Best Combination of Film and Developer for Sharpness?

Joe O'Brien

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In the new year I will be embarking on a mission to shoot one film and develope the film in one developer. I will be shooting with a Sinar F that my school owns. The only question left is what film/developer combonation to use. I do mainly landscape work and I have no problems with long exposures or long developing times. I've been looking at a few different films: ADOX 25, Efke 25, FP4+, T-max 100, Foma 100 (baisically anything from freestyle that is 4x5). I have no idea what combination of film and developer would give me maximum sharpness while still allowing me to experiment with expantion and contraction processing. All ideas and pieces of advice are appreciated.
 

piu58

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Shaprness is not all you want to achieve, Good balanced grey tones is another item. If you work with 4x5 grain ist not the first problem you'd pay attention to.
I recommend to select one of the films above, but select one, which can be delivered fort a long time. For maximum of visual sharpnesss you can experiment with Rodinal as developer.
 

Curt

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My suggestion is to use FP4+ and ID-11 or D76. Get a copy of Fred Picker's book "The Zone VI Workshop". Follow the procedure for establishing the E.I. and normal development time. Then move onto Expansion and Contraction. It's going to be a lot of standardization. Time and temperature, quantity measurements and accuracy in agitation etc..

Look at the price, anyone can find change in their sofa to buy one of these little gems. You can read the entire Ansel Adams series and applied it to your photography and in a year you will get it all together or buy Fred's book and get it done in very little time at all. He lays it out like no one I've ever seen.

Before there was an Internet Fred Picker of Vermont had a newsletter, he was quite a guy and I savored everyone of those issues. Sadly he is long gone but his book remains.

http://www.amazon.com/Zone-VI-Workshop-Fred-Picker/dp/0817405747

Best,
Curt
 

RobertV

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Efke 25 is a single layer, slow speed film with a lot of sharpness.
When you are going to develop with a surface high acutance developer you're going to the max.
Rodinal 1+50 - 1+100, Tetenal Neofin Blue, Beutler A+B, FX-1 is then the way to go.

But as already said more other things can be important too.
Concerning sharpness I can give you these combinations.
 

A49

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If you want the ultimate in terms of sharpness and resolution, then give the ORTHO 25 or Rollei ORTHO 25 a try. I recently testet a first few sheets: It beats every "conventional" film-developer-combo.

If the negatives are 5 times enlarged you have an extreme sharpness and a wonderful smoothness of grey tones. Even 7 or 10 times enlarged, the pictures are very sharp from the film side but limitations of the lens get slightly visible. Even 10 times enlarged the ORTHO 25 shows nearly no, maybe very, very decent grain in the shadows of the print.

With the ORTHO your no longer limited by film but by the lens/ aperture and other sharpness decreasing factors like exactness of your camera and random factors like vibrations due to wind and other things that appear while shooting in the field. The fact that it is an orthochromatic film plays no big role as long as you don´t have much satured red tones in your picture which would recorded darker than expected and darker than with panchromatic films.

I shot the ORTHO 25 at ISO 6 to ISO 8. Then I developed the ORTHO 25 with Rodinal 1+150, which is very good to keep maximum sharpness. The development time at 20 C is about 11 to 12 minutes.


Best,
Andreas
 

cp16

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I'm quite sure that some people might cringe at the thought, but I get excelent results from boring old ERA developed in Fotospeed's pd5 PRINT(gasp) developer for 8 minutes just so long as I follow with an aggresive fixer. nice and sharp, fairly high contrast but not too much, very little grain and buckets of fine detail where you wouldn't expect it! Unorthadox I know but it's almost the only combination I use these days - and thats because of the results, not the bargan bin prices!
 

andrewkirkby

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As per other people: slower emulsion (efke 25/50, fp4, or Delta 100/Tmax 100 for ultra, ultra sharp) and Rodinal or PMY Pyro are good options. Test and find an effective film speed before shooting an important project. Take notes!

Lens choice is also important. Newer, highly corrected lenses will give you ultra sharp results but may be too clinical for your application.
 

A49

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Here is an overview over the resolution abilities with high contrast details in lines per millimeter of some (already mentioned films) as an orientation, how "sharp" you can get. These numbers are in reality (with normal, pictoral contrast) a lot lower, maybe only two thirds:

(Rollei/Adox) ORTHO 25 = 250
Rollei Retro 80S = 180
TMX 100 = 200
FUJI ACROS 100 = 200
(new) TMY 400 = 200
Delta 100 = 160
Pan F = 150
APX 100 = 150
Delta 400 = 145
EFKE KB 25= 125
Plus X = 125
FP4 Plus = 110
HP5 = 100
TRI-X= 100

As a comparison: The highest resolution a "perfect" lens can achieve at f/22 is about 67 lines per millimeter. Not every of these mentioned fils is available as sheet film.

Best,
Andreas
 

Slixtiesix

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Ilford "Plus" range with Perceptol 1+2 or 1+3 is also a good choice for sharpness+smooth tonality.

Best, Benjamin
 

RalphLambrecht

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Joe O'Brien said:
... I have no idea what combination of film and developer would give me maximum sharpness while still allowing me to experiment with expantion and contraction processing. All ideas and pieces of advice are appreciated.
Click to expand...

Define sharpness. What aspect of sharpness are you after: resolution, acutance or overall contrast? You can have film/developer combinations with high resolution but low contrast and visa versa. Are you familiar with MTF graphs? They show you how contrast and resolution interact. Most people have a subconscious preference for contrast over resolution. Take a look at this:

http://www.biox.kth.se/kjellinternet/Pinhole.pdf

and check out page 15.
 

Steve Sherman

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Joe O'Brien said:
In the new year I will be embarking on a mission to shoot one film and develope the film in one developer. I will be shooting with a Sinar F that my school owns. The only question left is what film/developer combonation to use.
Click to expand...

First, let me commend you for choosing to shoot just one film with one developer, that should yield a faster and more complete understanding of the relationship between the film and chemistry you choose.

Second, questions like this just beg for subjective and personal opinion / preferences from those who respond, unfortunately you are left to decipher which responder makes the most convincing argument.

Lastly, I do not know which film yields the most acutance, certainly chemistry will place a big part in the outcome. Further, I doubt many contributors can with any degree of certainty make a claim they do. I know which film I use and why.

What many experts do say with certainty is that Pyro based developers offer significantly more edge effects and acutance over non pyro developers translating to a perceived increase in sharpness. Pyro developers "tan" the film, in other words, harden the emulsion within the first minutes of development which diminishes scratching and promotes edge effects which translate to a sharper transition between tonalities or perceived sharpness.

Whatever you decide, stick with it and your chosen developer and don't be swayed once you make an informed decision.
 

Nicholas Lindan

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RalphLambrecht said:
Resolution alone doesn't give you sharpness.
Click to expand...

As you said - "define sharpness" ...

MTF can be measured, the perception of sharpness can't.

"... When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind ..." Lord Kelvin
 

Curt

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I didn't necessary give you the sharpest combination, purposely, because what I believe what would be the most helpful was to "steer" you toward a combination that would allow you to explore the expansion and contraction with normal development and EI determination as the center piece of a system that would increase your understanding before going on to seek just one element of technique.

Curt
 

piu58

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RalphLambrecht said:
Take a look at this:

http://www.biox.kth.se/kjellinternet/Pinhole.pdf

and check out page 15.
Click to expand...

Dear Ralph, thank you for pointing to this revealing text. The calculated images show the difference between resolution and acutance much more clearely than the real photographs in John Williams' Image clarity. But I recommend this book to everyone interested in sharp and detailed photographs.
 

RalphLambrecht

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I agree, that's an excellent book.
 

Gerald C Koch

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Let's see you're shooting 4x5 and you're worried about sharpness?

Slow, fine grain films have their own unique problems. For one, they tend to be contrasty and have little latitude. Unless you are able to previsualize, meter very carfully and put the center of interest in the proper zone, I think you would be happier with a mediam speed film unless you wish to make mural size prints. And that's a whole other ballgame ....
 
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RalphLambrecht

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Gerald

Where do you make the jump from sharpness to fine-grain films and why? Actually, I think the acutance part of sharpness is worth while considering with the 4x5 format. There is little concern with resolution, but edge sharpness can be an issue due to the lack of magnification.
 

Gerald C Koch

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Because most who see the word sharpness, perhaps erroneously, immediately think of grain. Look at the film/developer suggestions by various posters.

Edge sharpness can be very tricky. While a bit can give the illusion of sharpness too much can ruin an image. Considering the size of the format I don't think its important. The resolving power of the film is greater than that of the Synar lens. Gradation is more important and developers that increase edge sharpness produce poor gradation. The OP asked for film and developer combinations.

I would suggest first trying a medium speed film and a general purpose developer and see if he likes the results before trying anything else. Only he can make the final choice.
 
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