Experience With Divided Pyrocat-HD?

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thronobulax

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Of late, I've fiddled a bit with divided Pyrocat-HD for purposes of controlling very large ranges of light.

I've gotten decent results with a dilution of 1+15 for each bath for 35mm Fomapan 200 and Kodak Double X, for 6 and 7 minutes in each bath respectively.

Yesterday, I took some test shots with 5x4 into a huge SBR - probably around 14 stops or so.

This time I developed for 5min in 1+10 for each bath.

The negatives came out almost unusably thin and underexposed.

Any ideas what might be a more productive approach?

Thankfully, I took backup negatives which I will process by other means.
 
This is not my area of expertise, so a pinch of salt is needed.
You have changed two variable at the same time. I’m pretty sure that you already know that best experimental practice is to vary only one.
 
David M said:
This is not my area of expertise, so a pinch of salt is needed.
You have changed two variable at the same time. I’m pretty sure that you already know that best experimental practice is to vary only one.
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Well, yes, but I would have expected to be in the general ballpark. On the positive side, the backup negatives responded rather nicely to a higher-than-usual dilution for semistand development.
 
It seems very unlikely, but a fingerprint, contaminated with stop or fixer, could produce this effect for the first, anomalous batch. Baffling. As I say, it seems improbable.
 
Earlier you asked for suggestions. Here are a few.

Forget about taking photographs in extremely bright contrasty light. Wait for more favourable light.

Stop messing about with fancy development methods, such as divided developer, semi-stand and stand development. Get yourself some D76 and use it with regular agitation at a dilution of 1+3. This will give you all the highlight control you need, and result in excellent all-round print quality.

Forget about Fomapan 200 in 35mm format. It is bland and quite lacking in any kind of character. Switch to FP4. Develop it in Perceptol at a dilution of 1+3, with traditional regular agitation, and prepare to be amazed. D76 at 1+3 is also very good with FP4, but I think Perceptol has the edge...

I know you won't do any of this. You are having too good a time with your own methods......
 
Alan Clark said:
Earlier you asked for suggestions. Here are a few.

Forget about taking photographs in extremely bright contrasty light. Wait for more favourable light.

Stop messing about with fancy development methods, such as divided developer, semi-stand and stand development. Get yourself some D76 and use it with regular agitation at a dilution of 1+3. This will give you all the highlight control you need, and result in excellent all-round print quality.

Forget about Fomapan 200 in 35mm format. It is bland and quite lacking in any kind of character. Switch to FP4. Develop it in Perceptol at a dilution of 1+3, with traditional regular agitation, and prepare to be amazed. D76 at 1+3 is also very good with FP4, but I think Perceptol has the edge...

I know you won't do any of this. You are having too good a time with your own methods......
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It's not that I won't do any of this, it's that I've already done all that years ago.

D-76 as described is fine, but it cannot handle a big range of light without some fiddling. Semistand solves some problems, divided development shows some promise for others. I may yet explore SLIMT.
 
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Ian-Barber said:
I quite like FomaPan 200 in 35mm
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As do I, but you do have to treat it with respect. As @Ian Grant has noted here previously, Foma 200 likes to build contrast very rapidly (so does Foma 100, but I have less experience with it). You have to expose and develop with that in mind, but Foma 200 is very capable of producing fine images both in 35mm and 5x4. The 120 is an appealing film but they've had dreadful quality control issues with it.

Here are a few of my 35mm Fomapan 200 images - scans of silver prints, various Leica bodies and lenses:

1720457603092.png

1720457620700.png


1720457642214.png
 
I've got nothing against Foma 200. I have used a lot of it in 5 x 4, where it is a lot cheaper than FP4. But 35mm Fp4 ticks all the boxes for me. A hint of grit and grain. Sharp, with textures rendered crisply - not smoothed out. And above all, bright well separated mid-tones that really sing out.
I realise that this is all a matter of personal taste, and we all have our own ideas about what looks best.
 
Alan Clark said:
I've got nothing against Foma 200. I have used a lot of it in 5 x 4, where it is a lot cheaper than FP4. But 35mm Fp4 ticks all the boxes for me. A hint of grit and grain. Sharp, with textures rendered crisply - not smoothed out. And above all, bright well separated mid-tones that really sing out.
I realise that this is all a matter of personal taste, and we all have our own ideas about what looks best.
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I like FP4+ a whole bunch too. It's likely to become my 3rd option film once I: A) run out of bulk Fomapan 200 and B) Run out of my stash of actual Plus-X. This will give me a 35mm lineup of: FP+4, Double X, and Tri-X to cover ISOs low to high. That lower ISO slot used to be occupied by Agfapan APX 100, but my understanding is that it is either no longer made at all or is formulated differently than legacy APX.
 
I used FP3 for years before FP4 was born in 1968 and still use it to this day, together with it's younger brother HP3/4 and now HP5+, a roll of which I have just developed, so you are preaching to the converted Alan. Unfortunately, my meagre pension doesn't allow such an indulgence very often and Foma 200 stands me in good stead. "Each to their own" as you said Alan.
 
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I have a buk roll of 35mm Fomapan 200. A compensating or 2 bath developer sounds like a feasible idea to develop this film. I also have some Foma 200 in 5x4. Does the sheet film develop any different from the 35mm film?
 
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Camerashy said:
I have a buk roll of 35mm Fomapan 200. A compensating or 2 bath developer sounds like a feasible idea to develop this film. I also have some Foma 200 in 5x4. Does the sheet film develop any different from the 35mm film?
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I develop my 5 x4 sheet film in a Paterson Orbital. It gets continuous agitation. Ilford say reduce development time by 15% but I use a very gentle agitation method, and have always got good results with the same time as I use for the same film in 120 and 35mm formats.
So Foma 200 - sheet film - taken in sunny conditions gets rated at 100 and developed for 10 minutes at 20 degrees C. in ID11 diluted at 1+2. When I tried Foma 200 in 120 and 35mm formats I used the same development time. But didn't continue using it because I thought FP4 was better.
 
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