35mm B&W film/developer combo for beach

Hello Everyone,

I normally use 35mm Tri-X/XTOL (1:1) combination for the vast majority of my photography -- box speed (400), sometimes pushed 1 stop. Once in a blue moon, I use Rodinal (1:50).

I'll be spending some time on Cape Cod with my family in August, and plan to set aside separate gear for B&W. In direct sunlight, I'm afraid of harsh contrast, through and through. Should I be pulling Tri-X, to say 200, and develop a little less for shadow detail, and to control highlights from blowing out?

Or, are there other films and developer combinations to consider for summer beach photography? I'm afraid the medium speed films might yield too much contrast.

I look forward to your experiences and recommendations.

Best,

Andrew

In my experience, Tri-X 400 at box speed is extremely robust and one of the better high speed films when it comes to handling high contrast situations. It's very hard to blow highlights at box speed with good metering. You could certainly just continue shooting Tri-X as usual at the beach and I don't think you'd think any results to be ashamed of.

That said, there are plenty of options to control contrast.

I've found that doing stand development with Rodinal 1:100 for sixty minutes can yield some very smooth and pleasing results. Stand development is a bit of an art and there are caveats, but it's worth experimenting with. There's various schools of thought about agitation & time as well as different formulae. I recently tried out a combination of Rodinal + Xtol for stand, but haven't gotten a close look at that neg yet. Seems promising though.

Another option is to buy yourself some Plus-X. It's the closest thing in existence to an 125 speed version of Tri-X so its character will be familiar and it's certainly a very mellow contrast film in my limited experience with it. I developed in D76 straight and it was still a bit too mellow for me, so I imagine Xtol 1+1 would come out buttery.

Andrew, I've shot 400TX at EI200 and developed it in Xtol stock, 20°C, 6', agitation every minute, with 20'' initial agitation. I've also made a series of exposures of a gray card using this EI and developer combination and it seems that it results in a linear characteristic curve, judging by the uniform distribution of the tones of the gray card exposures on the contact sheet. This resulted in easy to print negatives that have good shadow detail, without blowing out highlights, with grade 2, or 3, condenser enlarger. I tried this development time after having a look at the 400TX datasheet. Go to page 12 and you'll see that they give a Contrast Index/Time chart for various developers. I picked CI 0,45 for my purpose and the resulting time would be a tad more than 5' for stock Xtol. After multiplying that by 1,15, in order to compensate for agitating every minute, as opposed to 30'' that Kodak suggests, the result is roughly 6'. If you wish to follow Kodak's suggestion for this CI (0,45), agitate every 30'' and use Xtol 1+1, then 6'15'' should be ok.

But frankly, test for yourself and see if you like the results.

Nothing esoteric is needed. If you are getting your results with that combo now, and light is contrasty, your surmise about over exposing a stop and cutting back time should work just fine.

I would go with low concentration Rodinal (1+100), Box speed, and 3 inversions every 10 minutes for 60 minutes. Of course, I typically use TXP320 in sheet film, which streaks in the sky like nobody's business if you do a straight stand developing. For TX400, I'd probably use box speed or maybe EI 320. As always, try a new developing technique on scrap / test film.

Note, this can result in fairly dense negatives. When printing optically, this works fine. Some scanners have trouble with dense B&W negatives.

What works for you, however, could be that you do what you normally do to reduce contrast. As others have mentioned.

Keep using what you are using. Xtol is a perfect developer for subjects where the sun hits directly, and Tri-X 400 - well you can't do much better.

The only thing you might wish to get are ND filters for your lens, because of the usually extremely bright conditions. You may want to use those filters if you want to reduce depth of field, but still shoot with reasonable shutter speeds that your camera can handle.

Do some tests if you can first. The only time you want to over-expose your film for shadow detail is if you have very high contrast in your lighting conditions. Many times the light is very flat on the beach, and if you over-expose under those conditions you would actually do yourself a dis-favor, because the overexposure would gain you nothing other than potentially difficult highlights to print.

When I shoot around the beach and the ocean, I usually shoot at my normal speed and go by the sunny 16 rule.

So, use what you have. It's always best to avoid changing too many variables at once. Dealing with unknown lighting conditions can be tricky enough; adding different film/developer to that would completely throw you off. Try to find similar lighting conditions near a lake, river, or big open area. Do some testing. Have fun!

- Thomas

a.horodysky said:

Hello Everyone,

I normally use 35mm Tri-X/XTOL (1:1) combination for the vast majority of my photography -- box speed (400), sometimes pushed 1 stop. Once in a blue moon, I use Rodinal (1:50).

I'll be spending some time on Cape Cod with my family in August, and plan to set aside separate gear for B&W. In direct sunlight, I'm afraid of harsh contrast, through and through. Should I be pulling Tri-X, to say 200, and develop a little less for shadow detail, and to control highlights from blowing out?

Or, are there other films and developer combinations to consider for summer beach photography? I'm afraid the medium speed films might yield too much contrast.

I look forward to your experiences and recommendations.

Best,

Andrew

Click to expand...

A polarizing filter might also be useful to have.

I would suggest you try replenished Xtol, instead of 1+1. As far as film, I would try something slower like Adox 50 with rodinal stand development as a benefit you get less grain and good contrast value separation, IMHO.

I'm sorry. To suggest to someone to completely change their arsenal of film and developer prior to a trip, and introduce a bunch of unknown variables is highly counter productive, in my opinion.

The only thing the OP would have in common with his current setup is the camera!

When you go somewhere new and photograph, potentially very important photographs of relatives you may very seldom see, the last thing you want is a bunch of unknowns.

vedmak said:

I would suggest you try replenished Xtol, instead of 1+1. As far as film, I would try something slower like Adox 50 with rodinal stand development as a benefit you get less grain and good contrast value separation, IMHO.

Click to expand...

35m B&W film/developer combo for beach

Andrew,

I am always curious to see how the same question gets answered when it appears on both apug and photo.net. If my switchboard.com and mapquest information is correct, we live 4.5 miles from each other. Maybe in September I can show you some of my b&w shots from Cape May and you can show me some of your b&w shots from Cape Cod.

Thanks, everyone for your generous suggestions.

More than anything else, I wanted to find out what others have done in similar conditions -- what worked; what didn't. I'm comfortable staying with the Tri-X and XTOL combination. It's what I know today (previously, it was D-76), and generally think it's one of the best all-round combos for 35mm, regardless of the situation. I may, in addition, end up souping some of the film I bring back in Rodinal (depending on subject matter and feel; we'll see) -- it maintains its own esteemed place within the developer pantheon.

I'm not one to chase the film/developer "du jour". Most are superb, regardless, in the right hands. I just happen to follow Louis Sullivan's "less is more" dictum... for me, fewer things to worry about, a chance to be consistent, and concentrate on the image-making.

Cheers,

Andrew

You are absolutly right to stay with what you know and are comfortable with. I also concur with MattKing on the use of a polarizing filter, if for no other reason than using it as a neutral density filter of sorts.

You should also consider fill flash.

First I will say I am a Kodak person, I hear that Ilford Color negative Black and White is excellent as well but I have not tried it.

My choice would be Kodak BW400CN hands down. One huge advantage of BW400CN is you can shoot a test roll and have it processed at a 1 hour place while there and see how you like it. That or Tmax of your favorite speed. As for developer, these are two totally different processes depending on what you pick so I will not advise.