Difference between Tri-X Pan (320) and Tmax400

[removed account4]

too bad you don't have the room or space to make contact prints ...

granted it is ok to skahann but making a print .. there's nothing like it ..
seeing you are shooting 4x5, you could easily make 4x5 contact prints with just a light bulb
you really don't need any space or anything fancy
a piece of glass, and 3 trays ( dollar store tupperware ) ... azo is on ebay all the time, old stuff works just as good
as the 90's vintage ... it will make the whole process complete for you stone ..
ifyou are wondering about washing prints .. just soak them and after a few changes of water they are clean.
you don't need running water for any of the process ..
THEN you can skahhan the print and tweek the levels in PS to match the print and not feel "guilty"

 

[StoneNYC]

too bad you don't have the room or space to make contact prints ...

granted it is ok to skahann but making a print .. there's nothing like it ..
seeing you are shooting 4x5, you could easily make 4x5 contact prints with just a light bulb
you really don't need any space or anything fancy
a piece of glass, and 3 trays ( dollar store tupperware ) ... azo is on ebay all the time, old stuff works just as good
as the 90's vintage ... it will make the whole process complete for you stone ..
ifyou are wondering about washing prints .. just soak them and after a few changes of water they are clean.
you don't need running water for any of the process ..
THEN you can skahhan the print and tweek the levels in PS to match the print and not feel "guilty"

Hah!

Someday....

When I visit you, I'm going to bring a really difficult print, or I should say really difficult negative that will be difficult to print, it is one that I took that I over blue of this girl, but I really like it and I think that it would be really interesting to sort of tone it down somehow so we can try to contact print that one and you can show me all your fancy techniques

I would have enough trouble with keeping enough space for my film and for all of my chemistry, so I don't need to add more difficulty by also adding paper and adding the paper developer and such and of course there's the whole having a space to actually keep things dark enough and I dark enough I mean completely dark so that I connect to do the developing. I'm also not sure how exactly I would do the developing this far as holding onto the paper etc. Because I always wear gloves, always, in a mask, my skin gets really sensitive if I don't, and I'm not talking about some thin kitchen glove, I'm talking about those blue thick gloves that are chemical gloves, so they're not really very dexterous.

Anyway thanks guys.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

(tongue in cheek - and with a smile)

So you expose film and are able to make your negatives (and prints) look just like you want them to look, and have been doing it for years. But have 8 million questions about how to make the film look like you want it to look (very basic questions)... and no understanding of how to control film development through expansion and contraction techniques ((unless you DO because I've read posts from you that seem to indicate both...)).

Or in other words... help I don't understand, except I do understand, I know all about it and have been doing it for years, but yeah... how do I do that? Zone what? hahaha lol



Stone, you seem like a nice guy but I'm tired, man. So, I'm bowing out of this one. It's been fun. I look forward to reading your next thread. They're a riot! Plus, this would be much more fun if we were all sitting around drinking a beer, or maybe whiskey.

 

[Chris Lange]

Chris, it's a very nice image, however I really don't like doing that because I always feel like it's somehow cheating, if you're doing it post, I've always been one to shoot things the way I want them to look ahead of time within the negative, so it with your example you just completely overexposed the whole thing and then brought down the blacks, with me if I were to shoot the same thing I would have underexposed the negative and then pushed the film a couple stops in order to get that look, I usually don't do something so extreme like that, I did it once and it came out really great, but again it was pre planned...

View attachment 76892

Wait.

What?

Cheating? You can't be serious. I do just as much, if not more extensive manipulation to my photographs when I print them chemically. There is no cheating when it comes to realizing an image and using whatever methods you might need to get you there.

Also you don't process film to "look the way you want", you process film to get as much usable information as possible, given the shooting situation, and you print to get the look you want.

Film is not sacred, images are not sacred, and tools are not sacred. My intention as an artist is.

Before you make general assumptions about printing (which you have said yourself you have no firsthand knowledge of) I strongly suggest you go and read Ctein's Post Exposure, as well as "On Printing" by Michael A. Smith. Ignore the boring technical stuff and focus on the general approach to image making.

To make this analagous to your work in digital, you don't shoot a raw file to make a print straight away (or if you do, you're an idiot), you shoot a raw to have room to maneuver with your image.

People who brag about all of their images being "faithful" or "straight out of camera" are either a) showing me shitty photographs I don't care about, or b) lying. There is a rare third option, which is c) It's shot on chrome, but no slide film I've ever seen captures the true essence of a scene, they usually capture what we wish was true...if you have to use NDs, or contrast masking, or color balance filters you are b) lying.

Ps. Lying is ok.

Pps. Overexposing and then printing down is a very, very legitimate method of achieving a certain range of contrast. I dare you to have as much flexibility in choosing your shadow detail with your underexposed negative.

 

[semi-ambivalent]

Plus, this would be much more fun if we were all sitting around drinking a beer, or maybe whiskey.

Just like to lean in here to concur. For all its magic and usefulness the internet really does stink at the relationship thing. (btw, whiskey's a good start. You should meet at StoneNYC's crib...)

 

[StoneNYC]

Just like to lean in here to concur. For all its magic and usefulness the internet really does stink at the relationship thing. (btw, whiskey's a good start. You should meet at StoneNYC's crib...)

If it's whiskey, it better be Scotch... I've got Johnny walker black and also the new Platinum, and I've really wanted to pick up some Talisker

Though I'm more of a red wine drinker if I have to be honest.

As far as my history goes in terms of shooting film, I didn't say I learned how to shoot it well, I just said that I've been shooting film since 1994... I was 12 at the time, and my dad gave me his AE-1 and I would ride my bike to Walgreens and have the film developed and ride back the next day.

Cost me most of my allowance!

I would try to be artistic even then, I remember going out to the yard at night and putting the flash on, and shooting the barren tree's in winter and hoping the images would come out like lightning.

Even then I was fascinated with B&W film but I only had access to standard kodak C-41 film.

Anyway as high school rolled around, I stop shooting, it was mostly just that there was other things going on in my life.

Then back about the time that the real estate market took it's big hit in the early 2000's I had lost my shirt in a real estate deal, and only had a few thousand dollars left my name and I said to myself what are the things that are most important to me that I probably won't be able to afford as toys for a while and decided that the two things that I should buy would be a laptop and a camera, it was a digital camera I will admit, a Canon 40D, and I started doing weddings and things like that and it really got me back into photography, then I was reading this article about Steve McCurry, and how Kodachrome was going away, and I decided that I really wanted to shoot Kodachrome on film something that I never got to do as a child. I saved up all my money and the rest the year, and in December 2010 I traveled the country shut about 75 rolls of Kodachrome 64 (and 1 roll of random K25). When I was done with that project I had fallen in love with film again, but I continued to shoot digital for a while until I ended up at this tag sale, that had this old Brownie camera it was a 120 from around 1910 I believe, and I stopped at the local lab, I asked them if they still had 120, they did have a bunch of rolls, this is probably the biggest photography store in Connecticut, however it's not very big but they did have a bunch of 120 rolls and I picked up some PanF+ because I figured the slower film would be best for an old camera after googling about old film speeds. After getting back the images I was so ecstatic that I just fell right into some, and that brought me to APUG, and on this ridiculous journey that got me to spent way too much money on film, cameras, etc. But it's all been worth it!

Anyway maybe that will help you explain why I've been shooting for so long but I'm not really that good or rather I not really that knowledgeable. What I mean to say about the whole thing with shooting the way I expect the picture to come out is simply that as a kid I didn't really understand anything about overexposing or under exposing or pushing or anything like that and simply was shooting C-41 at box speed and so I had to learn how to make the exposure do what I wanted to do, sort of ingrained in my shooting style because of that.

Also I said that I kind of feel like I'm cheating, I know that it's not cheating it's just sort of the way that I feel about it, the way that it makes me mean jerk reaction to when I hear someone who's gone into Photoshop and messed with all the levels to an extreme degree. I know in my mind that it's exactly the same as the kinds of things you would do in the dark room it's just sort of my initial reaction to the idea of Photoshop that kind of pushes me back for a second, but as soon as I think about it I of course realize that it's the same thing. I was more talking about my feeling about it then about the idea of what it actually is. I tend to go with my feelings when it comes to my heart and so the feelings I have tell me that right now I don't want to do that. So for now I'm in a continue to do as I have been as far as the exposures etc. and we'll see what happens in the future

 

[markbarendt]

I started with a brownie too in the 60's, though mine was not as old as yours. I don't remember what film I shot but do remember trying to buy it on Christmas day. Slides were a normal part of my childhood, my dad's film was Kodachrome, thats where I cut my teeth.

I understand the want to nail the shot at the camera, it is not a bad thing. Slides are different though, they are essentially a print, the there is no middleman. Negatives are middle men in our systems which opens up may options.

My preference for important shots is to meter very carefully and place exposure exactly where I want it on the film curve. The advantage here is that when I go to print, once the enlarger is setup for a given set of shots, I can rock through the printing process quickly. That fixed output gives me the ability to use and see the effect of the film curve, the middleman.

With TXP for example I can shoot at 320 or maybe 640 to (for lack of better words) artistically and purposefully soften the look of the shadows. Or I can move to 250, 160, or even 80 (again for lack of better words) to make the shadows harder and more like Tmax (yeah I do have to give up shutter speed).

So with TXP as my middleman, I have a range of different looks available, just by changing my EI and setting my enlarger to match the look I shot for. There is nothing random about this, each EI has it's own characteristics. I kinda think of each different EI almost as a different film.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

Just like to lean in here to concur. For all its magic and usefulness the internet really does stink at the relationship thing. (btw, whiskey's a good start. You should meet at StoneNYC's crib...)

If it's whiskey, it better be Scotch... I've got Johnny walker black and also the new Platinum, and I've really wanted to pick up some Talisker

I'm a Kentucky Bourbon drinker but have been flirting with the Irish stuff lately. Let's kill that Johny Walker and call it a day.

 

[JohnRichard]

Being born and raised in Ky, I prefer Woodford. Someday I might find a good Scotch...


Sent from my LT30at using Tapatalk 2

 

[StoneNYC]

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

How about a nice bottle of rye? Love bourbon and Scotch, but rye is my new passion.
Would love to share a bottle of Michter's some day. That's my budget level in case anybody would complain.

 

[StoneNYC]

Ultimately is prefer a nice Cabernet Sauvignon something in the $18-$30 range

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Ultimately is prefer a nice Cabernet Sauvignon something in the $18-$30 range

That's 2-3 times what I normally pay for wine. But a nice cab is a beautiful thing. My palate is more in tune with a nice Barbera, Barolo, or barbaresco. The Italian wines have my wine heart. 2009 was a good year.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

That's 2-3 times what I normally pay for wine. But a nice cab is a beautiful thing.

I would echo both thoughts.

 

[StoneNYC]

That's 2-3 times what I normally pay for wine. But a nice cab is a beautiful thing. My palate is more in tune with a nice Barbera, Barolo, or barbaresco. The Italian wines have my wine heart. 2009 was a good year.

Italian wines are the worst! Lol, it's not because they don't care it's just that they drink more wine in Italy than almost anywhere, and so they often have a lot more table wine produced that is a little bit of a lower quality in order to keep up with demand for how much is actually being drunk.

Anyway I do kind of have a persnickety pallet... I generally will purchase anything under $15 it's just not worth drinking. There are of course exceptions, there are really really cheap ones that are really good, and really really expensive lines that are crap, but as a general rule, that price house me differentiate between something I would give a try and something I wouldn't bother trying if it's something new. Regularly I drink $15-$20 and no more except on rare occasion just because of budget reasons.

My best friend and I often get together on a Saturday night and giving something new a try, we taste and sniff it and we spend about an hour just drinking wine and talking about all the flavors.

Mmm now I want some...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Obviously, Stone, you have yet to learn the ABC's of sensitometry. Since you obviously know exactly zero about any of this, and can only
articulate you want a certain look without the slightest idea of how to arrive there except sheer luck, and then depend upon some lab to hopefully squeeze something useful out of otherwise naive exposures, and then try to discuss the pros and cons of different films relative to
this, when you don't even understand the most basic terminology involved .... &%#@@!!! No.. you haven't made prints yet. That's fine, but
doing so would help you understand the process and why you need versatile negs. You kinda like someone who says he only needs to drive in
the city, so only needs a two-speed transmission in the car, without a reverse. But if you've only ever taken a cab, you might not realize what a ridiculous comment that is.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

My best friend and I often get together on a Saturday night and giving something new a try, we taste and sniff it and we spend about an hour just drinking wine and talking about all the flavors.

Sounds like a nice way to spend time. I like to do that too, but it isn't necessarily wine. To cook with friends, or mix a new special variation of a nice Manhattan cocktail, share a fine bottle of beer or wine, or appreciate art together - those are my favorite things to do.
My better half does this with reading too, where she attends something called 'Books and Bars', where a contingent of readers pick up the same book, and get together to discuss the book, in a bar, with food, and a moderator. It's a really wonderful event.
And I enjoy hanging out with my coffee geek / talented photographer friends, where we meet up with local coffee roaster friends and sample wonderful coffees and look at photographic prints together. It's one of the big highlights of the month for me.

Tangible things, with flavors and tones, give us a lot to talk about and explore.

I agree with Shawn that this would be much more interesting to talk about away from the internet. Not only can we discuss the subject matter, but we can also look at actual prints to show how we arrived where we did, which adds an incredible dynamic to the discussion.

 

[StoneNYC]

Sounds like a nice way to spend time. I like to do that too, but it isn't necessarily wine. To cook with friends, or mix a new special variation of a nice Manhattan cocktail, share a fine bottle of beer or wine, or appreciate art together - those are my favorite things to do.
My better half does this with reading too, where she attends something called 'Books and Bars', where a contingent of readers pick up the same book, and get together to discuss the book, in a bar, with food, and a moderator. It's a really wonderful event.
And I enjoy hanging out with my coffee geek / talented photographer friends, where we meet up with local coffee roaster friends and sample wonderful coffees and look at photographic prints together. It's one of the big highlights of the month for me.

Tangible things, with flavors and tones, give us a lot to talk about and explore.

I agree with Shawn that this would be much more interesting to talk about away from the internet. Not only can we discuss the subject matter, but we can also look at actual prints to show how we arrived where we did, which adds an incredible dynamic to the discussion.

Thomas what I feel to mention is that after we drink our wine we have a delicious meal and drink some more, and then afterwards we geek out over boardgames and finally when it's starting to get late but the game still has some time left we pull out the really fancy coffee, put it through a bur grinder, pull out the French press and have a good time late into the night, also commenting on the coffee flavors

 

[StoneNYC]

Obviously, Stone, you have yet to learn the ABC's of sensitometry. Since you obviously know exactly zero about any of this, and can only
articulate you want a certain look without the slightest idea of how to arrive there except sheer luck, and then depend upon some lab to hopefully squeeze something useful out of otherwise naive exposures, and then try to discuss the pros and cons of different films relative to
this, when you don't even understand the most basic terminology involved .... &%#@@!!! No.. you haven't made prints yet. That's fine, but
doing so would help you understand the process and why you need versatile negs. You kinda like someone who says he only needs to drive in
the city, so only needs a two-speed transmission in the car, without a reverse. But if you've only ever taken a cab, you might not realize what a ridiculous comment that is.

Drew,

All the sensitometry knowledge in the world won't do you any good if you have no talent for photography when it comes to framing and composition and understanding subject matter...

Anyway our perspectives obviously differ, can we agree to disagree and move onto more important things, like wine?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Good analogy.... how do you know what a good wine is if you don't know how to pull a cork?

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

I agree with Shawn that this would be much more interesting to talk about away from the internet. Not only can we discuss the subject matter, but we can also look at actual prints to show how we arrived where we did, which adds an incredible dynamic to the discussion.

I was talking with Jeff and Eva Bannow at one of Powers' get togethers and they said that they occasionally host "printing parties"! I'm not certain that I'd be able to make any good prints working that way (maybe...) but it sure sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

 

[Chris Lange]

Drew,

All the sensitometry knowledge in the world won't do you any good if you have no talent for photography when it comes to framing and composition and understanding subject matter...

Anyway our perspectives obviously differ, can we agree to disagree and move onto more important things, like wine?

...are you serious? What the actual f*** is wrong with you? Why is it that you seem to take every offer of advice and resources and turn it into some kind of accusation about your methods? You don't have to be a sensitometric nerd (sorry sensitometric nerds), but you would only serve yourself by understanding your materials more clearly.

I think Drew might know something about framing and composition.

Your blatant lack of understanding, coupled with your insufferable arrogance, and unwillingness to actually make an effort to learn is embarrassing.

I thought maybe by now you would have learned at least that reciting clichés is a cliché.

 

[StoneNYC]

...are you serious? What the actual f*** is wrong with you? Why is it that you seem to take every offer of advice and resources and turn it into some kind of accusation about your methods? You don't have to be a sensitometric nerd (sorry sensitometric nerds), but you would only serve yourself by understanding your materials more clearly.

I think Drew might know something about framing and composition.

Your blatant lack of understanding, coupled with your insufferable arrogance, and unwillingness to actually make an effort to learn is embarrassing.

I thought maybe by now you would have learned at least that reciting clichés is a cliché.

Calm down, a little joshing back and forth isn't so bad, and Drew can take it, he's a big boy.

I was ball busting a little hard I admit.

 

[Chris Lange]

Good analogy.... how do you know what a good wine is if you don't know how to pull a cork?

Or how to tell if the wine is corked in the first place...

 

[StoneNYC]

Or how to tell if the wine is corked in the first place...

I wouldn't want to drink "corked wine"... It wouldn't taste very good...