More Pyro and Delta 100

I had a bit of an adventure when I processed more of my Ilford Delta 100 4" x 5" sheet film, in PMK developer, on Monday night.  The first tank full of 10 sheets required plus development.  These were all images that had been taken under somewhat subdued lighting.  At the time of exposure I noted that these sheets needed expanded development for increased contrast.  My tested development time for an expansion of 1 zone is 22-1/2 minutes.  I proceeded to process the film and all went well.

Then, I loaded up a second tank of 10 sheets of the same film.  This batch only needed normal development as these images had all been taken in brighter conditions.  My development time for normal development is 11-3/4 minutes... just about half that of plus development.  I proceeded to process the film.  When I drained the used developer from the tank after the development cycle I noticed that there was something wrong.  This PMK developer oxidizes quickly and by the time the development cycle is complete it has usually turned the color of red wine.  This time around the used developer was still urine yellow.  This suggested to me that the film had not been properly developed.  On careful consideration I suspected that I had neglected to add the second component to the developer when I mixed up the chemistry.  Rather than open the tank to check the negatives and risk ruining the film I elected to process it again.  I mixed up a second batch of developer and processed for 11 minutes.  In a worst case scenario the film would have been given something close to my usual plus development regimen.  But, if the first developer had been mixed incorrectly as I suspected, the film probably only would have got something relatively close to my normal development routine.

I anxiously rinsed and fixed the film after the second development, and then opened the tank.  I was pleased to see that the negatives looked pretty close to normal.  This was a relief as most of this batch included negatives from the spring trip down to Utah.  These would have been difficult to duplicate had they not turned out.

Here are the scans...   Most of this batch is from Utah, with a few current images mixed in.  All of this batch was exposed in 2014, with half getting expanded development and the other half getting something close to normal development.