Turtle
Veteran
Yes, its wonderful stuff. With the demise of 120 Neopan 400, this is my standard oldie in 35mm and 120, mainly because with semi-stand I can get a true 640-800 out of it and so take up the slack with Neopan 1600's departure too.
I use DDX or Xtol and to be honest the result is vey similar to D76 1:1. You would not tell the prints apart really. I prefer to have that extra half stop of speed from these devs.
As for master printers, I have been working closely with one for two years on a project, and doing some of my own prints. These are my observations on large prints:
Its all about sparkle and grain OR the absence of grain. TriX will give you the grain and a good printer will ensure everything is perfectly aligned so every grain is crisp into the corners and get the contrast and density right throughout the prints so the tones glow. I just had an amazing print back (portrait) from TriX in Xtol 1+2 at 800 and frankly this print needs to be 30" or 40" long. It has such incredible tones, sparkling grain and graphic look that it could go that big and look amazing. Sure, you can print 120 D100 this big and it looks wonderful, but 35mm D100 won't look as good as the TriX because the grain will be visible, but not as crisp and the sparkle wont be there. I try therefore to keep a print either in the 'sumptuous and glowing' category or the 'crisp and sparkling' camp. It works... but the middle ground seems not to nearly as well.
The film is amazingly consistent, bullet proof and flexible. While the resolution is actually quite poor, the prints just look amazing pretty well no matter what you do.
For a new project I decided to shoot D400 in 120. I had planned to shoot it all TriX, so the reason? I have come to realise how biased galleries are to very large prints and I know I can achieve this more easily with D400 (either wet or scanned) than TriX. Its a shame, because I know which I prefer... but at the end of the day I need to sell prints. I will also use up my last 10 rolls of 120 Neopan 400 🙁
I use DDX or Xtol and to be honest the result is vey similar to D76 1:1. You would not tell the prints apart really. I prefer to have that extra half stop of speed from these devs.
As for master printers, I have been working closely with one for two years on a project, and doing some of my own prints. These are my observations on large prints:
Its all about sparkle and grain OR the absence of grain. TriX will give you the grain and a good printer will ensure everything is perfectly aligned so every grain is crisp into the corners and get the contrast and density right throughout the prints so the tones glow. I just had an amazing print back (portrait) from TriX in Xtol 1+2 at 800 and frankly this print needs to be 30" or 40" long. It has such incredible tones, sparkling grain and graphic look that it could go that big and look amazing. Sure, you can print 120 D100 this big and it looks wonderful, but 35mm D100 won't look as good as the TriX because the grain will be visible, but not as crisp and the sparkle wont be there. I try therefore to keep a print either in the 'sumptuous and glowing' category or the 'crisp and sparkling' camp. It works... but the middle ground seems not to nearly as well.
The film is amazingly consistent, bullet proof and flexible. While the resolution is actually quite poor, the prints just look amazing pretty well no matter what you do.
For a new project I decided to shoot D400 in 120. I had planned to shoot it all TriX, so the reason? I have come to realise how biased galleries are to very large prints and I know I can achieve this more easily with D400 (either wet or scanned) than TriX. Its a shame, because I know which I prefer... but at the end of the day I need to sell prints. I will also use up my last 10 rolls of 120 Neopan 400 🙁
