Pyro Stain

Here is an example of what a Pyro negative looks like.  This is a shot of the Kopernick Community Hall, south of Holden, Alberta.  It was taken in June of 2017, with my Ebony SV45TU 4x5 view camera and a Rodenstock 90mm lens.  No contrast filters were used.  This lens gives a wide perspective, equivalent to that of a 28mm lens in 135 film format or full frame digital.  

The first image is an iPhone snap shot of two negatives on my light box.  The upper negative was taken on Fuji Neopan Acros 100 film, developed in Rodinal 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  The lower negative was taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 film developed in PMK, for 9:35 minutes at 20C.  Both negatives were given equivalent exposure, and they were taken just a couple of minutes apart.

The PMK developer is a formula that was invented by California based photographer Gordon Hutchings.  This developer includes Pyrogallol as one of the active developing agents.  As you can clearly see, this developer stains the negative brown.  That pyro stain is proportional to the amount of silver present in the emulsion, and adds density to the image.  It also masks grain. I find that the stain and its resulting density increase retains highlight detail quite nicely, while still maintaining contrast. 

In the second image I took that same iPhone photograph and inversed it in Photoshop.  This essentially made the negatives become positive.  In the Pyro negative you can see that there is better definition in the sky, and the highlights are not as blown out.  The contrast in the siding on the wall of the building is good and if anything is perhaps slightly more contrasty than the Acros negative.  If I actually took the time to make proper darkroom prints, I think this would be even more evident.