Uneven development - Pyroact HD with JOBO 1520 & 120 film

[Matus Kalisky]

Hello,

After longer time of using Pyrocat HD as my main developer I got recently problems with uneven development with Jobo 1520 drum with inversion agitation.

Let me first describe my development procedure then I will post some samples:

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- I develop two 120 films on one reel inside the JOBO 1520 drum. I do use thatlittle plastic piece to avoid accidental overlapping of films

- Films I hve developed concern Ilford Delta 400, Delta 100, FP4+. Apart from slightly longer development the procedure for Delta 400 is very similar to that of Delta 100 and FP4+.

- Please note - all these photos were taken with Mamiya 6 what implies that top part of the image was pointing to the top of the JOBO drum what means that what is horizontal on film was horizontal inside the drum as well.

- Development temperature is mostly 21 degrees Celsius and I do take care to keep the temperature of subsequent liquids within 1 degree.

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Development for fp4+ and Delata 100 films (I use the same times):
1) 4 minutes prewash in clean water
2) Pyrocat HD 1:1:100, 500 ml, 9 minutes total time, inversions first 45 seconds than 4 inversions at the end of 3 and 6 minute.
3) 4 minutes water stop - inversions first 60 seconds than every minute a few
4) Ilford fixer (1:4) 10 minutes - inversions every minute
5) 10 minutes was using the JOBO hose (so it is continuos)
6) 1 minute in Photo Flo
7) hang over night to dry (in our bathroom)

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My questions:

1) this looks very much like insufficient agitation. I did use 4 inversions every minute in the past and got better results, but I would prefer the 3 minute intervals. Should I do more inversions than 4 per agitation interval to avoid this problems?

2)Many use semi stand method with Jobo drums - do I do anything else than agitation wrong?

3) What is your approach with Pyrocat HD and Jobo drums? Should I change times or dilution or .. ? I would be interested to use a slow motor base, but none on them market are built for drums as small as Jobo 1520.

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Now the samples:

Please note that there are large versions on flickr if you click on the images. The full series is HERE (5 more images than linked below).













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Your help will be much appreciated ...

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Matus,

Firstly, have you experienced these marks with other film developers? Second, when I was using Pyrocat-HD as my main developer I would occasionally get odd processing defects, including those similar to your examples, along with very thin negatives. That lack of predictability (including ability to predict failure) has lead me towards D-76 1+1 in the Jobo which seems consistent although perhaps does not wring out maximum image quality.

Tom

 

[piu58]

From reading I did not expect such heavy of uneveness.
Generally I recommend to increase agitation. The most uniform development comes from continuous tipping over. The time of development decreases at ~20% then.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Uwe,

I should mention that Pyrocat-HD is often mentioned as a good candidate for minimal agitation and semi-stand techniques. Rest assured that rotary processing can provide it's own set of development quirks. I'd have thought continuous inversion would reck tonality and introduce very high contrast depending on the developer.

Tom

 

[erikg]

Looks to me like you need to agitate more. I also think that your agitation may not have enough randomness to it, perhaps use a motion such as Kodak recommends with small tanks. Certainly with stand or semi-stand it I've found it crucial to have vigorous agitation at the start. You may also want to forgo the presoak, Ilford says they are unneeded, and I have found that to be true. I have to say I find I get better results with inversion processing with the small stainless or plastic tanks, leaving the Jobo tanks for the Jobo processors, but I know other folks get good results so it is certainly doable.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

To add and repeat previous threads, the Paterson tanks can produce strange bubble marks along the edge of the film, intruding into the image area.

Tom

 

[john_s]

The shape of the unevenness doesn't look like an agitation problem to me. There is too much "shape" to them. The area of extra density in the print are areas of reduced density on the neg. Is there a chance that the film was not uniformly sitting in the grooves of the reel, causing some parts to have insufficient space for developer to circulate? I have used a regimen like yours (pyrocat two variants and 3 or 4 min between agitations) without this problem. I don't use the two films on one reel these days, but I have in the past and it seemed ok (not with pyrocat).

 

[Matus Kalisky]

Thank you for all your answers so far.

Bubbles were mentioned in some of the replies - in fact I did get this problem, but I forgot to firmly tap the drum after agitation so some bubbles may got trapped on the reels. With the batches when I did not forget to do these I got no bubbles.

I also agree that some of these marks look too "sharp" for uneven development, but I got no problems with loading the reels and and also there marks can be found all over the films sometimes stronger sometimes weaker.

Truth also is that I had much less issues in the past agitating every minute.

For the processor - I do not want to get another large "stuff" and apart from that this drum is rather small - only one reel can be fit (with 120 film).

Any more ideas?

 

[Matus Kalisky]

After more than year I have finely got back to film photography and just few day ago developed several 120 films with Pyrocat HD and I think I have the reply the to question I have posted 4 years ago.

Since the Pyrocat I still had is OLD (9 or 10 years) - I thought it was about time to get fresh one. And that seems to be the solution of the problem. Namely - the A solution gets denser (and stronger in color) with time and this increased density makes it probably harder to properly dissolve in water when preparing working solution (1:1:100 in my case).

Using 1 films (in Jobo 1520) per development and agitating every minute I could not see ANY signs of uneven development. I did once also develop 2 films at the time and got very fine streaks on the out-most parts of the outer film together with some signs of bubbles and I figured out that I did not mix the developer properly (it was nearly 1am and I was tired), but there streaks have much finer structure (the fresh A solution is less viscous than the 10 year old one).

So my summary so far is - if the A solution gets too thick just get a fresh one and ALWAYS mix the working solution well before pouring it into the drum.

 

[ic-racer]

Looks like developer exhaustion in the center of the film, try using more developer and report back.