Experimenting With Pyrocat HD and Ultrafine Extreme 400 And some Thoughts on Processing.

 

Two things, I experimented with Pyrocat HD developer pioneered by Sandy King and belongs to the family of Pryro staining developers. My friend John Meadows gifted me a small stash of the two part developer to try out. I shot some Ultrafine Extreme 400 back in August while at my brother's place in the Beaches. Pyrocat HD is chemically a nasty developer to work with, only slightly less toxic and more stable than the older Pyro developers. I'm not planning on having kids at this point in my life, so lets give it a shot. Done properly when you pull out the the tank the negative loosks a lot like something developed in a conventional developer but it has a brown cast. I'm on the fence if I want to get some some and add Pyrocat HD into my workflow, If I did, I'll get the version made with glycol for further stabliity. Right now, I'm content with HC110 and D76/1D-11 and that covers the vast majority of films I process. 

Which leads me to the second part. I've swtiched up my scanning protocol in my workflow. to review, I use an Epson V600 coupled with Vuescan software and post processing in Lightroom. I used to use the generic black and white profile in Vuescan but my friends James Lee and Alex Luykx scan their black and white negs with the generic colour profile and then do a black and white conversion in Lightroom. I found doing this, I got much better scans. Granted I'm also scanning high resolution TIFF files. 

Camera: Rolleiflex 3.5 F Planar Twin Lens Reflex camera. 

Film: Ultrafine Extreme 400 processed at 200 ISO and Pyrocat HD 1+1+100. 



Before: 503 Kingston Road Car Before After: The 503 Kingston Road Car (After) Kew Beach Sewing Centre at the end of the Crosswalk Two Mini Vans and a Corner Store Overhead Tangled Wire Mess_ Bottom of Main St Bridge Over Glen Stewart Ravine Shaded White Bungalow House by Glen Stewart Ravine North of Queen St. Beaches House Wall Tag and Bixi Bikes

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Barnack Madness, What Was I Thinking?

Image
 My last adventures with Scewmount Barnack Leicas didn't end well, on the few occasions I tried my brother's IIIf and IIIg, I botched the loading and got 36 exposures on one frame. I was quite content to just shoot with my M3 and M4-2, even though I wanted to get a IIIg because Alex got dad's from the estate.  Logic has no place shooting with a Barnack Leica, if the cliche film photography slows you down, working with a III series body is an exercise in zen. First you have deal with bottom loading, wind the film advance before adjusting shutter speed and be careful where you point your camea as bright sunlight can incinerate a rubberized silk shutter cloth instantly.  That said, Joan at Burlington Camera had this red dial Leica IIIf from the mid 1950s with a pre war Elmar 50 F3.5 lens, on the used shelf, I saw it, handled the camera, and put it back. In a fit of camera GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) a few weeks later I came back in and bought the camera. I wonder if Joan...
Read more

Second Roll of Aerocolor IV (Flic Film Elektra 100)

Image
 I bought a bunch of Flic Film Elektra 100 after shooting a roll of Santa Color 100 late last fall down in Niagara on the Lake  with my good Canon New F-1. I packed a two rolls gifting one roll to my brother Alex before heading south on vacation for a week. This time around my second adventure of Kodak Aero Color IV at a different time of the year.  Again, I shot at "box speed" at 100 ISO only this time through my Nikon F3/T. This time I loved the results even more, not just because it went through a different camera system. I think back late last November there was more infrared light in the spectrum due the time of year thus influencing the colour cast of the Aero Color 1V. Shooting the second roll in late March gave me a lot more the look I adored. Due to the polyester base Aero Color IV is easy to scan, you can almost colour correct during the scanning process, reducing your work flow a bit at the other end in Lightroom. Again being a polyester base, you want to load...
Read more

The New Addition to the Fleet, the NIkon FM2T

Image
 I didn't need a NIkon FM2T but I got one. I already have both a chrome and black Nikon FM2N bodies but being not only an analogue photographer I'm also a Nikon collector. Ok, the FM3a's are getting a little out of hand in the used market. As you have read over the past few months I've been on a gear acquisition tear this is more a prize. James over at Casual Photophile wrote a great pieec back in 2019 on the camera , and pretty much shares what I think, yeah, you don't really need this camera but if you're a Nikon collector you want one. The FM2T was only made from 1993 to 1997 and is a rare beast in the grand scheme of things compared to the FM2n which was made from 1989 to 2001. What the FM2T is a lighter and tougher version of the FM2N. with a titanium outer housing, like a regular FM2n it feels great in my hand. This particular example was spot on with the meter and did not take one bad photo at all.  Film wise I ran with Ilford Delta 100, I'm just tryi...
Read more