efke 25 in Pyrocatechin - dark stain

**Tim Povlick** · 7-Sep-2008, 16:51

Greetings,

I have been trying Efke 25 in Photo Formulatory Pyrocatechin and ending up with a very dark stain. Granted it's supposed to make a stain but on the edges of film not exposed it looks to be about half as dense as fully exposed portion. I am shooting at rated ASA and developing in Jobo 3010. Originally I was developing for 12 minutes and stain was way to much. I dropped back to 8 minutes, water stop all at 75degsF and it still seems pretty dark. The pyro is about 3 weeks old, glass bottles. It looks like a blush wine so I assume it's still good. Should I drop to 6 minutes development time? How much stain should one shot for?

I contact printed and the results look "not bad". Grain looks okay as does acutance so it seems I am on the right track.

TMaX 100 does not pick up nearly the stain (as expected).

_ .. --
TiM

**Jim Fitzgerald** · 7-Sep-2008, 17:02

Tim, I develop my Efke-25 in Pyrocat-HD with minimal agitation at 14 minutes at a high dilution. This film develops quickly. I would try 6 minutes with continuous agitation in a Jobo. I would drop the temperature to 72 degrees also. The real test is how does the neg print? You should get a nice light brown stain with this film.

Jim

**Tim Povlick** · 7-Sep-2008, 21:07

Hi Jim,

The contact print looked good to me. My technique is crude, hold 4x5 viewer above contact frame and start counting the exposure time. First try was pretty much on the mark. The real test will be how they scan.

I will drop to 6 minutes development and give it a go. I wasn't sure the developer was still good or not; and will assume it is. I develop at ambient temperature, therefore 72F calls for very early morning procedure when it's still cool.

I am going to switch to the pyro HD you mention as this seems to be the favorite.

Thanks very much for your help.

Best Regards,
Tim

**Jan Pedersen** · 7-Sep-2008, 21:25

Tim, Since you are using a Jobo, Pyrocat MC is a variant of the Pyrocat family and was designed for continuous agitation. It may be a better fit for your developing process. Processing time is pretty close to those of the HD.

jan