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>

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

<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>

 

<p>I finally started using an alkaline fixer (TF-3) for my <strong>prints</strong>. I process them one-shot with Jobo. My question is: Should i keep using a pure water stop bath before pouring the fixer or do i need to acid-stop the development first? Or perhaps no stop bath at all (pour fixer imediately after developer)? I currently use Maxim Muir´s Black-Blue tone developer.</p>

<p>Does anybody know the aproximate shelf life of Benzotriazole diluted into:<br>

a) Water with a pinch of sulfite<br>

b) Ethil Alcohol<br>

c) Isopropil Alcohol<br>

Thanks!</p>

 

<p>The pack of duracells was not new, they had been already used to fire about 50 shots. So even when i turned on the flash with the Duracells alone, it would take forever for the green light to appear. Then, after each shot, about 40 seconds to recycle. When i plugged the Quantum, the green light remained on instantly (even after each shot) so definitely the Quantum Z was the primary source of power, not the AAs. But i was curious to know to which extent it was powering the flash. And if this behaviour is normal or not.</p>

<p>This week i acquired my first battery pack, a very lightly used Quantum Turbo Z for my Metz CL4. It charged fine, as per the user manual instructions. When connected to the flash, it did not power the Metz up. No reaction. I researched and discovered the CL4 still needs to have alkaline batteries inside even with the Quantum on. I put the batteries on and was then able to fire many times (using the Metz test button), almost instantly (which was expected with the battery pack). However, i noticed two weird things: First, the High Voltage light on the Quantum never turned on as it was mentioned in the user manual. Second, when i turned the Quantum off and removed the cord, the flash still fired as if the battery pack was attached, recycling very quickly!! Is this normal? It looks as if the Duracells got crazy and picked up extra power from the Quantum for some minutes. I appreciate any inputs.</p>

<p>Problem solved. I knew my Pentank (of war) was not faulty. Chinese batteries to blame. Do NOT buy them. The guys simply stamp an expiry date at the moment they ship the batteries, not when they are manufactured... Learnt the hard way.</p>

<p>No Peter. Specially because my user manual only mentions 6V batteries. Maybe you are confusing my camera with another Pentax? Maybe you are talking about the Pentax 67II?</p>

<p>I suspected that Terry. But how come the TTL meter works perfectly? Perhaps the mirror movement requires more voltage? In fact i never used this type of chinese alkaline battery. I always used Maxwell batteries for this camera. Have you experienced this problem?<br>

Terribly i cannot get any other at this time. So here i go with my Canon 450D again... Happy Christmas to you all, thanks for the quick responses!</p>

<p>Do you think it is a mechanical problem?</p>

<p>Hi, i have just picked up my good and old Pentax 67 for tonight´s Christmas pictures. It was asleep since 2006. Never had problems with it. It was stored without batteries. So i picked up one brand new Chinese Alkaline 6V 4LR44 (expiry date 2012) and loaded film and the TTL meter. Battery check is bright red and TTL meter working properly. BUT i tried to take a picture this afternoon and the mirror is stopping halfway up, as if the battery was dead! I had to press the reset button to get into place.<br>

Desperately i tried three more NEW AND SEALED batteries of the same batch with similar results. Mirror is stopping partway up. Few hours to go and so i beg you guys for any light. Anyone has EVER had this kind of (bad) experience? I dont want to go digital this year! Please help.</p>

<p>In The Darkroom Cookbook first edition, Anchell makes a correlation between Carbonate and Metaborate in terms of mass required for the same buffering activity. I do not remember the figures. Because i only have carbonate here, i would like to know if anybody has ever used it in place of Metaborate for this formula.</p>

<p>I have got some powdered ammonium thiosulfate to produce TF-3. At which temperature should i dilute 600 grams of it into 1000 ml of water to produce a 60% solution? Can i use Sodium carbonate instead of Sodium metaborate (after doing the proper weight conversion)? I understand the dilution for film fixing is 1:4 water. Is that valid for papers too?</p>

<p>I have put my hands on a beautiful and clean Heliar 24cm, serial number 3.799.xxx which places its manufacturing around 1955. I work with 8x10 cameras and after a quick search i found very contradictory information about it covering 8x10. Some say it covers with very little movements, some say it covers without movements and 40% say it will not cover 8x10. After being very excited about going to the field with it, i also read this brochure that put my hopes down:<br>

<a href="http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/voigtlander_2.html">http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/voigtlander_2.html</a><br>

Since i read some posts about being possible to use it, i´d like to check other opinions on this issue, before starting to build a lensboard for it. </p>

<p>I ordered some phenidone from Photographer´s Formulary. Unfortunately they are unable to deliver TEA overseas. So i might soon try a DEA-phenidone formula following your specs above. I will sure post the results when i do. Thank you for all.</p>

<p>Any way DEA would work (dietanolamine)? Found it easier locally.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for all this info, Jay. Do you use TEA 99% OR 85% ?</p>

<p>Wow, can´t wait to shoot some 8x10 portraits. I currently have in my fridge a box of Delta 100 and a box of HP5 400, 8x10 sheet film. Any ideas on a starting developing time for them on WD2D? Jay, i see you are a 510-pyro specialist. Unfortunately Phenidone is very hard to find here in Brazil, that´s why i opted for WD2D. But i actually became interested in 510-pyro first. Well, if pyro developers are good for portraits too, then i see no reason why not abandoning low shelf life developers forever. My next step will be brewing some alkaline fixer. Can´t wait to see an 8x10 contact print of my girlfriend...terrible that the paper options are so few nowadays...</p>

<p>Thanks Jay. Yes, i was very amazed when i removed the roll from the Jobo reel. I had just developed 6 rolls in D-76 and left this last one (one i had made several backlit subject exposures) to pyro on purpose. Amazing result. Those 6 D-76 rolls look so politically correct and this pyro one so incorrect. I loved it. Will pyro work nicely for portraits? How can you tell the difference between pyro genuine stains and the undesirable general stain you mention? I mean, the negative image is dark yellow stained but the non-image parts of the negative look quite normal.</p>

<p>Hi, yesterday i processed my first 120 roll (FP4+ 125 ISO) in a Pyro developer. Since i have never seen any Pyro developed negative personally, i will describe what i did and the results so somebody can tell me if they are reasonable or not.<br>

I used WD2D second generation formula (without Benzotriazole). Please note i did not use WD2D+. Because i used a Jobo Processor, i increased Solution A by 30% (27ml). Also, because i like contrasted negatives, i used 23ml of Solution B instead of the recommended 20ml. 400ml of distilled water were added, making it a 450ml solution, enough to fill the jobo drum almost completely. So the process went as follows: Pre-soak in distilled water (2min), Developer for 7 1/2 minutes at 20°C (Jobo slowest speed - F), Wash with 6 changes of water, Fix with F-24 fixer (i have no alkaline fixer available), no hypo clear, 6 minutes wash in filtered water, Photoflo (1 minute).<br>

The result was a pretty yellow tint all over the negatives (when looked against a white surface), and extremely fine details on every image, fantastic tonal scale and contrast. At this point i must ask my first question: I always read that a perfect pyro negative will look unprintable at first look. Mine looks very printable. Maybe the slight acidic fixer removed some amount of staining? I printed one of the negatives in Dektol 1:2 for 1 1/2 minutes at 20°C on Ilford MGIV glossy. I have no scanner to attach the image here but the print shows much more detail than my regular (and up to this moment preferred) film developer which is D-76 1:1. The print however has an unpleasing warm tone. I checked the Dektol again and it is kind of light brown, maybe too much oxydated?<br>

So what do you guys think? When you look at pyro stained negatives what exactly do you see? Which paper developer do you prefer for them, to render neutral to cold tones? Well, it was a very exciting experience, specially having to wear gloves to prepare the chemicals and then wait for the results. Last, but not least, what is a reasonlable shelf life for WD2D solutions (A and B) in HALF FULL stoppered bottles?<br>

Zarrir</p>

<p>Cool John! One hell of a tip. I will test them with my swimming pool kit.</p>

<p>Two months but with a vacuum stopper on the bottle is not so bad. Thanks John, any other ideas are welcome!</p>

<p>Two months ago i diluted two identical bottles, one with D-76 film developer solution and the other with D-72 paper developer. Yesteday i went to pickup them at my "homelab" and both labels had been erased by humidity or something. How can i tell one fro the other without risking to ruin a roll of film using D-72 instead of D-76? Thanks fo any inputs.</p>

<p>Hi Bruce, yes, i meant street photography. The approach i was thinking about is similar to Drew´s above. Let´s think of a flea market for instance. I would set up everything on the tripod, pre-focus on a certain region people would be walking slowly, slide the film holder in and wait for the victim(s). My main concerns are obviously proper focusing and proper exposure times.</p>