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

[David R Williams]

All good points, so perhaps I should obsess less over TMX's slightly lower apparent sharpness and get on with shooting!

 

[Craig]

It wouldn't be the worst option in the world to use TMY for everything either.

 

[GregY]

It wouldn't be the worst option in the world to use TMY for everything either.

I could if i had to....

 

[Lachlan Young]

All good points, so perhaps I should obsess less over TMX's slightly lower apparent sharpness and get on with shooting!

If you make bigger enlargements, TMX will outperform the others in terms of grain and detail transmission. The problem is that people tend to confuse very fine (and sharp) grain with lower sharpness. TMY-II has somewhat more heightened low-frequency sharpness, but that will trade-off against detail transmission at very large enlargements.

 

[Milpool]

It wouldn't be the worst option in the world to use TMY for everything either.

Not a bad suggestion. TMY-2 is really a peerless film. ISO 400 yet only marginally grainier than TMX, and has a nice long straight characteristic curve. Very versatile for all formats. Just the sheet film price...

 

[ags2mikon]

I recently shot a roll on 120 TMX with a 2001 expiration that had been refridgerated and it was as good as fresh TMX. I can't get Ilford 2 years past date. I guess that keeps me shooting more.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The lack of crisp edge acutance can be a benefit when using TMX for smooth complexion portraiture; but it's a liability in landscape or analogous photography where one generally wants crisp edges. I handle the latter issue with a dev tweak which gives a little more grain growth, analogous to the grain of Delta 100, but somewhat finer than that, and certainly finer than TMY400.

You might ask, why not just use D100 to begin with? Well, it's the distinctly longer straight line of TMX 100 which I need, deeper down into the shadows. That not only gives me better deep shadow gradation than D100 is capable of, but for all practical purposes at full box speed of 100. I have to rate D100 at 50 to even approximate that.

 

[David R Williams]

The lack of crisp edge acutance can be a benefit when using TMX for smooth complexion portraiture; but it's a liability in landscape or analogous photography where one generally wants crisp edges. I handle the latter issue with a dev tweak which gives a little more grain growth, analogous to the grain of Delta 100, but somewhat finer than that, and certainly finer than TMY400.

You might ask, why not just use D100 to begin with? Well, it's the distinctly longer straight line of TMX 100 which I need, deeper down into the shadows. That not only gives me better deep shadow gradation than D100 is capable of, but for all practical purposes at full box speed of 100. I have to rate D100 at 50 to even approximate that.

Ok, I'm intrigued - what's your dev tweak, Drew???

I'd understood that you were using PMK for both TMY-2 and TMX, so I'm interested in how you've adapted TMX to provide higher edge crispness.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It's a simple tweak, and I've posted it numerous times. Others knew of it prior to me. It's simply Perceptol used at 1:3 dilution rather than the typical 1:1, which allows for longer development time leading to more grain growth. The effect is quite different from regular dilution. But it does the same whether buying the A&B powder packets from Ilford or a home brew of the same. In the latter case, always use real sodium chloride rather than table salt, which contains adulterants.

Because this Perceptol dilution is semi-compensating, you get highlight control reminiscent of pyro - not quite as strong, but reasonably effective, at least in this day and age of highly cooperative VC papers. PMK pyro does wonderful things for TMX in terms of highlight gradation, but can't improve the weak edge effect by itself. I had to resort to supplemental unsharp masking, with its slight "halo" around edges. Now I still sometimes mask TMax films, but for a different reason, mainly to expand microtonality in the print. Developed some TMX masks yesterday in fact.