Designing T-Max Films: TMX speed; In response to David Williams' request

chuckroast said:

Yes, I know, but I was being whimsical in light of Drew's willingness to share. Also MicroHyman-X just doesn't have the same ring ...

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Ok I’ll give you that one.

And if you add a few grams/l of chlororesorcinol you go from Wileydol to Wileydol-X.

Paul Verizzo said:

Indeed. With a hybrid "darkroom," just shoot color and convert to B&W.

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Utter nonsense, sorry. No offense, but one can tell you don't know much about hybrid film photography.

albireo said:

Utter nonsense, sorry. No offense, but one can tell you don't know much about hybrid film photography.

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FWIW, I have several friends who do something like what @Paul Verizzo is suggesting.
They shout digital colour.
They edit digitally the resultant files, taking advantage of the ability to control separately the different colours.
They convert to black and white.
They edit further, with the goal of preparing a digital negative.
They use the digital negative to make traditional/alternative process prints in the dim room.

DREW WILEY said:

Well, very little is on a level playing field by the time it reaches the web. All kinds of scanning and manipulation artifacts are potentially involved. And magnifying some tiny portion might not lend the general impression at all. And it's really difficult to make subtle contrast prints come across well over the web, where an almost etched quality might be present, but impossible to see unless the whole images has its contrast artificially boosted in order to see the effect on a substandard medium (the web). I learned that lesson long ago. It's not that I haven't tried it.

Same goes for subtle hues where color images are involved. The web is by design a blunt axe. Sure, everyone can make a box of Crayons look vivid and bright. That's why film ads and reviews always seem to have them; but highly nuanced color is another matter entirely. I learned that lesson too. Two-thirds of my work, both color and b&w, didn't adapt to the web well. And if you look at people who rather routinely print subtly, like Robert Adams, a print which looks magnificent on the wall comes out downright blaaah over the web. Enhance it, and it's not the same thing at all.

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While I do love Robert Adam's work i was so disappointed in his printing at a major show in D.C. the prints look fabulous in his books..go figure!

Peter Schrager said:

While I do love Robert Adam's work i was so disappointed in his printing at a major show in D.C. the prints look fabulous in his books..go figure!

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You wouldn't be the first to have made that comment - and I think people often don't realise that good duo/tri/quadtone offset can do things that might be trickier to do with darkroom printing without some abilities in extended techniques. That said, most aspects of the Robert-Adams-in-book-format aesthetic are not terrifically difficult to achieve with darkroom printing and a little care & attention.

MattKing said:

FWIW, I have several friends who do something like what @Paul Verizzo is suggesting.
They shout digital colour.
They edit digitally the resultant files, taking advantage of the ability to control separately the different colours.
They convert to black and white.
They edit further, with the goal of preparing a digital negative.
They use the digital negative to make traditional/alternative process prints in the dim room.

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That sounds like an interesting use case Matt - I would love to see some results!

I had a simpler 'hybrid' workflow in mind earlier though. I too have a few friends who shoot black and white film, but in my case they'll scan their film and publish their black and white scans online, or have them printed through an online service, and they choose to use black and white film (rather than colour film followed by conversion) because one or more of the following apply:

• there's a lot of high quality black and white film around that's cheaper than colour film of equivalent quality
• many people prefer to compose a picture in full awareness that there is a black and white, and not colour, roll in the camera (otherwise they'd seek an often drastically different type of picture/composition/subject)
• many characteristics of black and white film (grain structure, distribution, spectral response, D/E curve given a certain developer pairing) are fully delivered in a well controlled hybrid chain, and have a strong, repeatable visual impact on the final product. Some hybrid film users seek these features and will select different black and white film based on needs.

Given that the topic at hand was XP2+. XP2+ in C41 is a wonderful product that has no equals, and its uniqueness comes across EVEN when scanning it - if one exposes and develops with method. I personally would be unable to simulate the look XP2+ gives me by messing around with a roll of Gold or Ektar.

Well, Peter, my own experience has been the opposite - my book version of Robert Adams has miserable reproductions. In terms of press limited edition prints, all depends.
There was a local ultra-press outfit that could do an incredible job - at an incredibly high price. But with lesser techniques, like inkjet, its very difficult if not impossible to replicate subtle nuances of toning etc. - if just black black ink, well, some do it rather well these days.

I haven't followed R. Adams work enough to know if there was a shift in his materials or attitude or available materials along the line, or even if someone else did some of his printing. The actual silver prints I saw were wonderfully subtle understatements which would have gone sheer bellyflop over the web. That was really the point I was making.

albireo said:

That sounds like an interesting use case Matt - I would love to see some results!

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I'll try to get one friend in particular to share something.

I also have friends who work mostly in the digital realm, who also prefer to use digital colour capture initially, even though their intention is to create a final monochrome image. The editing options available prior to conversion to monochrome are apparently superior.

Craig said:

Thanks for your insights!

You would probably find the article from the inventors/creators of Xtol to be interesting. I particularly like Xtol, I'd consider it D76+10% - it seems to do everything that bit better than D76. Finer grain, faster emulsion speed and better sharpness. Almost infinitely replentishable with itself too, it makes a versatile developer.

Article link:

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Thank you for uploading the Genesis Of Xtol article.

laser said:

laser said:

One trade off was the speed of TMX. The first specification was for a family of speeds 200, 400, and 1000 speed films. These speed points corresponded to the consumer color negative films of the 1980's. We made a series of coatings that varied the grain size and consequently the speed of the 200 speed film. I liked the fine grain of the slower films in the series. 100 was much faster than Panatomic-X EI 32. With 100 speed t-grains the grain was finer than Panatomic X and the MTF was better. So we changed the goal and worked on making the film 100 speed. It took some additional work but it proved to be worthwhile. Many give-and-take decisions are made in film design.


I occasionally see comments that Panatomic-X is missed but in a side by side comparison I still feel that TMX is a better film. I still have the prints from a Pan-X and TMX experimental film comparison set that I made in the early 1980s. In an ideal world film manufacturers would still make the old films from days gone-by. But the manufacturers have to minimize the number of films in the product line. In nearly all product lines there is a conflict between marketing and manufacturing. Marketing would like a customized product for each class of user. Manufacturing would like one product for all customers. This conflict is no unique to photography. Food products have the same dilemma.

www.makingKODAKfilm.com

Bob Shanebrook

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Dear Mr. Shanebrook,



Thank you for sharing your insights on the trade-offs behind T-Max design. Your explanation of how the original speed goals evolved—and why—was especially illuminating.

With the disappearance of Technical Pan, and later ultra-high-resolution films such as CMS 20 / Copex Rapid, I’ve often wondered whether a lower-speed T-grain film could have filled part of that role as a more manageable, general-purpose high-resolution option.

From a film-design perspective, was an ISO 50 (or lower) T-Max–type emulsion ever explored? Given that TMX 100 is published at roughly 63 lp/mm at 1.6:1 contrast, could a slower T-grain variant have offered meaningful gains in low-contrast resolution or MTF, or were the trade-offs and constraints such that it could never have approached what Technical Pan could deliver in specialized use?

Related to that, aerial-derived films such as Agfa Aviphot 80—sold in still-photography formats as Rollei Retro 80S, RPX 25, and Leica Monopan—are often quoted at approximately 100–101 lp/mm at 1.6:1 contrast. If those figures are accurate, I’m curious how that level of low-contrast resolution was achieved without T-grain technology. Was it primarily due to very thin emulsions, grain structure, sensitization, or other design choices specific to aerial films?

In that context, do you think an ISO 50 T-grain film could theoretically have matched or exceeded that level of low-contrast resolution and MTF, or would fundamental limits and manufacturing realities likely prevent it from outperforming such specialized emulsions?

Thank you very much for your time, and for preserving and sharing this knowledge.