every failure I have had with Pyrocat HD has been operator error.
lee\c
every failure I have had with Pyrocat HD has been operator error.
lee\c
This was a Photographer's Formulary pre-mixed kit that went straight into seperapate, sterile 500ml Grolsch bottles. I have two plainly-marked "A & B" 20ml graduated cylinders. The A cylinder never gets near the B Grolsh. I decant the A then B graduated cylinder contents into 500mml or 1000ml of distilled H20 JUST before development. Somehow, either something I'm doing (expecting too much from 4 month old premixed Kit, which may itself already be few weeks old???) or not taking into consideration (some other source of user initited contamination thats sets up rapid oxidation of part A ???), is prematurely (and rapidly on some occaisions) oxidizing the Pyrocat HD part A solution.Originally Posted by sanking
One more try: I am going to mix this Pyrocat from scratch with glycol and see where that takes me. I have a feeling I'll have much better success that way.
BTW, my Wimberly Pyro, six months old (the Freestyle salesman and I agree looked the PF pre mixed Wimberly Pyro solutions looked a little 'old' even back then) had PERFECT working action yesterday using identical processesing conditions.
There's no doubt about it, pyrocat HD is a delicate developer, in my experience compared to Wimberly WD2D+. Using Wimberly, I've had zero failures in three years.
Last edited by Andre Noble; 9-Jun-2006 at 06:36.
Andre,
You might try the pyrocat-MC in glycol. I've tried it on a couple of negs so far and it is nice.
The only thing left I can think of is look in the mirror and stick your tongue out. If it's black, you drank your developer and you're trying to develop film with beer.
Steve
I have to say I have found Pyrocat hd to be anything but a delicate developer. I think I could mix working solutions from polluted Mississippi River water and get aceptable results. ABC in particular and pyrogallol developers in general are a different story.
Because I develop by inspection I have found a lot of my own mistakes, like forgeting to add the carbonate or the developing agents, or grabbing a bottle of sodium citrate insted of the sodium carbonate, and caught the mistake because no image had come up in 5-10 minutes of "developing". I have been very lucky, as each time I have been able to resolve the problem in the dark and got my negatives. My problems are always operator errors as well.
If I were having your problems I would believe that as well. However, since the type of problem you are having appears to be highly unusual, especially considering the age of your solution, my suspicion is that you are doing something wrong, though from what you have said I don't know what.
But something you said at the beginning of this thread caught my attention. You wrote: "O.K. this is like the fourth or fifth time. Used Photographer's Formulary Premixed Bottle. Was opened immediately and placed in clean grolsch type bottle on Feb 10, 2006. This same Pyrocat HD solution worked well on some negatives even 3 days ago."
The fact that Pyrocat solutions that were mixed in bottles on February 10, 2006, and that worked on some negatives three days ago, clearly suggests to me that something happened to the solutions in the interval. Four month old solutions in partially full glass containers would simply not go bad in three days on their own. Also, when you wrote "this same Pyrocat HD solution worked well on some negatives even three days ago" did you mean a working solution that you mixed several days ago? If so, let me state again that Pyrocat-HD is meant to be used as a one-shot developer. You mix the devleoper for a given batch of films, develop them all at one time, and then discard the developer.
Again, the most likely cause for faint images is that either A or B is omitted from the working solution. The omission of either will result in a very pale or in no image.
If something you are doing is contaminating the A solution and causing it to go bad very early mixing in glycol will probably solve the problem. However, my expereince is that most people use up the supply of the stock solutions before they either go bad and normal stock life of Stock A is on the order of at least 8-12 months in partially full bottles, indefinite for Stock B. Just wondering, does anyone else have access to the area where you store your developers and mix the solutions?
Good luck in finding the answer to your problem. But to , be quite frank, if you are very confident that you are not causing the problem, and you have no such problem with other staining developers, I think the best course of action is to just avoid Pyrocat-HD. Who knows, there may be some type of kill chemical in your enviroment that somehow is finding itself into your stock solutions.
Sandy
heck I've had solutions A and B in partially filled bottles last for over 1.5 years with no failure. The aliens must be getting into your darkroom at night and spitting in your bottles LOL.
*************************
Eric Rose
www.ericrose.com
I don't play the piano, I don't have a beard and I listen to AC/DC in the darkroom. I have no hope as a photographer.
Of cousre I do it as a one shot developer, always have. By "this same pyrocat solution", I meant stock solution of each seperate components, A & B.
In retrospect, even my "three days ago prior-to-failure , negatives were fine" negatives exhibited signs of what has come to me to represent "early Pyro Hd failure": high contrast, way underdeveloped shadows area. Three days later, I see undeniable failure: in this case, negatives and frame numbers that were significantly faint, displaying significant underdevelopment of highlights and shadows. I repeated with another roll to rule out operator error and got negatives that look exactly like ones done 30 minutes earlier
I'm not a quitter. I've just quit the Photographers Formulary pre-mixes pf Pyrocat HD dissolved in water. I'll make my own, and use glycol as solvent in future.
No one else is having this problem, so why should I accept that I don't know how to use it properly?
This developer is too good to give up just yet.
Anyways, Sandy, et al, I'll let you know in future how Pyrocat in glycol has worked for me.
Last edited by Andre Noble; 9-Jun-2006 at 16:21.
Andre,
I had the same problems when i wasn't doing "1 shot" in the proper spirit, but one thing that was suggested that I now do is not dump "A" and "B" directly together. I'll put in "A", add the water, then "B". Don't know if this does anything or not, but worth a try.
Steve
Well, I have to admire your tenacity. A quitter you sure are not.
Let me know how your glycol mixed solution works out. And just to be on the safe side, I would suggest that you go ahead and mix up a separate Stock B solution.
BTW, just wondering if you have any of the pH strips to test the working solution? If so, it should be over about pH 10.9.
Sandy
"Was opened immediately and placed in clean grolsch type bottle on Feb 10, 2006."
I don't know what a grolsch bottle is. Why not just leave everything in the original bottles ? That is one less place for contamination. The bottles may be clean, but perhaps your funnel is not.
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