Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/03/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I thought I would jump in here, out of the blue, as I am a long time user of Pyro developers. Upfront?I shoot mainly 4x5 and 120 roll film, with a little 35mm?Leica!? and use variable contrast papers, and also scan a and print digitally a bit. I used PMK happily for several years until I tried Pyrocat HD. Pyrocat is based on pyrocatechin, as opposed to PMK which is pyrogallol. The differences between the 2 developers are somewhat subtle, but real. For me Pyrocat is a much more versatile developer, easier to use, has finer grain, and does wonderful things with highlights and is really, really sharp. It is easy to control the amount of compensation by varying the agitation. I will agitate anywhere from every minute to only 4 times during the total time. I have even used it as a stand developer for some very extreme scenes and it was wonderful. One image in particular, taken from in the deep shadow inside a short tunnel, where I wanted detail in the black earth floor of the tunnel as well as the sun drenched scene outside it. Pyrocat stand for 25 minutes and it is an easy negative to print? amazing! I use FP-4+, Acros, and TMY-2, and Pyrocat works very well them all. In fact it has been good on every film I ever tried. It, like any other developer requires a bit of testing to learn, but once you have done that it is simple, consistent, economical, and very nice. It is available from Photo Formulary, and can be had mixed in Glycol which gives it a very long shelf-life (years). All the black and white work on my website was done with Pyrocat, except for a few of the Chicago River photos that were processed in PMK. ???? Richard Wasserman http://www.richardwasserman.net On Mar 22, 2011, at 12:32 AM, Chris Crawford wrote: > My initial test with Tri-X is good, and it worked great for Efke 100 > and > Foma 100 as well. The Efke and Foma films really are old, and Tri-X > is still > a traditional non-T-grain film. I know people say that PMK doesn't > work well > on Tmax films, but I have a book by Eddie Ephraums where he says it > is his > favorite developer for Ilford Delta 3200, and his results looked > awesome. > I'll have to get some of that film to try it. > > > -- > Chris Crawford > Fine Art Photography > Fort Wayne, Indiana > 260-486-2581 > > http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio > > http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work! > > http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798 > Become a fan on Facebook > > > > On 3/22/11 1:17 AM, "Frank Filippone" <red735i at earthlink.net> wrote: > >> There are more a few Pyro developers.... all with slightly different >> characteristics and different ways of use. >> >> Some oxidize rapidly, and require mid-development >> replenishment.... some do >> not care if you use non-alkaline fixers, others require it. Ditto >> the water >> bath ( wash) afterwards... some like to re-use the spent developer >> as part >> of a staining process... others could care less. >> >> Use with the old films. The new emulsions do not work as well. >> >> Great stuff.... >> >> Frank Filippone >> Red735i at earthlink.net >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information