Tanol Staining Developer Question For 4x5 Film

[IanBarber]

I am quite interested in some PyroCat HD but its hard to find here in the UK.

Someone suggested I try Tanol staining developer which is available here in the UK

I develop all my film is a Paterson tank using the Mod54 holder, I do not use a darkroom and all negatives are scanned on an Epson V800 and printed on an Epson R3880 Printer.

The current films I use are

FomaPan 100
FomaPan 200
Kodak TMAX 100

How different is the Tanol to PyroCat HD and is it suitable for scanning.

Ian

[Pere Casals]

I am quite interested in some PyroCat HD but its hard to find here in the UK.

Someone suggested I try Tanol staining developer which is available here in the UK

I develop all my film is a Paterson tank using the Mod54 holder, I do not use a darkroom and all negatives are scanned on an Epson V800 and printed on an Epson R3880 Printer.

The current films I use are

FomaPan 100
FomaPan 200
Kodak TMAX 100

How different is the Tanol to PyroCat HD and is it suitable for scanning.

Ian

Hello Ian,


Here you have good information for stain developers


http://sandykingphotography.com/reso...ing-developers

http://www.digitaltruth.com/articles/stainingdevs.php

Chapter 6) http://www.ssnpstudents.com/wp/wp-co...m-Cookbook.pdf


Be aware, these developers are not as safe as Xtol: gloves, etc.

Scanning is good as added stain is grainless.

I'm not prone to stain developers by now, but personally I'd try first 510 Pyro, formulated by Jay DeFehr https://www.flickr.com/photos/jay_defehr/


if you are interested in Pyro, please read this:

http://www.pictorialplanet.com/advan.../510_pyro.html


You can also find in Ebay a lot of powder kits to mix your pyro, just search: pyrocat


Regards,
Pere

[plaubel]

If your Tanol developer is a Moersch product - he gives detailed information on his pages.
As he said, a film not shown in his own testcharts makes no sense concerning the advantage of his staining developers.
I'm nor sure, but I can't remember that Foma has been listed.

So the question may be - what do you expect from your developer?

Best,
Ritchie

[Michal Makowski]

http://www.moersch-photochemie.de/fi...lundCo-eng.pdf

[IanBarber]

If your Tanol developer is a Moersch product - he gives detailed information on his pages.
As he said, a film not shown in his own testcharts makes no sense concerning the advantage of his staining developers.
I'm nor sure, but I can't remember that Foma has been listed.

So the question may be - what do you expect from your developer?

Best,
Ritchie

Having read quite a bit of information Steve Sherman has wrote about, I am interested in the semi-stand development and also how Steve says just how much sharper PyroCat HD is compared to the HC-110 I use for semi-stand.

[peter schrager]

Any film works with pyro developer
Some better than others...foma is certainly cheap enough to experiment with.
As Fred Picker used to say
"Try it and find out for yourself"

[Tobias Key]

I have used Tanol and had a lot of problems with it. I had crystals forming in one of the the bottles, after the first couple of uses that were impossible to get rid of and the same thing happened when I got a replacement. I ordered it from Silverprint and I suspect it was old or badly kept stock. I talked to Moersch and they suspected it had been left to get cold somewhere in transit. Anyway the upshot of this was I ruined a fair amount of film trying to get it to work, but never did. I suspect you might have more luck if you ordered direct from Moersch.

[IanBarber]

I have used Tanol and had a lot of problems with it. I had crystals forming in one of the the bottles, after the first couple of uses that were impossible to get rid of and the same thing happened when I got a replacement. I ordered it from Silverprint and I suspect it was old or badly kept stock. I talked to Moersch and they suspected it had been left to get cold somewhere in transit. Anyway the upshot of this was I ruined a fair amount of film trying to get it to work, but never did. I suspect you might have more luck if you ordered direct from Moersch.

The company I saw advertising it was Process Supplies. http://www.processuk.net/index.aspx?...ckSearch=tanol

[Pere Casals]

Having read quite a bit of information Steve Sherman has wrote about, I am interested in the semi-stand development and also how Steve says just how much sharper PyroCat HD is compared to the HC-110 I use for semi-stand.

Hello Ian,

If you are to follow Steve's recipes I'd suggest you start with PyroCat HD, just to get a good result straight from a recipe, from then you may vary the developer or what you want, but it is always good to have a nice starting point.

Steve's semi-stand recipes are very good and worth to follow, so if recipes are based in PyroCat HD just use that, I'd follow same developer he uses as IMHO there is a well done work of optimization that is also related to the particular developer used by him.

Also PyroCat HD was formulated by Sandy King, so you may ask him in this forum if you have troubles.
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...p?6667-sanking
http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/


LAter you can use also the excellent Tanol...

Anyway, 4x5 has resolving power way in excess. Because scale with edge effects and the like... it is difficult that LF prints show developer effect in sharpness, the counter of 35mm film, were at x8 enlargements you may notice some solvent action of grain.

A x8 enlargement from 4x5 is a 1m print, and a viewer has to place his nose on it to see any flaw, or to see any developer effect.


It is true that a semi-stand development may favour better microcontrast in some areas, but I guess this is more because the low agitation than because a particular developer. But if the recipe uses PyroCat HD... I'd start with making the recipe work well, and later one can see what he does...

Just IMHO

Regards,

Pere

[koraks]

Haven't tried tanol, but I have developed foma 100 in the sibling developer finol. Try a development time of around 10 minutes for foma 100 @ 100 with 10 agitations per minute after 30 seconds initial agitation. I got results that are to my eye identical to pyrocat hd. I doubt tanol will give wildly different results, but I can't comment.