FP4 + PMK in a slosher tray.

[false_Aesthetic]

Heya,

So I'm processing FP4+ in PMK in a slosher and am getting blotchy skies.

Everything is at 70 degrees.

2' water bath
7'30" in PMK. Agitation is done by lifting one side of the tray twice (within 5 seconds) every 15 seconds i.e. top raised twice at 12, left raised twice at 9, etc.
45" seconds in water bath.
5' in fixer.
2' in PMK- agitation is every 30 sec done by pulling slosher out of PMK and then inserting it again.
20' wash in gravity washer.

I've only used PMK with efke before and haven't gotten stuff like this. Any thoughts?
Thanks
T.



Image is attached.

[Gary Samson]

Are you agitating vigorously and continuously for the first 30 - 45 seconds after placing the slosher tray into the PMK solution tray? The developer needs to quickly replace the water that the sheet film has absorbed in order to insure even development. I would also not recommend the PMK after-bath folloeing the fixer step as it just adds additional stain which will not benefitin the printing of the negative.
Best,
Gary

[steve simmons]

Gordon has not recommended the after bath for years.


steve simmons

[false_Aesthetic]

Are you agitating vigorously and continuously for the first 30 - 45 seconds after placing the slosher tray into the PMK solution tray? The developer needs to quickly replace the water that the sheet film has absorbed in order to insure even development. I would also not recommend the PMK after-bath folloeing the fixer step as it just adds additional stain which will not benefitin the printing of the negative.
Best,
Gary

I'll def. try forgoing the water bath but I was just following the formulary directions "A plain water stop bath is excellent for all normal films and developers. Use a large volume of water and agitate roll and sheet film continuously. Use of an acid stop bath will strip the pyro stain."

As for the initial agitation... I do agitate vigorously and for about a min.


Since I've developed the same way for other types of film (efke 25 and hp5) I'm wonderin if this could have somethign to do with the film type (fp4). Thoughts?

T

[brian steinberger]

Are you using enough developer in your tray? You should have atleast 1/4" above the slosher in the tray. I use a little bit more. Also, you could cut the agitation cycles after the first minute back to every 30sec or even every minute, as I do.

FP4 is a great film. I highly doubt that it's the film, but it is certainly possible. The only way to find out is to shoot more from the same box. Good luck!

Brian

[Harold_4074]

This is roughly the process that I use, except for two things: I shoot for 68 F, which makes "normal" developing 10-1/2 minutes instead of your 7-1/2, and the agitation cycle is a bit different.

Instead of doing two lifts in five seconds, working around the tray, you might try doing one lift-pause-lower at two adjacent sides, alternating on the diagonals each agitation cycle. In other words, raise the top, allowing time for the developer to mostly drain to the bottom, and then lower. Repeat for the right side of the tray. A minute later, do the bottom and left side. If the lift-and-drop is too fast there won't be a great deal of large-scale turbulence as a wave just runs back and forth, leaving things pretty much as the were on a scale of centimeters. (You can check this by playing with food dye or ink in plain water--put a drop of color in the tray, and see what happens as you agitate.)

Increasing the development time alone may even out the development, and a bit of Photo-Flo in the presoak may not be a bad idea either.

[Richard Wasserman]

I think this is an agitation problem. I develop FP4+ in a slosher using Pyrocat instead of PMK and would occasionally get this kind of mottling when I didn't start agitating the instant I immersed the slosher in the developer tray. If it sat for even a few seconds I got mottling and sometimes what looked like ripples in water. I now start agitating fairly vigorously and randomly as soon as the film goes in the developer and keep it up for 1 minute and the problem disappeared, I now get very even development..