PMK deadly?

Dunno if this is the best place but I figured this is the best place
as I have a feeling many LF'ers develop their own. Recently read an
article from an UK photo mag. Guy basically cannot figure why anyone
would risk death?? to use PMK when the gains are so minimal? Opinions?

wrote in message
...
Dunno if this is the best place but I figured this is the best place
as I have a feeling many LF'ers develop their own. Recently read an
article from an UK photo mag. Guy basically cannot figure why anyone
would risk death?? to use PMK when the gains are so minimal? Opinions?


I read the same information but in a different publication. Well, I guess
anything will kill you in quantity. Even water.

I mix my own PMK and just need one more chemical to try W2D2+ and use it as
well. I take rational precautions and do not risk death! I believe the
result are worth having just another potentially poisonous chemical in the
house (ever look how deadly Drano is?).

PMK is poisonous in significantly absorbed quantities. It is used in many
hair dyes and in the dying of fabrics and leathers. If you dye your hair
and wear leather clothes, you will have more Pyrogallol exposure than mixing
and using PMK to process films as long as you take reasonable precautions.

Unless you've processed film in PMK and judged the results for yourself, I
cannot tell you if the results are worth the potential problems. Only you
can make that judgment call.



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Subject: PMK deadly?
From: "Jim Phelps"
Date: 4/30/2004 8:44 AM Mountain Daylight Time
Message-id:


wrote in message
...
Dunno if this is the best place but I figured this is the best place
as I have a feeling many LF'ers develop their own. Recently read an
article from an UK photo mag. Guy basically cannot figure why anyone
would risk death?? to use PMK when the gains are so minimal? Opinions?


I read the same information but in a different publication. Well, I guess
anything will kill you in quantity. Even water.

I mix my own PMK and just need one more chemical to try W2D2+ and use it as
well. I take rational precautions and do not risk death! I believe the
result are worth having just another potentially poisonous chemical in the
house (ever look how deadly Drano is?).

PMK is poisonous in significantly absorbed quantities. It is used in many
hair dyes and in the dying of fabrics and leathers. If you dye your hair
and wear leather clothes, you will have more Pyrogallol exposure than mixing
and using PMK to process films as long as you take reasonable precautions.

Unless you've processed film in PMK and judged the results for yourself, I
cannot tell you if the results are worth the potential problems. Only you
can make that judgment call.


I have been using a pyro developer since about 1978. I play competitive level
volleyball twice a week, ride horses 4-5 times a week, and have no health
problems.

Although if ingested in high quantities pyro is toxic the link to Parkinson's
disease has never been proven - yes Weston used ABC and had Parkinson's but
many people using pyro never get Parkinson's and many people who do not use
pyro do get Parkinson's.

Beware of 'experts' in the net who really do not know anything about what they
are posting. The net can be a great place to exchange info but it is also a
forum for people to act as if they know something when they don't but just want
to see their name in print.

steve simmons

Probably not in small doses. But it certainly isn't good for you. Pyro is
moderately toxic, and it can be absorbed through the skin. The general rule
is to wear rubber gloves when working with pyro developers, although a lot
of oldtimers didn't but still survived quite well. Since pyro comes as a
light, fluffy powder, many recommend wearing a face mask to avoid breathing
it in when handling the dry chemical. Good advice, but probably not really
necessary if you use reasonable care. PMK is a very dilute developer, and
pyro is the worst thing in it. I don't think you would have any problems
with routine handling of it.

wrote in message
...
Dunno if this is the best place but I figured this is the best place
as I have a feeling many LF'ers develop their own. Recently read an
article from an UK photo mag. Guy basically cannot figure why anyone
would risk death?? to use PMK when the gains are so minimal? Opinions?

Steve,

You and I said essentially said the same thing, but I misunderstand if you
were aiming your point at me or the information from the OP?

Jim

In article ,
(CamArtsMag) wrote:

Although if ingested in high quantities pyro is toxic the link to Parkinson's
disease has never been proven - yes Weston used ABC and had Parkinson's but
many people using pyro never get Parkinson's and many people who do not use
pyro do get Parkinson's.
Beware of 'experts' in the net who really do not know anything about what they
are posting. The net can be a great place to exchange info but it is also a
forum for people to act as if they know something when they don't but just want
to see their name in print.
steve simmons

Although I am not going to speculate on why Weston got Parkinson's
for that matter he could gotten it from the surrounding agricultural
farms (crop dusting, etc) He also used Amidol which is quite poisonous
as well. (They don't put skulls and cross bones on those packages for naught)
Using gloves in chemistry of any kind us a good policy.

I fully intend "not" to give up PMK as it gives great results for many films.
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On 4/30/2004 6:19 PM Gregory W Blank spake thus:

I fully intend "not" to give up PMK as it gives great results for many films.

OK; so in a nutshell, just what does PMK do for photographs that other types
of processing do not? Why would one want to use it?


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In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 4/30/2004 6:19 PM Gregory W Blank spake thus:

I fully intend "not" to give up PMK as it gives great results for many films.

OK; so in a nutshell, just what does PMK do for photographs that other types
of processing do not? Why would one want to use it?

Have you tried it? Not sure whether you are just testing or chiding me for not
expounding? Anyway, I see it like this the yellow stain works best for long scaled
subjects. Like scenes where deep shadow is in the same frame as say blue sky
and billowy bright clouds. The PMK seems to hold the high end down to an easily printable
density and upholds shadow details enough to print them without them going black.

PMK seemingly works as a contraction developement without changes of time and temp
that you might be required to do using other developers like HC110, D76 etc. For that , matter
I have had good results basically just taking a single light meter reading and letting everything
fall into place (without regard to up and lower contrast placement). I don't do that everytime
but after 22/ 18 with a view camera,........ years- I hope I can judge scene values.

You have to establish a specific time that works for the film you use but after that
its very easy to work with, and the worst part is formulating the chemicals from scratch
when needed.

It does all this without sacrificing midtone values. To directly answer the question its not the photographs
but the negatives it does good for.

You can see some of the B&W streams I have used PMK on at my

www.gregblankphoto.com
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On 5/2/2004 3:53 AM Gregory W Blank spake thus:

In article , David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 4/30/2004 6:19 PM Gregory W Blank spake thus:

I fully intend "not" to give up PMK as it gives great results for many
films.

OK; so in a nutshell, just what does PMK do for photographs that other
types of processing do not? Why would one want to use it?

Have you tried it? Not sure whether you are just testing or chiding me for
not expounding?

No, it's an honest question, as I have no experience with pyro (but hear a lot
about it here).

Anyway, I see it like this the yellow stain works best for long scaled
subjects. Like scenes where deep shadow is in the same frame as say blue
sky and billowy bright clouds. The PMK seems to hold the high end down to
an easily printable density and upholds shadow details enough to print them
without them going black.

PMK seemingly works as a contraction developement without changes of time
and temp that you might be required to do using other developers like
HC110, D76 etc.

So basically you're saying that it allows some compression of values in a
negative, which is the same thing one would get, presumably, by changing
development. So again, why use pyro? it seems to me there's a lot more to its
"mystique" than just this.


--
I was quickly apprised that an "RSS feed" was not, as I had naively
imagined, some new and unspeakable form of sexual debauchery practised
by young persons of dubious morality, but a way of providing news
articles to the cybernetic publishing moguls of the World Wide Wait so
they can fill the airwaves with even more useless drivel.

- Cynical shop talk from comp.publish.prepress

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

So basically you're saying that it allows some compression of values in a
negative, which is the same thing one would get, presumably, by changing
development. So again, why use pyro? it seems to me there's a lot more to its
"mystique" than just this.

No I am not, & it does not compress anything the tone is still there, the density & detail is still there.
It just causes the paper to respond differently- to see the negative differently. I see virtually
the same printing difference in every set of samely exposed but differently processed negatives.
For example D23 versus PMK versus HC110. The D23 may be dead on grade two at 10 seconds
The PMK may seem to be flatter at grade two and require 1/3 step of contrast increase in enlarger filteration
but yields a exposure time of 10.25 seconds and holds slightly more detail in the shadows
even with the contrast increase.

If you were to take two denistometer readings at say the area measured for V they would
read the same.
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