Donald Qualls
Subscriber
Some of such films are extremely contrasty, being "lith" films, not rendering continuous tone.
Well, can be extremely contrasty. The same is true of microfilm stocks like Kodak Imagelink HQ or Copex Rapid -- yet submini shooters have been using these to get the most out of their tiny negatives for decades. Correct development yields very nice negatives, which make very good prints.
Minolta 16 MG (10x14mm frame), Copex Rapid, EI 100, Caffenol LC+C, scan from print.
The same is true of lith films. They can be non-continuous, in their intended developers -- but in conventional developers with time control, they may not produce "nice tones" but they will produce continuous gray scale.