Staining developers

After a month of low light and pushing, the weather has got a bit better and I've been able to expose some film at 250 with a view to developing in PMK Pyro. The skies in my new home are stormier, more interesting and lend themselves beautifully to the highlight tones that I've come to love in Pyro. This is Tmax 400 (which I love in pyro for sort of taking away a little of its modernity) straight out of the scanner with no tweaking, so good was the negative.

The Earl's folly at Mount Edgcumbe, with Plymouth Sound, Drake's Island and the Hoe behind.

drakesislandpyrotmaxearlsfolly-1-of-1.jpg
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
After a month of low light and pushing, the weather has got a bit better and I've been able to expose some film at 250 with a view to developing in PMK Pyro. The skies in my new home are stormier, more interesting and lend themselves beautifully to the highlight tones that I've come to love in Pyro. This is Tmax 400 (which I love in pyro for sort of taking away a little of its modernity) straight out of the scanner with no tweaking, so good was the negative.

The Earl's folly at Mount Edgcumbe, with Plymouth Sound, Drake's Island and the Hoe behind.
Click to expand...

Sorry to say I think you're seeing what you want to see. The highlights in this look very washed out. I don't think you can reap the benefits of pyro in the highlights with scanning, you need to print on VC paper, only then the stain will make highlight contrast softer.
 
retinax said:
Sorry to say I think you're seeing what you want to see. The highlights in this look very washed out. I don't think you can reap the benefits of pyro in the highlights with scanning, you need to print on VC paper, only then the stain will make highlight contrast softer.
Click to expand...

VC paper isn't needed with pyro, people used it with graded paper for decades.

Charles has three problems:

1: He used the file straight from the scanner and that NEVER, EVER gives a good result. Ever. His picture is just plain too light.

2: The negative was overdeveloped. This was shot on a day with harsh sun; you can see the hard shadows. Normal developing times are for less contrasty light. He should have given a stop more exposure then reduced developing time 25% That would have increased shadow detail and reduced the highlight densities.

3: His scan setting may have been wrong, too. You should aim for a low contrast scan to ensure that all highlight and shadow detail in the film is captured, then you can play with it in Photoshop to fine tune the tonality.

I've attached a corrected file, but it is not perfect. The original file just isn't good.

drakesislandpyrotmaxearlsfolly-corrected.jpg
 
Noting what Chris had to say about scans, I read up his report on his website about scanning with VueScan, and applied the lessons to my Epson V800. I shot this with Orwo N74 (grainy at 400 so I wanted to try Pyro to smooth the grain). I shot at 250 and added an extra half stop for a slightly more contrasty day (less so inside) and gave it the same time as I would HP5 less one minute. Also shot at 1/30 and f2 - so lucky with the result.

insidesheepstorchurch-1-of-1.jpg
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
Noting what Chris had to say about scans, I read up his report on his website about scanning with VueScan, and applied the lessons to my Epson V800. I shot this with Orwo N74 (grainy at 400 so I wanted to try Pyro to smooth the grain). I shot at 250 and added an extra half stop for a slightly more contrasty day (less so inside) and gave it the same time as I would HP5 less one minute. Also shot at 1/30 and f2 - so lucky with the result.
Click to expand...

That looks much better!
 
Chris's excellent developing time guide doesn't include Ilford Delta 400 at 250, so I thought I'd give it a go. Looking at a lot of other developing times it does seem to need a bit more than Tmax 400, but I didn't want to go too much over. So I gave it an extra 45 seconds (11mins 45 at 24C) and got delightful negatives.

The new arts centre in Plymouth (funded for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower departure in 1620) taken with an Elmar 90mm f4 collapsible M.

elmar-1-of-1.jpg
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
Chris's excellent developing time guide doesn't include Ilford Delta 400 at 250, so I thought I'd give it a go. Looking at a lot of other developing times it does seem to need a bit more than Tmax 400, but I didn't want to go too much over. So I gave it an extra 45 seconds (11mins 45 at 24C) and got delightful negatives.

The new arts centre in Plymouth (funded for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower departure in 1620) taken with an Elmar 90mm f4 collapsible M.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried Delta 3200 in PMK, but your result looks nice!
 
That's an idea - I might give that a go. IIRC it's really a 1000 Iso film, so I might try it at about 800 in PMK (lord knows what time, but I'll have a look) and see where we end up,

I have had a fiddle recently with other developers, and with the exception of Tmax for pushed HP5, I keep coming back to PMK Pyro. Ilford T grain films just have a little more grain than Tmax, and are about £2.50 a roll cheaper here, so I'll be concentrating on them for now.
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
That's an idea - I might give that a go. IIRC it's really a 1000 Iso film, so I might try it at about 800 in PMK (lord knows what time, but I'll have a look) and see where we end up,

I have had a fiddle recently with other developers, and with the exception of Tmax for pushed HP5, I keep coming back to PMK Pyro. Ilford T grain films just have a little more grain than Tmax, and are about £2.50 a roll cheaper here, so I'll be concentrating on them for now.
Click to expand...

Crap, I misstyped. I meant Delta 400! Since that what your photo was shot on 😛

I haven't tried Delta 3200 either, though.
 
It's what we history graduates refer to as a 'fertile error'. It's such an obvious film to try - it has the speed to back off a bit for developing and still give double the speed of the 400s. PMK does a lovely job in taming grain, a problem with the faster films. I show this example of a crop of two similar shots, one with Orwo N74 (a grainy film) at 250 in Pyro with Kodak Tmax 400 at 250 in Perceptol. Both in strong directional sunlight.

The first is in the Orwo in Pyro - highlights controlled and grain decent.

qe-1-of-1.jpg


The second is the Tmax in Perceptol - highlights blown but grain a bit better than the Orwo, but given the quality of the film and the use of Perceptol, a low grain developer, so it should be.

qecrop-1-of-1-1.jpg
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
It's what we history graduates refer to as a 'fertile error'. It's such an obvious film to try - it has the speed to back off a bit for developing and still give double the speed of the 400s. PMK does a lovely job in taming grain, a problem with the faster films. I show this example of a crop of two similar shots, one with Orwo N74 (a grainy film) at 250 in Pyro with Kodak Tmax 400 at 250 in Perceptol. Both in strong directional sunlight.

The first is in the Orwo in Pyro - highlights controlled and grain decent.

The second is the Tmax in Perceptol - highlights blown but grain a bit better than the Orwo, but given the quality of the film and the use of Perceptol, a low grain developer, so it should be.
Click to expand...

The Pyro shot on Orwo looks nice. You should try Tmax 400 in PMK, it is a nice combination, too!

abandoned-painting.jpg


fairfield-marathon.jpg


This was VERY high contrast light, and PMK did well with it. Both of the photos were Tmax 400 in PMK. 120 size; I haven't tried it in 35mm yet.
 
Beautiful Nokton! Such gorgeous tones.

I tried Fomapan 200 at 125 and gave it 8 minutes +15 secs to allow for the pre-soak as per Chris's superb guide. I liked the negatives (the cleanest I've yet got - not a single spot or scratch to clean up) but think 30 seconds less would just give a slightly thinner negative - just a quibble.

It's the best results I've had with any developer on Fomapan 200 and the extra stop of speed of a 200 is so useful when you are pulling. Shot on the FM2n with Voigtlander Ultron 40mm F2 - just lovely.

artsessential2-1-of-1.jpg
 


Tri-X in Pyrocat HD 5x7 neg. print on Forte FB in Ansco 130
 
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