Pyro DEA Formula Test

[zarrir_junior]

<p>I have just put my hands on two liters of DEA (dietanolamine) 98,5%. I am about to make an attempt to develop a roll in my Jobo following directions given by Jay de Fehr an year ago. His suggestion:<br>

Ascorbic acid 1g<br />Catechol 10g<br />DEA to 100ml<br>

As per the description, i should mix the stock solution as 510-Pyro, thus starting with 30ml of DEA, add chemicals, stirr and finally add the remaining 70ml of DEA. Then heat with stirring until the solution is clear.<br>

Should i dilute it 1:100 to make the working solution? Is it necessary to fill the entire Jobo tank as with the other Pyro developers? How long would the stock solution last inside an amber vaccuum-machined glass bottle? Would 7 minutes at 20C and slowest Jobo speed be a good starting point? I use TF-3 for fixer.</p>

 

[peterbcarter]

<p>I would fire off a pm to Jay and get it from the horse's mouth.</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Hi Peter, where can i find his email? Thanks.</p>

[jay_de_fehr]

<p>Hello Zarrir!</p>

<p>My email is:</p>

<p>jdefehr@gmail.com</p>

<p>To mix:</p>

<p>Start with 70ml DEA at room temperature. Add all of the chemicals, and stir into a slurry. Top up with DEA to 100ml. Heat with stirring until dissolved. </p>

<p>Your working solution should have a pH around 10. I'd start with a 1:100 dilution and develop for 7 min @ 20C, for ISO 100 films, and 8:30 min @20C for ISO 400 films, and then adjust as needed. Use a presoak, and at least 200ml of working solution. This developer works best with intermittent agitation, and will lose some speed with rotary development, so expose generously.</p>

<p>I don't know how long the concentrated solution will last, but I hope you'll tell us! Good luck, and please report your results; I'm very interested to know how this works for you. By the way, where did you get your DEA?</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

 

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Hi Jay, nice to hear from you. Hope everything is fine.<br>

I got DEA here in Brazil where TEA sales are controlled by the Army and thus almost impossible to buy. DEA, on the other hand, is fairly easy to find. If there is no restriction at USA´s Customs i would be glad to buy some to ship to you there. Let me know.<br>

Next week there will be the International Automobile Salloon here in São Paulo, my city and i will shoot some rolls with my good old and friendly Rolleiflex. I started using Pyro this year with WD2D and got hooked imediately. One month later i had personal problems and stopped shooting till last month. I shot some rolls and developed them this week, using the same WD2D solution, vaccuum stopped and dated 20/11/2009. Solutions A and B looked ok at eye inspection and also looked ok after diluted to working solution. But my FP4 rolls turned out very thin, with little yellow stain and lots of general stain. I was disappointed but perhaps giving them 1:30 extra minutes of development next week i will be able to do what i want, which is to compare WD2D (first version, no EDTA), Pyrocat HD and Jay´s DEA.<br>

Although my scanner is kind of cheesy for negatives (HP G4050), i will try to post the results here. Curiously enough, i never tried PMK, but will try Rollo Pyro in the near future.<br>

Regards,<br>

Zarrir</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>I guess Jay found you, lol!</p>

<p>But.... the easy way to do it is to type jay's name in the search bar. It will find messages that he has responded to. Just click on his name and it will bring you to his profile. From there you can message him.</p>

<p>About the Wd2d, which I use allot. I got a motor base a while ago and started using it with it. I put some notes about it on <a href="http://myfilmstuff.blogspot.com/2010/06/wd2d-dev-times.html">http://myfilmstuff.blogspot.com/2010/06/wd2d-dev-times.html</a> . The short answer to making it work is to reduce the B by half. It would be interesting to see how it compares with Jay's stuff. I have always wanted to try it but it is difficult to get TEA here too (Canada). I wonder how hard it would be to get DEA.....</p>

[jay_de_fehr]

<p>Zarrir,</p>

<p>If you simply substitute DEA for TEA in the 510-Pyro formula, you'll get something similar to WD2D. TEA solutions have a lower pH than DEA solutions, which are similar in pH to carbonate developers, like WD2D. I would expect a DEA version of 510-Pyro to be more active than the TEA version, and produce more grain. On the other hand, it's been suggested that DEA is a silver solvent, so who knows? Good luck, and have fun!</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>I will try that too Jay. Can you guess how much should i reduce the developing times if i use 510-Pyro DEA? Ilford FP4+ ISO 100</p>

[jay_de_fehr]

<p>I'd try 5:30, to start. </p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Great! Will post results soon.</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>For those interested, bellow is the link to one of the pictures developed with the DEA formula above. Ilford FP4+ roll film 125, developed 7:30 minutes, 20Celsius, Jobo slowest speed. Negatives turned out kind of thin with a strong overall purple tint. The bellow scan was the best one i could pick.<br>

<a href="../photo/11986951">http://www.photo.net/photo/11986951</a></p>

[jay_de_fehr]

<p>Hello Zarrir,</p>

<p>The image looks great! The purple tint could be residual AH dye. You might try refixing in fresh fixer to remove it. If it is actually image stain, I've never seen purple, and I'd love to see a scan of the negative. If your negs are too thin, you can simply expose and/or develop more. I think your image looks great for a first trial. What dilution did you use? Your linked image looks grainless; does it look grainless to you, too? I think I'm going to try to find some DEA! Thanks for posting your results. </p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Hi Jay, i will make some prints tonight to see how they behave on paper. The negatives were probably 1/2 to 1 stop under exposed. They look slightly grainier than the ones developed in WD2D. I will probably try 9:30 minutes development next time. I used 1:100 dilution as per your recommendation and fixed with fresh TF3 for 3 minutes after a 3 minute water bath (no acid stop). I think you may be right about the residual anti halation dye because i have seen this strong purple tint before with D76 and Ilford FP4 although it looked much more pink than this odd purple. Film markings on the edge are only slightly faded. Would you like me to scan the negative as a positive and post the image here? I am tempted to add a pinch of metol for next roll...</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>By the way, if this is image stain, then i will probably have to use some yellow filtering when printing... :-) .</p>

[jay_de_fehr]

<p>Zarrir,<br>

I would love to see a negative scanned as a positive. I asked about grain specifically because some have suggested that DEA is a mild silver solvent, and might decrease the appearance of grain, but I suspect 1 part in 100 is not enough to have a noticeable effect. </p>

<p>I'm surprised that your developer produced more grain than WD2D. Hypercat with carbonate produces very fine grain compared to WD2D. <br>

I'm not surprised your negatives were underexposed. Hypercat loses significant film speed when used with rotary processing. If you intend to use your developer for rotary processing, I recommend phenidone over metol, as phenidone dissolves easily in TEA, and I presume DEA, while metol does not. </p>

<p>Good luck, and thanks for posting!</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Hi Jay, a little misunderstanding here. The image i posted is a DEA-PYRO developed negative. It is not a Hypercat one. I remember you first suggested a single solution formula with ASCORBIC ACID, CATECHOL AND DEA. This was the one i used. You later suggested that i could simply replace the TEA with DEA in the 510-Pyro to obtain something similar to WD2D. I have not tried this yet. Yesterday i contact printed these negatives and the little prints are obviously too dark. I then set everything up to enlarge this specific image when my enlarger lamp went belly up. I was focusing the negative at that point. I could definitely notice that the grains are so smaller and much more scattered (sparse) than i am used to see. Does that ring a bell with DEA being a silver solvent?</p>

[zarrir_junior]

<p>Interesting! I got some very nice 8x10 prints from those underdeveloped medium format negatives! Most were printed at 4.5 or 5 grade filtration to compensate for them being flat, F11 on my dichroic enlarger, 13 sec exposure average, MGIV Ilford paper. I will now continue with my tests with the developer, with and without phenidone to see what i come up with. You should try it Jay. Tone gradation looks better than prints made from properly Pyrocat-M developed negatives and shot at the same light conditions of those (slightly underexposed).</p>