SP445 tank processing Delta100 and Pyrocat HD help please

[Laminarman]

I posted on another thread about blown highlights with Delta 100 and Rodinal. I am just not happy with the results in tonality (1:50) I have a ton of Delta 100 so that's not changing. I have Pyrocat HD from PF and have some test negatives exposed at 64 and 100 ISO. I just can't seem, after much searching, to find details on agitation and time for the Pyrocat in the SP445 tank. It's always tubes and tray info I'm finding. Is it possible to use this tank successfully? And what agitation would you start out with? I was going to start with the MDC times and agitation which is 16 minutes with the first full minute of agitation then 10 seconds every minute. Some posts say "Do NOT over agitate" while others say "You'll develop streaks if you don't agitate enough." These are not critical just tests, but any advice on how to start is appreciated. I have 2 sets of negs (2 each @64 and 2@100) so would like two approaches before the next run of tests. I'll do two runs of 2 negatives with 1 negative of each ISO.

[koraks]

16 minutes with the first full minute of agitation then 10 seconds every minute
16 minutes may be a bit generous, but will likely work OK. Checking the massive dev chart I see the same 16 minutes for EI100 and agitation 10 sec per 3 minutes. So I'd probably go with something like 14 minutes if you agitate every minute.

Agitation by 10 sec/minute will be just fine. I have used Pyrocat a lot with constant agitation as well and guess what...worked perfectly as well. Maybe a little higher b+f, but nothing that worried me personally. Only with very reduced agitation schemes (i.e. less than one agitation event per 3 minutes or so) I'd start thinking about streaks etc.

[Laminarman]

Thank you Koraks. I will be scanning all negatives so not sure if that makes a difference.

[koraks]

Scanning for many people makes a little easier to deal with negatives that are sub-optimal from a darkroom printer's perspective.
If you had trouble with blocked highlights before, you may want to check up on your scanning approach as the problem may be in the digital path and not so much the negative itself. Reason I'm saying this is that I've dealt with my fair share of hopelessly dense as well as thin negatives and scanning nearly always allowed the production of (sort of) acceptable results when darkroom printing had become rather challenging already (to say the least).
Although I have to admit that when it comes to very dense negatives, an enlarger has the edge over a scanner as you can generally burn through the dense areas, while a scanner may run into trouble. With thin negatives it's sort of the other way around; a scanner can pick up pretty subtle gradations that VC paper even at its hardest grade just refuses to translate into a meaningful contrast range.

[Laminarman]

I had studied Ken Lee and other scanning tutorials and I found some improvement when using "neutral" rather than the film specific setting on my 850. But its just something about the gradation in mid tones and highlights that doesn't seem to appeal to me no matter how much I scan, rescan. I don't get that subtle soft look I want. I get it more with Arista 100 but I only had a small amount of that to use. I have some Delta 100 processed by a lab and they all scan beautifully and look fantastic, so I thought I'd look at developer next. One thing I did NOT do which was recommended, was to use Rodinal at 1:100 instead of 1:50. May do that next.

[koraks]

Well this at least proves you can get from delta100 what you want. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how. Give it a try with the pyrocat, see what happens.

[Andrew Tymon]

Here is a starting point from the pyrocat hd site. https://www.pyrocathd.5x4.co.uk/pyrocat-hd-development-times/
You could expose four sheets and develop each for a different time say 8-10-12-14, 16 minutes seems a bit long for Delta.

[Laminarman]

Thank you Andrew. I'll try a few things this weekend and post back.

[Peter Lewin]

If you have the chance (don’t know how hard it would be with the Stearman tank) I strongly recommend the time tests Andrew suggested. I recently retested my tray processing using Pyrocat-HD and Ilford HP5+, and found my correct time was significantly shorter than the Massive chart, and also the Pyro recommendations after adding time for both tray processing and VC papers. Doremus posted an observation that Pyrocat is significantly more active in hard water (my case) which may explain the difference. But the only way for you to know for sure in your case is to try different times and use a “proper proof” to find your best development time.

[esearing]

How many sheets are you doing and what temperature and dilution? Pyrocat formulas HD and M are very dilute to begin with but can be used even more dilute depending on the density and contrast one desires. I lean a little thinner and bump up contrast in printing.

Here is my current routine when not using Steve Sherman's EMA technique.

For FP4+/Delta at EI 100 in SP445 tank at 70*F where scene falls between Zone3 and Zone8 and assumes I metered and exposed correctly.

Pyrocat M Dilution 3.5A + 3.5B + 475W Single Sheet!!! (Add .5ml A and B for each additional 4x5 sheet) (Delta gets .5ml less part B)
Presoak 5 mins
Initial figure8 Agitation for 2 mins after filling ( this seems to prevent streaking)
subsequent agitations at 3.5 Minutes for 30 seconds - Total time 12:30 . (Countdown Timer 12:30(2mins) , 7:15(30 sec) , 3:45 (30sec) , dump at 10secs-0.)
I might agitate every two minutes if I want to expand slightly or if I have 3-4 sheets.
water stop 1 minute continual agitation
Fix TF5 - 5 minutes. 30 second intervals of agitate and rest.
wash 15+ mins or shorter if I use wash aid.

[Laminarman]

How many sheets are you doing and what temperature and dilution? Pyrocat formulas HD and M are very dilute to begin with but can be used even more dilute depending on the density and contrast one desires. I lean a little thinner and bump up contrast in printing.

Here is my current routine when not using Steve Sherman's EMA technique.

For FP4+/Delta at EI 100 in SP445 tank at 70*F where scene falls between Zone3 and Zone8 and assumes I metered and exposed correctly.

Pyrocat M Dilution 3.5A + 3.5B + 475W Single Sheet!!! (Add .5ml A and B for each additional 4x5 sheet) (Delta gets .5ml less part B)
Presoak 5 mins
Initial figure8 Agitation for 2 mins after filling ( this seems to prevent streaking)
subsequent agitations at 3.5 Minutes for 30 seconds - Total time 12:30 . (Countdown Timer 12:30(2mins) , 7:15(30 sec) , 3:45 (30sec) , dump at 10secs-0.)
I might agitate every two minutes if I want to expand slightly or if I have 3-4 sheets.
water stop 1 minute continual agitation
Fix TF5 - 5 minutes. 30 second intervals of agitate and rest.
wash 15+ mins or shorter if I use wash aid.

Thank you for this detailed approach which I had not seen. I am doing 4 sheets total, but only two at a time.

[esearing]

In response to a PM questioning my single sheet dilution: Pyrocat dilution 1:1:100 assumes your are doing 8x10 or 36 exposure roll. if you use that same ratio for 1 or 2 sheets in a tank you get denser negatives. I rarely process more than 2 sheets at a time. The thing I really like about pyrocat is the response to changes in dilution and time. Part B can be reduced if you want less staining but need to reconfigure dilution. I used to like a bit more contrast with HD and used 4:3:475 for 14minutes.

HC110 can work the same way if you consider it to have linear dilution and time. IE if 1:31 is 6mins then 1:63 is 12mins as a starting point.

[CreationBear]

How many sheets are you doing

Steve Sherman's EMA technique

Eric--I've been following this thread with interest as well, thanks! A question: have you tried to tweak Steve Sherman's EMA regimen with four sheets of 4x5 by increasing the concentration of Pyrocat? I was starting to have pretty good luck by using the ABS tube method, but had to go to a "daylight" setup with a Paterson Orbital that I hope to use with two sheets of 5x7.

[esearing]

CreationBear: Out of respect for Steve I won't divulge his method since he sells it, but consider Steve's volume and dilutions for single sheet 5x7 is 825ML+. the Orbital volume looks to only hold 300ML. So for EMA technique you do not have enough liquid for dilution and developer exhaustion, unless you change out developer several times in place of agitation cycles. the SP4x5 tank is barely enough at 500ML and I had to bump up the ratio of part B to make it slightly more active even for just a single sheet. I do not think the orbital is the right tool for EMA with dilute pyrocat if you are trying to achieve Steve's desired outcomes. You could use it for Normal rotary dilutions up to 2:2:100 and maybe find a good method for standard processing. Not every image needs highlight compression and increased acutance.

There is a 5x7 x4 tank insert on the market that fits inside the Paterson 5 tank which is ~1600ML at bounetphoto, So you could use the EMA dilution/volume and still do daylight processing for 2 5x7 sheets.

[CreationBear]

There is a 5x7 x4 tank insert on the market that fits inside the Paterson 5 tank which is ~1600ML at bounetphoto, So you could use the EMA dilution/volume and still do daylight processing for 2 5x7 sheets.

Excellent, I will definitely check out the Paterson/insert option--as luck would have it, though, my community darkroom came back on-line recently, so I might just build out a couple of ABS tanks.:)

[Laminarman]

Here's an update. I developed two sheets each of Delta 100, one at 50ISO, one at 100ISO as follows

1. Rodinal 1:100 as per MDC and their recommended 18 minutes with agitation 10 seconds every 5 minutes.
2. Pyrocat HD 1:1:100 (I did 4ml/4ml/500ml) for 16 minutes agitate 10 seconds every 5 minutes

This was the first run and I'll refine but these are my observations (all prints scanned without adjustment, cropped, sharpened and processed in LR identically and printed identically):

The Rodinal surely has more contrast but is much more useable than lower dilutions. It is quite nice. I don't see a large amount of grain but haven't really stretched it, but is appears sharper than the Pyocat (as expected). These differences are pretty small in a normal sized 11/14 print. The PC image has a strange "purple" or blue cast to it. Is this from staining???????? I did NOT print in ABW but rather with color management in the printer turned off. The PC is certainly much lower in contrast and Rodinol, its' that weird purple cool tone that is odd to me. The Rodinal has to be shot at ISO 100 while I need to shoot Pyrocat at ISO 50.

[Andrew Tymon]

Can we see them?

[Laminarman]

I'm at work now. I have trouble uploading a full size image for some reason. I'll try later. They are pictures of a barn and for test purposes but I can try to upload later.

[Laminarman]

199775
199776
199777
199778

[Laminarman]

Photos are smaller than I anticipated. I resized to 5MP, should have gone larger. Anyways, it was -5 wind chill when I took these again for some beginning testing. You can see the puplish cast in the Pyrocat images (top).

[Andrew Tymon]

They all look purple to me. Can't recall seeing that before.

[Laminarman]

They all look purple to me. Can't recall seeing that before.

I did nothing in post processing such as color correction and some of it is in the upload maybe because printed out on paper with the right profile the Rodinal one is rich black and neutral but the Pyrocat one is a bit purple very similar to a selenium print done a bit too much. Now, if I ouput it to Silver Effex for my custom conversion it's just fine, but I wanted it as close to a true output scan as possible so the color isn't as concerning to me. I was mainly seeing if I could get more tonal range out of that Delta 100 (as 1:50 was not working for me too well). Given, this is a low key subject so next I'll move on to more test shots and use Pyrocat at ISO 100. I guess all I can say is that Pyrocat at that time and diluation is not a failure and I like Rodinal 1:100 better than 1:50.

[Andrew Tymon]

Sorry, didn't realise they were scans from prints. So looking at the results they are all usable. You like the Rodinal at 1:100 because it has more contrast? When you rate the film at half the box speed you are effectively giving the film one stop more exposure Of you had reduced the development by 20% of the 50 iso negatives the results would have looked different. Things are complicated by the extended minimal agitation technique you used.

You said you liked the results you got from the lab and that they scanned beautifully, they probably used the recommended time from the maker of the developer. The goal is to give adequate exposure for the shadows and minimum density for the highlight values.

[Laminarman]

Sorry, didn't realise they were scans from prints. So looking at the results they are all usable. You like the Rodinal at 1:100 because it has more contrast? When you rate the film at half the box speed you are effectively giving the film one stop more exposure Of you had reduced the development by 20% of the 50 iso negatives the results would have looked different. Things are complicated by the extended minimal agitation technique you used.

You said you liked the results you got from the lab and that they scanned beautifully, they probably used the recommended time from the maker of the developer. The goal is to give adequate exposure for the shadows and minimum density for the highlight values.

I think there's a little confusion here. I developed these and I scanned the negatives on an Epson V850 flat bed using VueScan software with little to no adjustment. I didn't put "Delta" in a film brand, just chose neutral for BW negative. I don't necessarily like the Rodinal better because in my prior shots with Rodinal at 1:50 I had trouble getting tonal separation in the darker mid tones but mostly the upper areas like sky, white building..etc. So i tried Pyrocat. I would tend to think with Pyrocat the overall lower contrast might be easier to work with given my hybrid workflow. I think I fell into the trap of using Rodinal only for it's sharpness characteristics but hadn't been pleased. So, given this was my first in Rodinal at 1:100 I could sure use it, but now I also have Pyrocat on hand. I could easily change film as I'm not in love with Delta 100, but like I said before I was given approximately 15 boxes of 4x5 all fresh. I guess I could sell it, but I figured I'd use it up as she gave it to me intending me to enjoy it. Let's assume I'm going to use Pyrocat next time, would you recommend a different agitation/time scheme? Thanks Andrew.

[Andrew Tymon]

How are you determining your exposure? Are you using the zone system or averaging? What is your output digital prints or gelatin silver? You could use the development times you already have and tweak from there. Eighteen or sixteen minute development times seem awfully long to me, I want to see what I've got right now:).
You could follow the sp445 tank instructions or decide on an agitation pattern you can keep consistent. Say initial agitation for one minute and then four inversions every minute thereafter. When you are testing keep notes of exposure time and temperature of development then you can tweak you results.
I found Delta hard to get on with it seems a little bland to me, I much prefer Fp4+. I know you got the film given but if it doesn't work for you sell it and buy film you do like.

[Laminarman]

Spot metering, in this case I metered the roof which is a slate gray so somewhat neutral 18% gray. Develop, scan and print to R2400 or R800 printers. I keep notes on everything so will work from here. I'll try more of the Delta in PC HD and go from there.

[esearing]

What temperature for developers and how consistent was it over the time? In my world, 2 sheets , 4/4/500 dilution, at 70*F, for pyrocat M (similar to HD) would be N+1 territory for Delta at box speed and would likely have more base stain than I like.
Instead of inverting the scan to positives, just show the negatives as scanned together in one 8x10 configuration. Then we could see staining, negative acutance, and contrast.

[Laminarman]

What temperature for developers and how consistent was it over the time? In my world, 2 sheets , 4/4/500 dilution, at 70*F, for pyrocat M (similar to HD) would be N+1 territory for Delta at box speed and would likely have more base stain than I like.
Instead of inverting the scan to positives, just show the negatives as scanned together in one 8x10 configuration. Then we could see staining, negative acutance, and contrast.

You mean scan all 4 together on the bed like one large 8x10 negative?? Never thought of that. Also, I went by the MDC and anything I could find out on line and the times I used were based on those, and everyone tells me it was maybe too long. Temperature was consistent (I tend to believe) and spot on at 68*F. I'm going to shoot more and pull back the development time a little bit. So more time gives more stain?

[esearing]

More part B gives more stain. Try 4/3.5/500 for a little less stain, or even 4/3/500. I think your 16 mins at 68*F is probably in the ball park, delta time/temp chart shows 14-ish, but with the agitation scheme you are using and reduced part B which reduces activity, 16mins sounds good to me.
If you have a step wedge put that in front of your negative in holder and shoot a white wall on a sunny day, focused at infinity, with 5 stops over what the meter tells you. That will give you something to measure tonality. Do a few of these and you can see the effect of changing time and our dilutions.
You will love Delta come spring time. It really separates the yellows, yellow-green, and greens very well.

[Laminarman]

More part B gives more stain. Try 4/3.5/500 for a little less stain, or even 4/3/500. I think your 16 mins at 68*F is probably in the ball park, delta time/temp chart shows 14-ish, but with the agitation scheme you are using and reduced part B which reduces activity, 16mins sounds good to me.
If you have a step wedge put that in front of your negative in holder and shoot a white wall on a sunny day, focused at infinity, with 5 stops over what the meter tells you. That will give you something to measure tonality. Do a few of these and you can see the effect of changing time and our dilutions.
You will love Delta come spring time. It really separates the yellows, yellow-green, and greens very well.

Thank you for that information, that's helpful. Now, I have a really dumb question. Are you supposed to be able to see the stain or the negatives look different? They look pretty standard to me. I did a roll of 120 last night and they're drying so haven't inspected them or scanned them yet.

[Andrew Tymon]

You should be able to see the stain. Though if you used an acid stop bath it can reduce the stain. There are no dumb questions. Something to read https://sandykingphotography.com/resources/technical-writing/pyro-staining-developers

[Laminarman]

I used a water stop bath only. Hmmm I'll have to look when I get home. I don't recall them looking any different but then again it was midnight and I wanted to get to bed so washed and hung.

[koraks]

The stain is very apparent if you hold two negatives side by side, one developed in a staining developer and one done in a regular developer. Looking at just a single negative it's quite easy to overlook.

[esearing]

Hp5 developed in PF130 vs Pyrcat M - film test.

https://i1.wp.com/www.searing.photography/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/anscovspyroM2.jpg?w=1000

[Laminarman]

Mine are not nearly so brown, but held up side by side to a Rodinal neg they are surely different. Just a bit warmer.

[Andrew Tymon]

Stain does vary some depending on film. What fixer did you use?

[koraks]

Mine are not nearly so brown, but held up side by side to a Rodinal neg they are surely different. Just a bit warmer.

Tabular grain films like delta and tmax generally stain a little less conspicuously than cubic/mixes "old style" emulsions, I find.

[Laminarman]

I used Ilford rapid fix, water stop bath.

[esearing]

Don't judge stain until you print a few. Different light sources seem to treat it differently. If it goes pink-ish then your HD is about to die.

[Laminarman]

Don't judge stain until you print a few. Different light sources seem to treat it differently. If it goes pink-ish then your HD is about to die.

I hope my HD doesn't die, but I'm not sure what an HD is. I scan and print on an Epson R800, I haven't used an enlarger in 25 years.

[Andrew Tymon]

HD=Pyrocat. Has been known to fail unexpectedly that's why I always develop a small piece of film before using it on important negatives.

[Laminarman]

Ah got it!! It's a brand spanking new bottle so I hope not.