I think I'm going to try the D-23 formula in "The Negative", for TXP (Tri-X pro, 120 format). The amount is 1 litre. Should I use my standard 20 oz.'s for 1 120 roll AS IT IS LISTED, i.e., is this a stock formula or already diluted?

water 750cc Elon 7.5g Sod. sul. 100g water to make 1 litre

70 deg. at say 12 min. with 5 sec. agitation every 30sec. to start?

...I've only used pyro since the summer, and I forget how everything else works...

Thanks all.

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000

Answers

Try stock and try it at 1:1; pick which you like. 1:1 will need about 30% more time, more or less.

Note that the EI of TXP will probably be around 160-200 or so.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), January 20, 2000.

John your timing was perfect; I was just about to shoot when I read your post while the model was getting ready. I EI'ed at 200ISO. Thanks, I'll try it stock for the first roll...shawn.

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), January 20, 2000.

Good luck! We'll see how good we both are at guessing.

I haven't used TX in years; however, I did try D-23 with HP5 a couple of years ago. D-23 1:1 9'30"/68F EI 250 worked ok with HP5 although it was a tad flat and should've gone to maybe 11'.

But it didn't show me anything real spiffy. It worked, acutance wasn't all that wonderful, grain wasn't very fine and there's the speed loss.

Since you have some ingredients and are playing with developers...

D-76H

Water 750ml 125F

Metol 2.5g

Sodium sulfite 100g

Borax (20 Mule Team) 2g

Water to make 1.0L

This is simply the classic D-76 formula with a little more metol and no hydroquinone; use as you would ordinary Kodak D-76. 1:1 for 13'/68F works for HP5+ EI 400.

Also, I've found it to be worthwhile using distilled water to make developers. Sometimes a calcium sludge will form in developers that don't have the assorted sequestering agents that are in commercial developers that make them suitable for mixing with tap water.

I just went through a short Pyro (PMK+/Leban) tryout with HP5.

While I see how it'd be great for platinum printers or a heroic-measures contraction when faced with a very high-contrast scene, I didn't find it useful for general photography and printing on silver VC paper. Compared to D-76H, it gave negs that were significantly grainier, not particularly sharp, more than a stop slower and printed on VC paper with very low highlight contrast.

That it could hold a couple stops more highlight range didn't really matter; the light tones still looked like muck. I can get that range or more with other developers and not have the highlights block up to such low contrast.

Note that this was PMK+, which is intended for rotary agitation; plain PMK may perform differently.

Also, the stained negs were difficult to make sense out of with a densitometer. While the optical (b&w) channel read low (compared to "normal"), the blue channel read really high but the negs printed on VC paper close to what the optical curve indicated. Or iow, on VC paper the stain wasn't contributing printing density so much as yellow-green (low contrast) filtration.

Phil Davis has speculated that the useful curve shape is somewhere about midway between the two, but how it'll print depends on the paper used etc.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), January 21, 2000.

Thanks John. I'll use your D-76H formula, since it sounds as though D-23 isn't what I'm looking for. I posed a similar question on pdn but I'm going to go with this...shawn

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), January 21, 2000.

John you saved my butt; I owe you. D-76H worked very well. To be honest, I'm not too keen on TXP though, it seems. Great highlight tonality, but for some reason I can't figure out yet I'm just not fussy on my results, even though they are "fine". Back to FP4, t-grain technologies and Tech Pan I think...it seems TMY is becoming my standard MF emulsion. And I like PMK too much to have to switch developers. shawn

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), January 21, 2000.

Here's a zinger for you...D-76 1:1 was the standard developer used in R&D of the T-Max films. T-Max developer didn't exist, and actually has nothing at all to do with T-Max films.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), January 21, 2000.

I guess that's why there are so many complaints about that combo. If I recall, I tried TMax developer last summer and I lost my highs, but I didn't really try to dial it in, so such could have been my own error. TMY and PMK kill. I know if I'm right at the threshold, but just want a little more puch in the highs, I can add 10-15% time with no fear with PMK, a confidence I have never found to be grounded with any other developer. Thanks again John.

shawn

ps I wish I could comment on your PMK results, but I have absolutely no experience doing it any way save with a small tank and my kitchen (and camera club) sink...

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), January 21, 2000.