2 rolls of Trix-x Pan 1984 will shoot at iso50 develop in XTOL

Hi,

Might as well use this old film first since I haven't developed 35mm in a long time.

Rummaging through an old box of film stuff I found tri-x pan from 1984. Cutting the speed of the film in half for each decade seems to be the consensus so I will shoot at 50 or maybe 25 iso.

Would developing the film in straight XTOL or 1:1 etc be better? I'm thinking of cutting up the film of the first roll after taking it out of the canister to test what works and what doesn't. Not sure how I will develop the cut strips yet but since there are 20 shots, will probably have 4 cut strips.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Personally, I wouldn't waste an entire roll for the developing test. I'd shoot the roll, then take the cut leader to to figure out development times.

You can figure out the developing time in plain light. The way I do it is take the leader, 2 clothespins, and a small developing tank. I put the leader in one clothespin, then use the other clothespin to clip that to the side of the tank so that the leader/film isn't touching the sides of the tank. I put about 1/2" of the leader into the developer for (typically) 4 minutes, then lower another 1/4-1/2" every minute to about 12 minutes. I then rinse it and put it in fixer. Then I look at the level of development, and pick one based on how dark it looks (I also will do the newsprint test if I can't eyeball it). If you don't think 12 minutes is long enough, you can split the leader in two. In that case, lower them both the first 1/2" at the start, but only lower on during the first 12 minutes, then while you're rinsing/fixing the first strip, lower the second one every minute. That will give you X-12 minutes on the first strip, and 13-X on the second strip. (X is dependent upon how many increments there are on the film) I think that made sense.