film for creamy look in 35mm

Pan F is incredibly 'creamy' in D76, perceptol, Xtol... many devs. Just take care on exposure (often important to drop the speed) and develop soon after exposure. This film has dreadful latent image stability. Leave it three months and you will wonder why you underexposed so badly.
 
What a funny thread :D
The OP request something and everyone have their own interpretation of what he means, thus posting everything but the kitchen sink ^^

Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "creamy look", a link to an example would probably be a great thing too :)
 
I wonder how many people posting in this thread have looked at their photos on other computers than their own. I have a couple of calibrated monitors, and a selection of laptops to look at things on, and I see a lot of examples that in no way look creamy to me. It makes me wonder if they look creamy on people's own machines, or if there are different concepts of "creamy" going on.

I'm seeing a lot of what used to be called "soot and whitewash", and missing midrange, and I wonder how many people think "creamy" = white. Looking at histograms in Photoshop is proving interesting, too. I think the OP had better come up with a solid definition of what he wants to see.
 
If you read Barry Thornton's book 'The Edge of Darkness', a man obsessed with sharpness, you will enjoy his very long discussion on the causes of sharpness. To me creamy is almost the opposite of critically sharp. His extensive testing, and I mean extensive, showed that high acutance, film resolution ability, and weirdly grain improved our perception of highly sharp photos. By lowering the acutance via low acutance developers, and using a film that isn't known for high resolution, and then combining that with the proper sized viewing print you then would get what I would call creamy. This believe me is an extreme oversimplification of Thornton's testing (or the opposite of his testing), but for creamy, I think he would recommend a very slow film TmaX100 (this can be high resolution films but the T-grain actually reduces the acutance between grays), Efke R25, or the old APX100, then develop it in a low acutance developer maybe HC-110, make your print for viewing at a size where the softness of the transition between grays just begins.

Here is a Polaroid (if you have ever used Polaroid films in a 4x5 camera you know they are not high resolution), I wouldn't think that the main purpose of instant film developer would not be to increase acutance, and as it is 100 speed it is fairly slow. This is a 3.25 by 4 inch print and a high contrast scene but it still has a creamy look.

3214175940_e4e05ec063.jpg
 
"Creamy" is rather difficult to describe in words however very easy to demonstrate. Between the two prints of the same size of the same subject, with the same type of film, developed in the same developer, printed one the same paper; the one shot with an MF camera looks always more "creamy" than the one shot with a 35mm camera.

I think it has a lot to do with the comparative richness of the gradations, gray-scala squeezed in a certain area. For example charjohncater's Tmax picture here looks like a good example for creaminess, as if like a portion from a 4x5 shot. However I know that the "creaminess" would suffer when it's enlarged to A4 size:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1816942&postcount=4
 
I'll bite. Tmax 100 with D-76 or Tmax Developer. Like Baileys™. Also, as "creamy" is a subjective evaluation, "for me", it seems to be low contrast shots as well.

"Life is a state of mind"
 
Mr. Fizzlesticks said:
The best film for you in my opinion is Efke 50. Develop it longer than recommended in Rodinal and you will be there. It is one of my favorite films because of its tonality, but there is a heavy speed penalty to pay to get this in 35mm compared to 120. I think other films in 35mm that produce fine grain are too "technical", especially the engineered films like T-Max, Delta and Acros.

The Fomapan Tom recommends above is a great film for tonality (one of my favs), but the grain is more like a normal 400 speed film like Tri-x or Fuji 400. I was thinking about using it recently because I could get it cheap and the grain would match what I have been shooting on both Tri-x and Fuji, but I decided against it in the end. Foma films also have a higher red sensitivity (good for portraits) and poor anti-halation properties (which actually contributes to the nice tonality), so keep that in mind if you decide to use it.

The only other film I think you could try is Pan-F, but I never liked the film much. Slow films tend to be really contrasty which it is an inherent quality of the film, except for the older emulsions like Efke which has some flexibility due to the thicker emulsion.
Click to expand...

What time do you process the Efke 50 for in Rodinal?
 
Pull any film enough in almost any developer and I'm willing to bet you can get something that could be described as creamy.

For large enlargements, finer grain film certainly helps. Front focus a bit for extra creaminess. ;)
 
Pan F+ in HC-110. But, if there's any creaminess here, I attribute it to the ersatz coffee creamer and the Al Kaplan "Silver is Better" mug.

Does this post now officially qualify me as a smartass?

BTW, doesn't a good deal of creaminess, being serious for a moment, derive from one's technique? I assume that sames materials and gear in someone else's hands will likely produce results for different from the next person. So, I'll stick with Coffemate (should this film have been developed in Caffenol?). It's 1:55am I just finished my last cup of coffee for the day (not my normal routine).
6945169390_677087a09f_c.jpg
 
getting the Tmax look with TriX tones?

getting the Tmax look with TriX tones?

charjohncarter said:
I like that look too. I use TMax100 for look. But I can also get it with TriX if I shoot at 250 and develop with minimal agitation. These are both 35mm:

TMax100
4572228221_47dfd5365f.jpg


TriX,
2461475533_f9e3afb373.jpg
Click to expand...

How do you get TriX to look like Tmax? I'd be interested in keeping the tonal range of TriX but with a little more contrast (Tmax'ish)...

What developer should I use and any processing tips would be appreciated? I currently get way too much grain in my TriX and am souping it in R09 stand (1hr, 3 inversions half way).

Thanks!
 
For less grain, Rodinal is about the worst choice you could make. For a start, switch to another developer (I don't have a particular suggestion--I use D23 and the grain is acceptable to me, but not "fine"), and give up stand developing.
 
I would use a very grain film such as delta 100 developed in Perceptol stock solution. There will be no grain and hence smooth as a babies bottom. It won't give you any edge effects but if you want smooth then thats what you get.
 
On that TriX shot which I did without a tripod, so if you see it blown up you would see camera movement; I used HC-110h and agitated every 5 minutes 3 inversions. That is how I treat TriX, above said not to use Rodinal and I concur. But I don't like grain so that is the only reason I don't use Rodinal. More contrast: longer development time, but keep the agitation the same (for grain minimization).
 
charjohncarter said:
On that TriX shot which I did without a tripod, so if you see it blown up you would see camera movement; I used HC-110h and agitated every 5 minutes 3 inversions. That is how I treat TriX, above said not to use Rodinal and I concur. But I don't like grain so that is the only reason I don't use Rodinal. More contrast: longer development time, but keep the agitation the same (for grain minimization).
Click to expand...

Agitate *every* five minutes? Wow. Might as well put it in a blender ;p.
 
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