Tmax thin negatives normal?

[FrankS]

This was much discussed when T-Max was introduced, IIRC. Tabular/flat silver grains in the new film, less silver per square inch, increased tonal range. Just needed less exposure during enlarging.

 

[Vincent.G]

No scientific proof from me but my observations are that the density are similar for both T-max and Tri-X. The film base of T-Max 400 seems clearer compared to Tri-X.

 

[mdarnton]

This is remarkable, as TriX in D76 is a classic combination and should result in ISO 400 when developed at correct time and temperature. ISO 200 is what you will get with "true" fine grain developers such as Microdol, Microphen and Perceptol, because the silver grains in the film will be partly resolved. Tmax400 exposed @ ISO125 in D76 should result in too dark and too contrasty negatives. Maybe you have to check your lightmeter.

Erik.

It's not remarkable at all. Quite some time ago I took a workshop with David Vestal, and he recommended using the process he outlines in his book for deriving a personal EI.

I followed the procedure and arrived at 250, and have honed my exposures and development over the years around a certain look I like for my negs and prints. I absolutely abhor empty black shadows, and this opens them up.

Vestal's work was similarly open in the dark areas, and I liked that look, so there was no reason not to trust the process. He pointed out, and he was right, that the Zone System is faulty in that it throws away a considerable portion of a film's response to adhere to an unnecessary convenience of unthinking consistency; you mostly never run out of headroom (highlights) on film and use little of the film's possibility, but what never was there can't be printed.

I quite often use up to around 16 stops of subject brightness, including way down into the dark, since taking Vestal's workshop.

And it's a problem with this kind of shadow detail that probably will chase me away from TMax. In the past I used to use a lot of it, but that was at a specific job, for subjects that lacked contrast and shadow detail--for them it was great--but it's not proving good for my fun work.

By the way, at the time, for that work, I was using TMax developer and it was working perfectly for me. The thing that bothered me at the time, which may not be the case now, was that TMax in TMax was too twitchy. It was like running E6--if it didn't keep careful temp and time much more than with D76/Tri-X the result was all over the map and useless. The thing I did like was that at the time TMax400 in TMax looked about like PlusX in D76 in terms of grain and sharpness.

 

[x-ray]

Looks like the developer formula has changed over years. When it first came out you had to dilute it a lot to minimize grain to a level you were getting with conventional developers. As a result the contrast was gone. And you had to apply very long developing times. Which wasn't the goal.

Nowadays both the T-Max films and the T-Max Dev are different stuff from what they were when Kodak released them first in the early 1980s.


Less dense with same lighting conditions and same exposure means less informations on the negative. Something is a bit illogical there isn't it.

I did pre release field testing on both TMax films for Kodak. Kodak was coating very small batches of film (120 that I tested) and spooled it with unmarked black backing paper and unmarked foil wrappers. They would send a couple hundred rolls at a time through my field rep.

I can't remember if I tested 100 or 400 first. Anyway it was up to me to determine my true ISO and development time. I don't remember Kodak even providing a starting point for developer and time. I tried a number of developers including D76, HC110 and Rodinal. I wound up settling on HC110 B.

I think at that time I had settled on TX 400 ( the good old formulation) and Agfa 100. I loaded both my normal film in magazines and TMax along with it and would shoot my assignments as normal but boy led up with the TMax. I processed both and did evaluations visually on both negs no paring them and then printed both. I wrote reports to Kodak and included prints from both films and negs.

Initially the base was so thick it created problems with my SL66 magazines as well as Hasselblad backs. The base was so thick and stiff it a tually caused gears in the back to prematurely wear. Kodak reported problems in 35mm as well with motor drives.

Kodak was trying to produce a film that was completely flat and wouldn't bow in a glassles negative carrier. My and a couple other reports were responsible for Kodak thinning the base by 50%. Kodak reduced the thickness again after starting production.

I agree the first film was pretty bad. When you exposed for the shadows and developed for the highlights the negs were terribly flat. It was very sensitive to slight process variations even when mechanically processed. I was running my film in a Merz rotary machine. I have to admit my evaluation of both TMax films in the early davs of development wasn't very favorable.

Since then ghe film and developer has gone through a major evolution. Both films are superb and TMax developer do an excellent job. I don't use TMax but have tried it from time to time and really like it.

I also did the same type of testing for Ilford witj both Delta 100 and 400 which I fell in love with. The Ilford test caused me to change over to Ilford.

The last TMax 400 I shot in 120 a coupe of years ago and developed in HC110 B looked much like any other film developed normally. Density IMO was very normal.

 

[Highway 61]

I did pre release field testing on both TMax films for Kodak. (...) Density IMO was very normal.

Thank you very much for this long post, full of very interesting informations, and which confirms what people having tried out the first T-Max films and dev. batches had discovered on the field.

I have posted this photo already but for me it's a perfect example of what T-Max can achieve now :

(Tuscany, May 2013)

Inspite of no particular way to expose (routine "sunny f/16" rule with a meterless RF camera and no filter of any kind) the negative has normal density and normal contrast, highlights aren't blown out, shadows aren't blocked, enlarging it on FB paper was very easy with no difficult masking tasks to perform and the prints are superb.

 

[Ronald M]

It matters not what the negs look like, it is how they behave.

Exposure places shadow detail. If blacks are without detail, expose more.

Development time controls highlight density. If they are blown and without detail. film was developed too long. If they print grey rather than white, they need more time in developer.

Scanning and real printing may or may not yield same results. The goal being to print a normal scene with full shadow detail and detailed whites without burning and dodging.

 

[Highway 61]

It matters not what the negs look like, it is how they behave

True. Yet a "thin" negative usually means underexposure or insufficient developing. Or both.

 

[Aaron Hellman]

Thanks!

Thanks!

Wow, lots of good information here. Thank you to everyone who responded. It's why I love RFF!

 

[Chuck Albertson]

Looks like the Tri-X we can buy from new now is very different from the "old school" Tri-X we had got used to in the 1980s.

I'd say it's closer to what the first TMY looked like...

"New" Tri-X came about when Kodak consolidated its Tri-X film coating line with the newer coating facility they had running for T-Max films. It was supposed to be the same Tri-X emulsion, but the switch had an effect on the film. I think Kodak even put out revised development times for Tri-X in some developers. Quite a few people complained - I heard Jim Marshall say that Tri-X had lost its balls.

My T-Max negatives have always been thinner (densities) than Tri-X or HP5+ negatives. Early on, I tried a little overexposure/underdevelopment to put some more density in the shadows, and wound up with blown highlights.

But print yours, and see how the prints look. That's really the only thing that matters.

 

[Tim Gray]

I never had much of a problem with TMY-2 as opposed to 400TX, both in XTOL 1:1, pretty much according to the directions in the box. TMY-2 did look a little thinner to the eye but always scanned and printed just fine for me. Could be the base, could be finer grain, I don't know.

 

[Trius]

"New" Tri-X came about when Kodak consolidated its Tri-X film coating line with the newer coating facility they had running for T-Max films. It was supposed to be the same Tri-X emulsion, but the switch had an effect on the film. I think Kodak even put out revised development times for Tri-X in some developers. Quite a few people complained - I heard Jim Marshall say that Tri-X had lost its balls.

That was when I started using HP4. I preferred it to HP5/HP5+, though the latter are good emulsions. Just different.

I feel (not through empirical testing) that the current version of Tri-X is very good.

I agree that what matters is the final result, be it print or scanned final image.