Second set of negs

[mark]

Okay. I went out and took pictures looking for an SBR of 6-7. I found them. Tray processed the 5 negs in Pyrocat HD 2:2:100 for the purpose of contact printing for Kalitype or Pt/Pd. BPF 200 With adjusted time of about 11 minutes things look good. I see a distinct brown tint. Is that supposed to be there? It is not pronounced and it looks kind of like milk chocolate to a degree. Great shadow detail, and the highlights are not blown out. They are also pretty dense.

I may print them but four of the five got scratched in the tray processing somewhere, damnit, so I am hesitant. That will teach me to be impatient. I'm off to get the stuff to fix the Unicolor drum, and make tubes so this does not happen again.

I believe I am on my way This is fun!

 

[Francesco]

Yes the brown tint is supposed to be there. You will also find that Pyrocat is better in tubes - very even development. Plus you can choose to do either gentle, minimal, extreme minimal, semi-stand or stand development. I personally prefer gentle and minimal. Also I find that BPF 200 aka Classic 200 aka Fortepan 200 is nowhere as good as Efke PL100 with Pyrocat and contact printing on AZO (or alt process for that matter). How do you like overall and local contrast on your BPF negs? I suspect there is not much of either, at least when I compare my Classic 200 negs with my Efke PL100 negs. In addition I find that Classic 200 is better suited for higher contrast subjects (SBRs >= 9).

 

[mark]

I really have nothing to compare them to at this point, except some 4x5 delta 100 processed in d76 1:1. Looking at the negs I see what I intended to see. Those areas I put on zone 2 are on zone two and the highlights appear to be crisp at the edges. They are more dense than my delta 100 stuff but that is what I intended.

Overall contrast of these negs seem just fine. I am new to the alt process world so I have no idea what to look so my descriptions are based just off these negs.

1 neg is from Canyon de chelly, three are from Window Rock Tribal Park, and one is from the edge of Beautiful Valley in the same strata as the little painted desert so it was work to find an SBR of 6-7. I have to say I like the contrast. In a normal brightness range of seven I find these negs to be rather pretty, brown stain aside. They are not the best negs I have seen but these are the first pyro negs I have made, and I see a distinct difference between these and those negs that are put in a non-staining developer. The proof will be in the prints though.

I thought Sandy's tests determined that Classic 200 and BPF 200 were different films?

 

[Francesco]

This is a quote from one of Sandy's posts:

"This morning I ran a set of tests with a new box of Bergger BPF film, fresh from the distributor. In making the tests I exposed and developed exactly as in a previous test of JandC Classic 200 film.

There has been some speculation that these films, both manufacture red at the same plant in Hungary, are in fact identical.

Result of tests: The curves for a given development time of these two films are mirror images. Density values are virtually identical at any given step in Visual, Blue and UV reading.

Sandy's Opinion: JandC and Bergger BPF are, if not the same film, identical twins. Any previous differences observed in performance between these films is most likely due to emulsion batch, age, and/or conditions of storage.

Sandy"

Plus since we know that Classic 200 is Fortepan 200 then we have here a situation where one film is sold under three different brand names. Go figure.

 

[mark]

Hmmm......... He also said this in a comparison of BPF 200 and JandC classic 200

"
Yesterday I ran a set of BTZS type tests of some J&C Classic 200 film. Five step wedges were given identical exposures, timed with a Metrolux light integrator, and each one was then developed for a different amount of time in a 22:100 dilution of Pyrocat-HD, in BTZS type tubes using constant agitation in a water-bath. I subsequently read the negative densities through the Visual, Blue and UV channels of my densitometer, and finished by plotting the curves with WinPlotter.

Consensus opinion on this list and in other forums seems to be that the J&C Classic 200 film is same as Bergger BPF. For that reason I based my exposure and development times on previous tests of BPF film, which turned out to be too long to provide me with as much information as I like to get from this type of testing. However, a comparison of the results from testing of the two films showed some interesting differences. I don’t have any idea who really makes these two films, but if they are made by the same company there are some substantial quality control issues involved.

BPF 200 and J&C Classic 200 are similar in that both are thick emulsion films that respond well to Pyro developers. And both give off in the pre-soak water the same blue/green dye from the anti-halation layer. But that is about it for the similarities.

The fundamental differences I observe from the tests are.

1) J&C Classic 200 develops to a given CI much faster than BPF200. For development to a density range of 1.60 (UV reading) for a SBR of 7, BPF 200 needed about 9 minutes of development at 70F, J&C Classic only 4:30 minutes.
2) J&C has a higher effective film speed than BPF 200. With development of J&C film for alternative processes I would recommend using the recommended film speed of 200 for use in the field. By contrast, BPF 200 needs to be rated at about EI 100, even when processing to a high CI, and even lower if developing for silver gelatin printing..
3) J&C 200 will develop to a higher maximum CI than BPF 200. With Pyrocat-HD used at the 2:2:100 dilution at 70F I was able to get a maximum gradient of about 0.95 with 9 minutes of development with J&C Classic 200. By contrast, BPF reached a maximum gradient of only about 0.80 at 20 minutes of development. This suggests that J&C Classic 200 would be a much better film than BPF 200 for use in low contrast scenes, especially with negatives meant for alternative printing.

For dual purpose negatives such as AZO and PT./PD, or AZO and Carbon, or AZO and Kallitype, Pyrocat-HD and J&C Classic 200 are a very nice combination. A negative developed to a DR of about 1.3 for AZO will have a much higher effective DR with alternative processes that use UV light because of the increased filtration of this light by the stain, so it would work well for a process such as palladium that has a paper ES of about 1.75."

two different thoughts.

 

[Francesco]

At the very least we can conclude that, based on these quotes, BPF 200, if not as goods as Classic 200/Fortepan 200. is inferior to either of them, at least for the purposes of contact printing onto AZO or Alt-Processes. I would also add that Sandy, as well as myself and a few others, are of the opinion that Efke PL100 is superior to all three aforementioned ASA 200 films - once again in terms of contact printing onto AZO and Alt-Processes