Tom A
RFF Sponsor
Last summer I shot about 800 ft of Kodak's movie stock 5231. This is the Plus X version of Kodak's XX film. It is rated as 80 asa in daylight (50 in tungsten). Maybe not superfine grain, compared to Acros/Delta/PanF, but it has a remarkable mid tone. Smooth as silk and full tonality. This is a stock that is designed to be used in somewhat controlled light (movie set's) so the contrast is far better controlled. I was souping it in Beutler 1:1:10 for 6-7 min and extremely pleased with the result.
If you go to Flickr and tag "EK 5231" you should find a fair bit of samples of the film from various XX/X users.
If you go to Flickr and tag "EK 5231" you should find a fair bit of samples of the film from various XX/X users.
Carlos Cruz
Established
Do you know any reasonable explanation why B&W film will differ in tungsten and daylight conditions I asked around and never got a satisfying reply.
dfoo
Well-known
Perhaps due to red sensitivity?
Carlos Cruz
Established
Those are pan chromatic films IIRC and should have no problems with colour rendering in B&W
and if there indeed is a difference it should be compensated with a filter perhaps ???
and if there indeed is a difference it should be compensated with a filter perhaps ???
Tom A
RFF Sponsor
I must admit that I have never investigated why it does that. Could be red sensitivity as mentioned or spectral idiosyncracies. I just tend to mentally over expose about a 1/2-3/4 stop when shooting in tungsten light.
Anybody here who can explain why this is so. I know that tungsten is "flickering" at 1/60 sec with normal voltage - maybe we are just compensating for this?
Anybody here who can explain why this is so. I know that tungsten is "flickering" at 1/60 sec with normal voltage - maybe we are just compensating for this?
capitalK
Warrior Poet :P
Recently I forgot to label a 1600-pushed TRI-X but using a recommendation I got on RFF I souped it with a roll of 400-rated TRI-X in Rodinal 1+100 for 100 minutes. To my delight they both worked out acceptably.
TRI-X @ 400
TRI-X @ 1600
TRI-X @ 400
TRI-X @ 1600
Carlos Cruz
Established
Flickering occurs only with HMI lamps so tungsten should be perfectly safe, they have continous spectral /Flickering occurs only with moving images i.e. if you're shooting at 25 fps you're perfectly safe in countries with 50 Hz current, in US it's 24 fps with 180 degrees of shutter angle. Flickering won't occur with still images, except when shooting TV /old, crt type/ screens.
dfoo
Well-known
It appears I was correct. If you search "black and white films tungsten" the second link, for me, is a google book "Cinematography: Theory and Practice". In there it says that the difference is due to color sensitivities. It states that most modern films require 1/3 stop more exposure in tungsten light.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
This explains a lot ... I was shooting in an environment recently that had plenty of natural light via windows but also down lights in the ceiling here and there. The over all light reading in the room was very consistent but when I developed the film there was quite a lot of variations in exposures depending where I had actually been in the room. It was nothing that couldn't be compensated for in post processing but it did puzzle me at the time.
Tom A
RFF Sponsor
This is why Rff and Google is so good. There is always someone who knows the answer.
Larry, the 5231 is quite remarkable in mid tones. I am re-stocking in the next couple of weeks as i am down to 2400 ft of XX and none of the 5231 and i am picking up at least 800 or 1200 ft of the 5231 for summer shooting.
I did try it with various "soups" but found that the Beutler gave me the best result.
Larry, the 5231 is quite remarkable in mid tones. I am re-stocking in the next couple of weeks as i am down to 2400 ft of XX and none of the 5231 and i am picking up at least 800 or 1200 ft of the 5231 for summer shooting.
I did try it with various "soups" but found that the Beutler gave me the best result.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Here's Tri-X @ 3200 in Rodinal 50:1.
Holy! These look fan-tas-tic!
Happy to read it'll do well with Rodinal as well! I'm planning my first-ever souping of film and am deciding what to stock up on, since it seems choices are getting awfully meagre in Europe in the next year or two. (Just today, I found out that there is only ONE lab anymore in Holland that actually processes slide film!)
Care to share the times and temperatures the 50:1 Rodinal was used at?
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Would you shoot it?
Would you shoot it?
Hi all,
just today my wife told me there was another box of vintage photo stuff behind the washing machine (thought I had cleaned it all out) and in it, I found this:
It's a box of Tri-X Pan, 27.5 ft. Enough to load 5 36-shot cartridges with.
As you can see, it expired some time ago (I was a toddler when it did
)
Question now: would you shoot it? Can any good come from this? Or should I add it to the little one-shelf museum I got?
Any recommandations on the speed I should rate it at when shooting outdoors, and how to develop?
Would you shoot it?
Hi all,
just today my wife told me there was another box of vintage photo stuff behind the washing machine (thought I had cleaned it all out) and in it, I found this:
It's a box of Tri-X Pan, 27.5 ft. Enough to load 5 36-shot cartridges with.
As you can see, it expired some time ago (I was a toddler when it did
)Question now: would you shoot it? Can any good come from this? Or should I add it to the little one-shelf museum I got?
Any recommandations on the speed I should rate it at when shooting outdoors, and how to develop?
Tom A
RFF Sponsor
That would probably still work. You might need some anti fog (Benzotriazole) added to the developer and I would rate it at asa 160-200, just in case.
Interesting what can crop up in dark corners. never found anything photographic behind the washer /dryer, but I did find a 50ft spool of panatomic X (expiry date 1982 in a dark corner of my darkroom).
Interesting what can crop up in dark corners. never found anything photographic behind the washer /dryer, but I did find a 50ft spool of panatomic X (expiry date 1982 in a dark corner of my darkroom).
Erik L
Well-known
id like you to know this is how my shots look with this film.
capitalK
Warrior Poet :P
Well at least I'm not crazy (or at worst, not crazy alone). They were my first rolls in Rodinal 1+100 so it was a little tense there for a while.
I have 6 more rolls to do (tomorrow I hope) and I think my results encourage another try.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
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
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
marke
Well-known
How about some 50+ year-old vintage Tri-X?
Hi all,
just today my wife told me there was another box of vintage photo stuff behind the washing machine (thought I had cleaned it all out) and in it, I found this:
It's a box of Tri-X Pan, 27.5 ft. Enough to load 5 36-shot cartridges with.
As you can see, it expired some time ago (I was a toddler when it did
Question now: would you shoot it? Can any good come from this? Or should I add it to the little one-shelf museum I got?
Any recommandations on the speed I should rate it at when shooting outdoors, and how to develop?
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Ronald_H
Don't call me Ron
Ah well, guilty as charged. I like to provoke a little bit, but it's hard to get a bit of tongue in cheek or irony across on-line. And ultimately the post was just a good excuse to show off a picture I am thrilled with. Even if the critics here have no mercy sometimes
Interesting reading Dante btw. Although I have 10 years of experience, I have only been developing for a year or so. But I wanted Tri-X and Diafine because people told me it was great for high contrast stage work. Even then I understood that in 'normal' lighting the negatives would be flat. But digital was getting boring and I wanted to make concert pictures that looked 'old'.
But the point is... I'm a digital child (even at the age of 37). The place where I 'shape' my pictures is not the darkroom, it's the computer. I understand extremely well what the limitations are of bit depth and of 'stretching' and manipulating curves. Thanks to this forum and a book by a certain Roger Hicks I also understand much better how it works in a purely analog domain. But when you scan, and work from there, you might want a different negative than one you need for a good print. Negs from Diafine have a narrow density range, true... which happens to work fine for scanning!
But frankly, I do not have the time to explore the whole richness of the analog domain. I might build my own darkroom one day though. Most of the older people (and I use this term respectfully) have a full set of parameters in their heads for different emulsions, lighting situations and developers. Currently I'm only in the shallow end of that pool, but at least I understand, improve and have fun.
Still, I like to push the limits with everything at my disposal. Film is harder (for me). But ultimately more satisfying.
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dfoo
Well-known
I like you used digital cameras for years, and am very very familiar with digital manipulations of photographs. I started doing my own dark room work 3 years ago, and found it immensely satisfying and have gotten some very nice looking prints (after going through boxes & boxes of paper). Unfortunately, I'm out of the darkroom for the time being because my enlarger got destroyed when I moved. However, I'm definitely buying another, because the look of the prints is just spectacular.