Tri-X formulation

[Merkin]

I went the opposite direction of a couple of the above posters- I went from HP5 to Trix. The beauty of Trix is its flexibility. With standard developers, it is a 400 speed film, with Diafine it is a 1250 or 1600 speed film. It still, to this day, gives the same dirty grainy feeling that it gave when it was a low grain film in the fifties. It is a fantastic balance between grittiness and realism, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Grab some Arista Premium, which is Trix for under 2 bucks a roll. I guarantee that it is the exact same film, made in the exact same factory.

 

[Turtle]

I find TriX needs considerably more development than the times stated for Xtol by Kodak. Otherwise I get flat lifeless negs and they print horribly in the darkroom. with 20% more dev than stated the negs are quite nice. I rate at 320 in the Mamiya and 250-320 in the Leica.

I am finding that I only use it in 35mm now when I mix xtol with rodinal for a very hard crunchy look from a well developed negative. The end result is wonderful, but I have moved away to neopan 400 for my mainstream use of 400 film, with a little HP5 thrown in for when I want an older school look.

 

[Trius]

Roger,

I'm glad you mentioned HP4. Back in the late 70s I got pretty upset with Kodak, though mainly because of the crappiness of their RC papers. I switched away from Kodak materials for everything but chemicals, hence HP4 bcame my go-to 400 speed film.

I really, really liked it. I never really warmed to HP5, and haven't bought any HP5+ in ages. I think the newest Tri-X is the best ever.