For those who love TMAX 100, what are your recommendations ?

[Flyfisher Tom]

I've seen some pretty impressive results from TMAX 100 (TMX). I really like the grain (or lack thereof) of the film. Seems on par with Acros 100 ... too bad Acros does not come in bulk and is rather expensive in the US.

I had a brief try with TMAX several years ago with D76 and found it quite finicky in development. I am hoping to test it out again with a non TMAX developer. My usual developer nowadays is HC-110.

Here is my question 🙂 For those of you who swear by TMAX 100 in 35mm ...

1) what has your experience been like?
2) what developers have you had the most success with? particularly liquid (eg HC-110)?
3) any other particular eccentricities that you have come across re: the film?

As always, any photos would be most welcomed. Thanks

 

[x-ray]

When Tmax 100 was in developement I was a trade trial tester for kodak on this film. I shot extensive tests with hand coated rolls in 120 and processed in various developers. The initial film was coated on a very thick estar base and after running fifty or so rolls through my rollei sl66's I and others recommended changes in the base thickness. The next batch of hand coated film was on a half thickness base. Also and more important was the films lack of ability to seperate close tones in high values and shadow areas. I found with virtually all developers that i used that the film had to be under rated to hold sufficient tonal values and seperation of tone in the shadows and then under developed to hold detail in the highlights. When doing this the negs were terribly flat. When exposing and developing by kodaks suggestions I found the negs terrible to print. When trying to shoot white on white the negs would not hold tonal seperation and when shooting subjects with heavy shadows the shadows went to mush. In short my final report to kodak was not very complementary of their product. All of us have different techniques and likes in our film. To me this was and is still one of the worst films kodak has ever produced. Kodaks philosophy is to produce films for the processing lab. ?They try to make them for machine processing and ease of machine printing. The new tri x is another example of this. The negs are typically very flat and print with little to no guts. In the case of tmax if developement is extended the highlights block terribly and reduced developement renders the shadows like mud.

I also did trade trial testing for Ilford on the delta 100 and 400. My conclusion was both fiolms are superb in accuracy of ISO< flexability in developement, excellent tonal rendering in both shadows and highlights. With normal iso exposures the film was full and open in the shadows and the highlights held and seperated tones to maximum density. No overexposure and under develpopement was needed. A variety of developers worked very well and the film was much sharper than anything I had seen. Acutance was superb and extended and reduced developement was no problem and allowed a great degree of expansion and contraction of tonal scale.

Up to this point I had shot thousands of rolls of agfa 100 and liked it with the exception of low red sensativity. After testing the delta films I made the switch to ilford and have been using since the beginning. Give delta 100 a try and process in ilford HC per ilfords data. I use 1:31 and love the results.

 

[Andrew Touchon]

I shoot T-MAX 100 at ISO 100 and develop it in Tmax devloper per Kodak's instructions. I am happy with the results. For some sample pictures go to http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007eL2

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Andrew,

Lovely photos, your daughter(?) is beautiful. That is what I mean about grain and tonality characteristics of TMAX I've seen.

I'll give HC-110 a shot and if that fails, follow your path with Tmax developer. I'm hoping to just have one chemical in the house ... lol. Thanks again.

 

[djon]

I just shot/processed my first roll of this stuff. Rodinal 1:50 per Massive Dev Chart.

Scanned/printed easily enough but I think I need grain to convey sharpness. Some of us are into sharp, some into smooth. The twain may not meet.

 

[x-ray]

I should have said that I think tmax is an ok portrait film but seriously fails when it comes to a general purpose film and expecially a commercial film. When I tested tmax all of my images were printed on gelatin silver paper in the darkroom and not scanned. Untill recently I have only printed with diffusion enlargers and still mainly use diffusion.