Not to be a contrarian - but why not? The picture that starts this thread is great. The text of the original post, though, is a little ironic - because there is nothing like meeting one gross generalization (Tri-X is "old and mediocre") with another (people who think that are "stupid").
I've used Tri-X for 23 years and developed and printed it myself for 18. In 35mm, it's the best film for getting a usable result every time - and the second-best film for any application in which grain, speed, or highlight gradation are important considerations. It develops substantially the same way in every normal developer you can throw at it, and it is greatly tolerant of abusive exposure and processing. It grades midtones well, but it tends to shoulder on highlights.
Diafine is fairly considered a developer of last resort for Tri-X. It works well in generally dark yet contrasty situations like stage lighting (nice shot Ronald, btw) - but it produces flat, contrast-deficient pictures in a lot of other circumstances. I've used it with PX, TX, TMY, TMX and VP - and the result is generally the same. But having worked with a lot of Diafine/Tri-X negs, the film speed seems high because the shadows have better than normal density - but between those and the restrained highlights, I never observed much of a tone range on the negative. The resulting pictures required some care to print optically, and they were hard to scan. Diafine affords very little control over contrast, so there's no learning from past problems - except not to use Diafine in certain situations.
The original picture in this thread definitely looks like the scanned negatives I got from TX and Diafine - complete with the posterization that comes with expanding a narrow density range into a full range from black to white. There are really only two alternatives to that, though. One is using Tri-X and pushing it conventionally. This tends to annihilate the shadows while maintaining highlight gradation. The other is using a very small flash at very low power to take the shadows off of the singer's face. But both of those techniques, particularly a conventional push, are risky - since you can blow out the highlights. Pick your poison. For critical pictures, TX/Diafine eliminates some of the risk - but also eliminates part of the reward.
Like Ronald, I do like Tri-X a lot - just not the same way. I am including three pictures to illustrate what I like to do with it. I don't know how well they look after being processed by the site, but:
1. The view over Chucho Valdes' shoulder. This is with a Hexar AF, on TX 135, pushed in D-76 (the overhead light was, if I recall, the only illumination and the resulting exposure, I think, was 1/30 sec at f/2). This is really straining it in the upper highlights, but it illustrates a different way of doing very low-light things with TX. You lose the shadows you would get with Diafine, but the tonality improves a bit.
2. Orthodox Christmas, again shot with the Hexar and again Tri-X pushed in D-76. All of the light was coming from a bonfire. And it did shoulder on some highlights - it was snowing, and I didn't have time to do a spot reading.
3. The Casa Mila, shot with a Fuji GA645 on Tri-X 120 and pushed in Xtol. This was taken at around 2 in the afternoon. This was not low light at all.
Ronald, by the way, I checked out your other concert pictures. Great work!
Dante
