-HD does. Do you still believe this to be the case? Would you say that the printing characteristics of a Pyrocat-MC negative on VC paper is closer to PMK Pyro than Pyrocat-HD is? The reason I ask is I like to shoot landscapes with interesting cloud detail. I have found the compensation effect of PMK Pyro to be really beneficial for these kinds of scenes. My interest in Pyrocat stems from the slight speed increase it provides and the fact that it seems to be more suitable for rotary processing in a Jobo.

Also, is the mixing procedure for glycol versions of Pyrocat different from water based versions? When I mix up Pyrocat or PMK, my procedure is to add the B solution to my water, then add the A solution. I read a description of mixing up Pyrocat-HD in glycol in which the person said he first mixed the A and B solutions together and then poured the resulting solution into water to make the working solution. Which procedure do you recommend?

Thanks,

Dan

Dan,

That is true. In all of my own tests Pyrocat-MC produces more image stain than Pyrocat-HD, and it is of a slightly different color. Pyrocat-MC also gives lower B+F or general stain with long development times, at least this is true for UV readings. This is due to the ascorbic acid.

As for mixing, I first prepare the necessary amount of water for the working solution, then pour the necessary amounts of Stock A into a small container and add it to the water, then do the same for Stock B. Stir for a few seconds and you are ready to go.

You may also want to shake the contents of Stock A and B before mixing.

Sandy King

dslater · May 9, 2007

Thanks to all for your help - I think I'm going to give Pyrocat-MC a try. What can I expect the shelf life of the stock solutions to be?

sanking · May 9, 2007

dslater said:
Thanks to all for your help - I think I'm going to give Pyrocat-MC a try. What can I expect the shelf life of the stock solutions to be?

Should be many years. I just tested a batch of Pyrocat-HD mixed in glycol over three years ago against a new batch mixed two months ago and the results were absolutely identical. Mixed in glycol either Pyrocat-HD or -MC should last for at least five years IMHO.

Sandy King

dslater · May 9, 2007

sanking said:
Should be many years. I just tested a batch of Pyrocat-HD mixed in glycol over three years ago against a new batch mixed two months ago and the results were absolutely identical. Mixed in glycol either Pyrocat-HD or -MC should last for at least five years IMHO.

Sandy King

Thanks a lot for the help. You know in your copious free time :rolleyes: it would be really cool if you or someone else could compile a table of the different versions of Pyrocat, ABC Pyro, PMK Pyro etc. Said table could list such useful info as stain properties, shelf life, development options such as rotary, tray, minimal agitation, stand development, etc.

Such a thing posted in the articles section might go a long way towards avoiding answering the same questions over and over again.

matti · May 9, 2007

For some reason I imagined the tubes laying down, like in the BTZS-book. And then air bubbles would ruin the film. But suddenly I understand that the tubes can stand up during semi-stand development.
thanks!/matti

Tom Hoskinson said:
Hi Matti, I fill the BTZS-tubes with developer. I also use slosher trays with 4 individual film compartments - I fill the tray with developer.

Pyrocat - which one?

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