WD2D & TMax 400

[Alan9940]

Based on an article by Bob Herbst, I've decided to try TMax 400 developed in WD2D to craft in-camera negatives for pt/pd printing. Per Bob's article, he recommends 16 mins @ 68F for tray development. Since I live in the desert southwest and my darkroom temp most of the year doesn't lend itself to open tray processing, I plan to develop 4x5 film in a manual inversion style tank. Per the instructions for WD2D for roll film processing, the agitation technique is continuous for the first minute, followed by 15 secs out of every 30 secs thereafter. With this amount of agitation, I would guess that my development time would be less than 16 minutes given the fact that each sheet of film in a tray will only see fresh developer every 30 secs.

Anybody out there use this particular combination of film/developer with tank development for pt/pd printing? I'd much appreciate getting your development time as a starting point.

Thank you.

[peter schrager]

Alan try 13 to 14 minutes...are you doing 4x5 or MF??
I used this combo lots before I discovered Pyrocat...make it yourself it's very cheap that way
makes nice negatives especially for platinum/azo alternate process
have fun!!
Peter

[Alan9940]

Thanks, Peter. I'll be doing 4x5, B's (Bounet Photography) developing reel in a Paterson 3 reel tank. I've already mixed up the developer; as soon as the reel arrives I'm good to go. I've used Pyrocat-HD for many years and briefly dabbled with other staining developers, but thought I'd give Bob's formula a go.