T-Max 400 in Pyro

[Bill_1856]

There seems to be a lot of good things said about the new T-max 400 film. I never cared for the old T-Max emulsions, but how is the new 400 in Pyro developers?

[Gem Singer]

Bill,

From our experiences with the new T-Max 400, it's okay in Pyrocat-HD but much better in Kodak HC110, dilution B.

[D. Bryant]

Bill,

From our experiences with the new T-Max 400, it's okay in Pyrocat-HD but much better in Kodak HC110, dilution B.
Gem,

How is it better in HC110? I've had very good results with PCAT and TMAX developers. I prefer TMAX if I need to push roll films a stop and also if I plan to scan which is almost a certainty anymore.

Don Bryant

[Bob McCarthy]

I've found tmax100 and hc110 are a sweet combo.

But my latest work with tmax 400 is using good old fashion D23 of all things. About 9 minutes nails it.

Mixed up fresh and used 1:1. Tmax always worked with D76, maybe it's the fresh metal?

Bob

[Jay DeFehr]

TMY-2 works great with 510-Pyro 1:100, 16 min, 70F, semi-stand. Gorgeous!

[Ken Lee]

People are sincere and well-meaning, but examples, side-by-side comparisons and actual test data, are more convincing, compelling, and helpful to others. Otherwise, it's little more than anecdotal evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence).

Psst - Want a hot tip ? Sea Biscuit in the 3rd race at Belmont. Keep it to yourself ;)

[Gem Singer]

Don,

Ken is correct.

My statement was purely subjective, based on anecdotal evidence. There were no actual scientific tests comparing Pyro and non-Pyro developers.

It seemed that Pyrocat-HD gave us the best results with conventional grained Ilford HP-5+ film, using dip-and-dunk semi-stand agitation.

HC110 gave us the best results with TMax-2 fabricated grain film, using constant agitation in a Jobo Master drum.

Of course results vary depending on the developer used, type and size if the film, the method of agitation, the concentration of the developer, the source of the water. etc., etc.

[Bob McCarthy]

The standard is: negatives that meet ones expectations and vision.

It is subjective IMHO.

Bob

[Ken Lee]

An in-depth article entitled TMY vs. TMY-2 appeared in View Camera magazine a while back. It's not freely available, but subscribers can download it on the Archives page (http://www.viewcamera.com/archives.html).

You can search here and on APUG.org for previous discussions.

Notably, Prof. Sandy King's contributions are always backed up with actual data.

[D. Bryant]

People are sincere and well-meaning, but examples, side-by-side comparisons and actual test data, are more convincing, compelling, and helpful to others. Otherwise, it's little more than anecdotal evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence).

Psst - Want a hot tip ? Sea Biscuit in the 3rd race at Belmont. Keep it to yourself ;)

Ken,

With all due respect Ken I do realize our statements here have been anecdotal, and personally I don't see anything wrong with that as long as someone isn't claiming superiority or otherwise trying to get into a pissing match.

I was just asking a casual question. Just for the record I'm very capable and geared up to produce charts and graphs since I own several densitometers and the BTZS software which makes graphing and comparisons of film development very easy to do, but frankly I tire of those type of discussions in a forum format. If we really want to get precise shouldn't this all be discussed in the context of how the film will get printed? Or least specify the CI resulting from the developer time, temp, dilution chosen.

I think subjective evaluations are fine, most of us here realize such comments are just that - subjective.

I didn't realize I had to have my lab coat on when we posting in this forum, geez.

In the end I assume anyone with enough sense will make their own judgments by testing the film themselves.

Don Bryant

[mcfactor]

I just developed my first sheet of it in pyrocat-hd 1:1:10 in trays for 11 mins. The neg came out a but thin for my liking (I print contact sheets). But it was incredibly sharp and the tones were beautiful. It was a portrait of a girl (my sister) with very light skin and I think it represented the tones in her face very well. I am excited to try more of it.

On a side note, I never really liked HC-110, I felt it was overly grainy and not nearly as sharp. And that goes for both fabricated and traditional grained films.

[Ken Lee]

"With all due respect Ken I do realize our statements here have been anecdotal, and personally I don't see anything wrong with that as long as someone isn't claiming superiority or otherwise trying to get into a pissing match.

I was just asking a casual question. Just for the record I'm very capable and geared up to produce charts and graphs since I own several densitometers and the BTZS software which makes graphing and comparisons of film development very easy to do, but frankly I tire of those type of discussions in a forum format. If we really want to get precise shouldn't this all be discussed in the context of how the film will get printed? Or least specify the CI resulting from the developer time, temp, dilution chosen.

I think subjective evaluations are fine, most of us here realize such comments are just that - subjective.

I didn't realize I had to have my lab coat on when we posting in this forum, geez.

In the end I assume anyone with enough sense will make their own judgments by testing the film themselves."

I'm sorry Don - I didn't mean to be rude or disrespectful. Please overlook my inconsiderate tone.

You are right: We should never feel obliged to present a technical paper in order to share our subjective evaluations of anything: film, equipment, especially photos.

[sanking]

An in-depth article entitled TMY vs. TMY-2 appeared in View Camera magazine a while back. It's not freely available, but subscribers can download it on the Archives page (http://www.viewcamera.com/archives.html).

You can search here and on APUG.org for previous discussions.

Notably, Prof. Sandy King's contributions are always backed up with actual data.

Ken,

Thanks for the nice comment. However, along with the rest of the contributors I have been known to offer an opinion every now and then. What follows is mostly opinion.

Gordon Hutchings wrote a very good book on pyro, The Book of Pyro, and published it in 1992, along with the PMK formula. It is the book that got most of us interested in developing film in pyro developers, in spite of the fact that John Wimberely had introduced WD2D, a modern version of Pyro, in the 1970s. We also owe most of the current paranoia about the toxicity of pyro to Hutchings, thank you very much.

In his book Hutchings expressed a preference for Ilford films, FP4+ and HP5+. For some reason that preference became ingrained in many photographers who began using PMK, and in all of the early photo lists of the 1990s what Hutchings expressed as a preference turned into a law that was interpreted as "T-Grain emulsions do not work with pyro." Totally absurd of course, but when you have important people perpetuating nonsense it is easy to understand that the rest of us might be confused.

I have done some pretty extensive testing of T-grain films, and printed with them, and have found that they indeed develop very nicely in pyro developers. They stain about as well as traditional emulsions and, depending on type of agitation, also give good adjacency effects.

TMY-2 is also an outstanding film for those who need a lot of expansion as in the right developer it is easy to get enough contrast even for very low contrast subjects.

TMY-2 has one major characteristic that I do not like, and that is the fact that it gives fairly high B+F general stain. It is of course higher with some pyro developers than others, but even pyro staining developers that give a very low general stain with FP4+ give fairly high general stain with TMY. This is not an important issue for photographers who scan their negatives, or print them on silver gelatin papers in the darkroom, but it is an important issue for alternative printers as the general stain will greatly increase exposure times, which are in the best of circumstances already quite long.

Some people don't like TMY because of its enhanced red sensitivity, but that is another issue not related to pyro.

Sandy

[Merg Ross]

I just developed my first sheet of it in pyrocat-hd 1:1:10 in trays for 11 mins. The neg came out a but thin for my liking (I print contact sheets). But it was incredibly sharp and the tones were beautiful. It was a portrait of a girl (my sister) with very light skin and I think it represented the tones in her face very well. I am excited to try more of it.

On a side note, I never really liked HC-110, I felt it was overly grainy and not nearly as sharp. And that goes for both fabricated and traditional grained films.

I believe (please correct me) that you also use the Beutler formula for processing. I always have liked it for portraits, so was wondering: how would you compare Pyrocat-HD reults to the Beutler negatives?

Gem Singer introduced me to Pyrocat-HD and I find it to be terrific with the TMY-2. I think that you will find Pyrocat-HD negatives to appear a bit thin, however from my experience they print up beautifully.

[Bob McCarthy]

My own perspective is not entirely about film development properties. I have not embraced pyro because I develop in open trays, I have occasional skin contact with the developer and can be in the darkroom for hours at a time.

While metol can be a problem for some, it is not for me at this time.

There are many ways to skin a rabbit.

Bob

[Jim Noel]

I just developed my first sheet of it in pyrocat-hd 1:1:10 in trays for 11 mins. The neg came out a but thin for my liking (I print contact sheets). But it was incredibly sharp and the tones were beautiful. It was a portrait of a girl (my sister) with very light skin and I think it represented the tones in her face very well. I am excited to try more of it.

On a side note, I never really liked HC-110, I felt it was overly grainy and not nearly as sharp. And that goes for both fabricated and traditional grained films.

Do you really mean 1:1:10? Or should it be 1:1:100?

Jim

[Jay DeFehr]

People are sincere and well-meaning, but examples, side-by-side comparisons and actual test data, are more convincing, compelling, and helpful to others. Otherwise, it's little more than anecdotal evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence).

Psst - Want a hot tip ? Sea Biscuit in the 3rd race at Belmont. Keep it to yourself ;)

Anecdotal evidence is what was requested, and what's wrong with that? I could post a characteristic curve showing a short toe and long, straight line section, but what would it prove? The OP's question was posed informally, and informal responses are perfectly adequate. If someone wants a data set, they should generate their own, and not assign it to others in the form of a forum posting.

[Drew Wiley]

I have always gotten better results with PMK for T-max films than other kinds of developers, at least for general shooting. But this new 400 really sings in PMK.

[Drew Wiley]

Sandy - I do not get any more base stain with TM400 in PMK than in HC-110. In fact it's almost nil, probably the density of the base alone. But I'm developing in trays
(or manual drums for smaller formats), so there's little aerial oxidation.

[sanking]

Sandy - I do not get any more base stain with TM400 in PMK than in HC-110. In fact it's almost nil, probably the density of the base alone. But I'm developing in trays
(or manual drums for smaller formats), so there's little aerial oxidation.

Yes, that is also my experience. But if TMY is developed with PMK in rotary (continuous) agitation with the small amount of solution typical of Jobo the story is very different as there will be a lot of general (not image) stain. True of other films as well unless some measured is taken to counter the excess oxidation.

Sandy

[Ken Lee]

Anecdotal evidence is what was requested, and what's wrong with that? I could post a characteristic curve showing a short toe and long, straight line section, but what would it prove? The OP's question was posed informally, and informal responses are perfectly adequate. If someone wants a data set, they should generate their own, and not assign it to others in the form of a forum posting.

Again, allow me to apologize for the inconsiderate tone of my earlier reply. There is certainly room here for all kinds of recommendations, formal or informal.

It was not my intention to assign a task to anyone, nor to suggest that sensitometric charts constitute the only valid mode of discourse - and I regret that my earlier posting conveyed any such impression.

My intention (poorly executed I confess) was merely to suggest that while personal endorsements can be helpful, we are likely to be even more helpful to others, when we explain why we prefer one method over another.

[Bob McCarthy]

Ken, no reason for self flageration. Your opinion is certainly valid, whether I agree or not. Besides your flower photography alone implies to me your opinion should be strongly concidered. Anyone who visits your site can see your are strongly process oriented.

bob

[Larry Gebhardt]

I have just started using Pyrocat HD as a semistand developer. One outing I took the same shot on Acros and TMY-2 (4x5 format). I didn't nail the contrast exactly between the two films, but they are only off by about a half grade. The think I noticed most was the strong edge effects I got on the TMY-2. Makes the image much sharper looking. Almost looks like slightly heavy unsharp masking in photoshop. At a 12X enlargement (optically printed a small section) the TMY-2 shot looks much sharper, and the grain is negligible in both films.

Subsequent shots have led me to form a very favorable opinion of TMY-2 in Pyrocat. It is becoming my most used combination. I should test it against the other 400 speed films, but life is short.

[Scott Davis]

I'll post an example later, but I've been very happy with TMY2 and Pyrocat HD. I have a shot done with that combination, printed in platinum/palladium, from my 14x17. I have no other standard of comparison other than FP4+ in Pyrocat HD, because that's the only developer I've used for the past five years, and my film choices are also pretty narrow - FP4+, Fomapan 200, and TMY2.

[Ken Lee]

I haven't shot a lot of it since switching over to mostly 5x7, but here are a few images made on 4x5 TMY-2 and developed in Pyrocat HD which demonstrate tonality.

Portrait (http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/gallery/KenLee4.html)

Still Life (http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/gallery/KenLee6.html)

Of course, with respect to tonality, the old TMY in Pyrocat HD was nothing to complain about.

Still Life (http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/gallery/KenLee5.html)

[mcfactor]

Jim, you are right, I meant 1:1:100



I believe (please correct me) that you also use the Beutler formula for processing. I always have liked it for portraits, so was wondering: how would you compare Pyrocat-HD reults to the Beutler negatives?

Gem Singer introduced me to Pyrocat-HD and I find it to be terrific with the TMY-2. I think that you will find Pyrocat-HD negatives to appear a bit thin, however from my experience they print up beautifully.

Merg, you are correct, I had been using Beutler's for my HP5 for a while but I had been getting somewhat mixed results with the combo. I didnt really feel that HP5 was giving me the sharpness and depth (for lack of a better word) that I wanted.

So I tried tmy-2 and Pyrocat (so its also not really a fair comparision since I havent tried HP5 in pyrocat). But the Pyrocat is very, very sharp, as sharp as Beutler's! And the grain (and tonality) is better, making the images look smoother and sharper. I had resisted trying tmy-2 because I had tried tmax 100 and not really liked the look, but I was very impressed with tmy-2 in pyrocat. I will probably continue to use it for my 8x10 stuff.

Oh, and I use pyrocat in trays, I just use rubber gloves (as I do with any developer)

-Noah
www.noahmclaurine.com
www.cousincorinne.com

[Andrew O'Neill]

I have almost gone through 6 boxes of 8x10 Timmy-2, and I love it. It is absolutely lovely in pyrocat-hd. A superb film and developer combo for alt processes (and silver printing). I just wish it wasn't so damn expensive... and that they would put it in 25 sheet boxes at the very least.

Noah, HP5 in pyrocat-hd is a great combo, too. I've used it for years. For both Timmy-2 and HP5 I use pyrocat-hd at 2+2+100. 21C in BTZS tubes.