Do People Like the Older Versions of Tri-X 400 More?

[warden]

I have a collection of negatives mainly from the 1950's, and frankly the films are terrible. It's easy to see why the popular formats were larger and most prints were contact prints, or slight enlargements. The grain is massive compared to modern film, and as a result resolution is limited. The overall enlarging potential is quite limited too simply because the image breaks down and goes to mush with any degree of enlargement. There is no way I want to go back to bowling ball sized grain.

I think we are living in a golden age of photography with the modern films that we have; they combine resolution, sharpness, fine grain and tonality in a way that photographers in the 50's could only dream of. They would be astonished by the qualities of Delta or T grain films.

Here is an example from a 645 sized negative. First a 1:1 crop, second full frame.

Is there any chance that your example image is suffering from problems not related to the film? I mean, Vivian Maier and countless others were also using Tri-X in medium format cameras back in the 1950s and their results were sublime in print and online too, even with people in small parts of the negative like your example.

I do understand what you're saying about this being a great time for film shooters, especially the ones that like a modern grain structure for whatever reason. Even though there are fewer brands today I still feel spoiled for choice.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Well there was a time probably in the 50s when more households had cameras than had a TV set so at that stage still films were more of a mass market where the need to make the product, namely film, better applied than to TV set production.

It seems your contentions is that if Tri-X were the same today as in the 60s more b&w shooters would be using it. Well I accept this applies to you and no doubt to others but stating this as a general "truth" seems likely to be flawed in my book

The solution to the problem of pleasing everybody, if I have understood your argument would have been to have left films as they were at some point in the 60s and simply concentrated on the newer, fine grain developers so the admirers of how films were could be satisfied by presumably avoiding such changes in developers and those wishing for similar results to what they get now could have availed themselves of new developers and everyone is happy

If this is a correct interpretation of your contention above, can you say which old developers should have been kept and which of the new ones developed?

If we now assume that Kodak had decided to effectively stand still in terms of film design would it not have been required to have formed a cartel with all of the other film makers to ensure that no-one broke ranks on film making and equally on the need to retain the old developers?

This all seems to get more complicated, the more we think through what would have been needed to make the film world stand still and dare I say it, would make the whole scenario a less than realistic proposition

Yes there are things from the 60s that I loved ( see my example of the fixed wheel bike) but in reality I recognise that maybe my desire is affected a kind of romance with the old days that ignores the fact that the world has a history of striving for technological improvement that by and large has benefited us

I have to say that I would so hate us to have stopped somewhere in the 60s with medical progress or vehicle production etc

I recall many years ago when I was already in middle age, my 10 year old son saying I had seemed to be having a great time at a barbeque in the company of fellow middle-agers .

He said: What were you all talking about, Dad? Was it the "old days" He had perceptively recognised a phenomenon that afflicts most of us after a certain age but one which remains alien to the pre-teens, teens and twenties generations, called nostalgia

It is a powerful drug and one that can be dangerous in certain circumstances but alas the Soapbox is no more to discuss such matters

I am off to watch the Mount Etna stage of the Giro d'Italia and imagine how Fausto Coppi would have shown these young guys how it was done on his early 1950s bike

pentaxuser

You're not reading me right. I'm in no way nostalgic. I use today's films with much pleasure, and don't have any kind of "romance with the old days"—although I did listen to The White Album yesterday.

My only beef, and not a very interesting one, mind you, is with qualifying the new Tri-X as "better," "improved," or "superior." Because it has smaller grain, it's a different film esthetically than the old Tri-X, it's not a better or improved film because it has . An electric-car battery that can run for 250 km is an improvement over one that can only last for 50 km, for the obvious reason that if you need to go more than 50km in one shot, you can't with the second option. Smaller grain is not an improvement, for the obvious reason that a gazillion great photos were made with the old stuff without any of these photographers, that I know of, saying "Gee, I really wish there'd be smaller grain on this. Today, they'd probably make the same shot, love it as much, but differently, because it would look different, because printed differently. Would some love the new Tri-X more? Probably. Would some love the old stuff more? Probably.

I'm not nostalgic. I do like some of the "clinical" aspect of the modern films. But I mostly hope that, for the sake of bowing to today's taste for "improved" small grain films, we won't lose too much variety and diversity. It's nice to know we could also go for something like this if we wanted to (stunning and evocative 1935 'Early morning on the Thames', by Bill Brandt. Not Tri-X, of course). You've gotta love grain like this :

 

[Craig]

Is there any chance that your example image is suffering from problems not related to the film?

I have other negatives from different photographers taken up to about 1960 that have similar grain, so I think it's more a characteristic of the film, than anything else.

 

[Lachlan Young]

It's nice to know we could also go for something like this if we wanted to (stunning and evocative 1935 'Early morning on the Thames', by Bill Brandt. Not Tri-X, of course). You've gotta love grain like this

Brandt is a questionable example to use for your hypothesis - he heavily (and I mean heavily) manipulated the texture of the image at the print stage by various means up to and including white gouache, black ink, physical retouching, dropped-in skies etc. And the images were reproduced largely in rotogravure, which allows for further manipulation in intermediary/ retouching steps. Latterly, Brandt used Tri-X and Microphen.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

It's nice to know we could also go for something like this if we wanted to (stunning and evocative 1935 'Early morning on the Thames', by Bill Brandt. Not Tri-X, of course). You've gotta love grain like this :

In that photograph, are we seeing reticulation? It does not look like grain.
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/unleash-that-reticulated-film-python/

 

[Craig]

without any of these photographers, that I know of, saying "Gee, I really wish there'd be smaller grain on this. Today, they'd probably make the same shot, love it as much, but differently, because it would look different, because printed differently. Would some love the new Tri-X more? Probably. Would some love the old stuff more? Probably.

I'll disagree strongly with you on that. I learned photography before digital, and the holy grail of photographers was fine grain. That's why developers like Microdol-X were invented. If you go back and read magazines like Modern Photography and Camera and Darkroom the quest was always for finer grain. That's part of the reason "fine art"photographers used large format, it gave finer grain and better tonality.

35mm was tolerated for street photography because of the need for small, portable cameras, not because the larger grain of photos from 35mm was desired. It was a tolerated byproduct, not something to be desired. I had friends (long since passed away now) who was a press photographer in the 1930's and 40's who used 8x10 because it gave better prints. If you gave those photographers Delta or T-max they would love it and never look back.

Your argument that a majority would love the old films more doesn't hold water. Again, pre-digital, films like Panatomic-X and Plus-X were sold alongside T-Max, and they simply didn't sell in economic quantities to survive. On the Ilford side, when films like HP5 plus came out with smaller grain than HP5, nobody shead a tear for the old films. If everyone loved old technology, Ilford wouldn't be making the Delta line, but they do. If anything is endangered, it's Pan-F, not Delta.

 

[MattKing]

I think it would be interesting if Kodak were to re-introduce 2475 recording film that incorporates the more modern technology now found in Tri-X. That would offer a "grainy", higher contrast choice for those who wanted it. T-Max 3200 really doesn't offer that.
I guess I need to pull out some 45-50 year old Tri-X 35mm negatives and print something.

 

[flavio81]

I'll disagree strongly with you on that. I learned photography before digital, and the holy grail of photographers was fine grain. That's why developers like Microdol-X were invented. If you go back and read magazines like Modern Photography and Camera and Darkroom the quest was always for finer grain. That's part of the reason "fine art"photographers used large format, it gave finer grain and better tonality.

35mm was tolerated for street photography because of the need for small, portable cameras, not because the larger grain of photos from 35mm was desired. It was a tolerated byproduct, not something to be desired. I had friends (long since passed away now) who was a press photographer in the 1930's and 40's who used 8x10 because it gave better prints. If you gave those photographers Delta or T-max they would love it and never look back.

Your argument that a majority would love the old films more doesn't hold water. Again, pre-digital, films like Panatomic-X and Plus-X were sold alongside T-Max, and they simply didn't sell in economic quantities to survive. On the Ilford side, when films like HP5 plus came out with smaller grain than HP5, nobody shead a tear for the old films. If everyone loved old technology, Ilford wouldn't be making the Delta line, but they do. If anything is endangered, it's Pan-F, not Delta.

Great post.

 

[flavio81]

I don't think this is a good way of putting it. There hasn't been an "improved" film in many decades. The changes are not improvement, the films aren't superior.

In slide films, Provia 100F (2001) was an objective improvement in many regards (including grain), as was Astia 100 (accurate skin tones).

Ektar 100 (2008) is objectively the finest-grained color negative speed of 100 speed, and as good as the old Ektar 25

Etc.

 

[warden]

I have other negatives from different photographers taken up to about 1960 that have similar grain, so I think it's more a characteristic of the film, than anything else.

I'm not sure what you mean by similar grain. If you mean looking through a grain magnifier then I'll have to take your word for it as I have no 1950s medium format negatives. But here is a 1950s photo from Maier that also has small heads in the subject matter and they look quite different than the example posted earlier. From what I've read she had others develop and print her images.

 

[madNbad]

I think it would be interesting if Kodak were to re-introduce 2475 recording film that incorporates the more modern technology now found in Tri-X. That would offer a "grainy", higher contrast choice for those who wanted it. T-Max 3200 really doesn't offer that.
I guess I need to pull out some 45-50 year old Tri-X 35mm negatives and print something.

Come on, Matt, let’s see some bellbottoms!

Bugattis 1975 New Hope Auto Show by Michael DeLuca, on Flickr

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Your argument that a majority would love the old films more doesn't hold water. Again, pre-digital, films like Panatomic-X and Plus-X were sold alongside T-Max, and they simply didn't sell in economic quantities to survive. On the Ilford side, when films like HP5 plus came out with smaller grain than HP5, nobody shead a tear for the old films.

OK, I'm quitting this conversation because people keep misquoting me. Or maybe my mastery of English just isn't good enough for me to make my thoughts clear (I am French speaking). Again, I never said that photographers today would love the old films more. I specifically said the opposite, that the development towards fine grain was, in fact, to go with the modern taste (I do wish people would read whole threads and not the last two posts!)—that it was a change made to suit that general taste—but that it did not mean that film had "improved" or was "better". I suspect that that change in taste was partially due to TV and, even more so, to the computer screen, but I have no doubts that some of the older generation photographers, especially those in advertising, were already wishing for smaller-grain film.

To me, it's more than just semantics. I don't like to ascribe these types of qualitative categories to changes in taste, even less apply the notion of progress to artistic development (even more so to it's scientific aspects)—and especially don't like the implication that Gene Smith's, Cartier-Bresson's or Robert Frank's photos would have been "better" with the new films. My point is an esthetic one: that they learned to see the world as photographers through the "eyes" of the films they had, no matter which film they would have wanted to have. I think "How do I see the world as my film sees the world" is a fascinating question, and a fundamental one that all photographers should ponder.

I'll go back and listen to The White Album now .

 

[Alex Benjamin]

In slide films, Provia 100F (2001) was an objective improvement in many regards (including grain), as was Astia 100 (accurate skin tones).

Ektar 100 (2008) is objectively the finest-grained color negative speed of 100 speed, and as good as the old Ektar 25

Etc.

I rarely do color. I was talking about black and white, and Tri-X in particular.

 

[Down Under]

A little more nostalgia, for what it's worth...

MF Tri-X in the 1960s was an entirely different kettle of fish from 35mm - it printed (and still prints) amazingly well, with none of the heavy grain structure associated with the smaller format of the same film. Also Super-XX, a film I recall was manufactured only in 120 rolls, which I used a fair bit in my journalism years mid-1960s until it was discontinued by Kodak.

One of the big differences between 120 Tri-X and the other Kodak roll films (including Verichrome Pan, which I also used back then, hundreds or even thousands of rolls of it) was that the latter built up contrast fast in development. I had to be super careful as even one minute of extra time in the tank resulted in too much high contrast for the negatives to be printed in the mid-grey tones required in the media scanning process of that era. Processing was difficult for us in that we - in a small provincial newspaper in Canada we reporters did all our own film developing and printing, when the closing time for copy and prints for the next day's paper was fast approaching - used Dektol for our films. I wanted better quality in my negatives, so I paid for DK60a which I used in the newspaper's darkroom. I also evolved a fast process time which enabled me to develop, fix, rinse in water, squeegee-dry the film and make a quick print, in just under 60 minutes.

So the "secret" I learned early was that development was crucial to the results. Which paid off for me.

Recently an old colleague sent me several dozen rolls of Plus-X he took in Indonesia in the '70s with a Leica M. He processed them all in Rodinal. For me printing these is a chore - the grain structure is like ground pepper and clearly visible in all his images.

Decades later I still have many of my old negatives archived from those Good Old Days. They still print well, as good as any I take nowadays on more modern films.

PS1 I agree with another poster's comment that today's films are in many ways better than the older ones, but I still greatly miss Panatomic-X and Plus-X.

PS2 Alex has made many interesting points in his (I suspect, steady-stream-of-consciousness, but well thought out and written) posts, but in the summing up, I mostly agree with Craig' (#56).

 

[Sirius Glass]

OK, I'm quitting this conversation because people keep misquoting me. Or maybe my mastery of English just isn't good enough for me to make my thoughts clear (I am French speaking). Again, I never said that photographers today would love the old films more. I specifically said the opposite, that the development towards fine grain was, y in fact, to go with the modern taste (I do wish people would read whole threads and not the last two posts!)—that it was a change made to suit that general taste—but that it did not mean that film had "improved" or was "better". I suspect that that change in taste was partially due to TV and, even more so, to the computer screen, but I have no doubts that some of the older generation photographers, especially those in advertising, were already wishing for smaller-grain film.

To me, it's more than just semantics. I don't like to ascribe these types of qualitative categories to changes in taste, even less apply the notion of progress to artistic development (even more so to it's scientific aspects)—and especially don't like the implication that Gene Smith's, Cartier-Bresson's or Robert Frank's photos would have been "better" with the new films. My point is an esthetic one: that they learned to see the world as photographers through the "eyes" of the films they had, no matter which film they would have wanted to have. I think "How do I see the world as my film sees the world" is a fascinating question, and a fundamental one that all photographers should ponder.

I'll go back and listen to The White Album now .

Something must be wrong with my understanding of your posts. I understood them correctly the first time I read them and every time after. I was baffled that other could have interpreted it differently, but somehow they managed to! Maybe I will have to go back to drinking copious amount of beer before reading any more of your posts.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Maybe I will have to go back to drinking copious amount of beer before reading any more of your posts.

Should work. That's what I do before writing them.

 

[Paul Howell]

Without getting into the technical details that I don't have the advance chem or engineering to really understand. TriX of the 60s and 70 although had more grain and higher contrast compared to current version or Tmax 400, when compared to films of the day such as GAF 500 or Super hypan and HP3, TriX was really really good. In college or lab instructor hated Kodak, not because Kodak made bad products, he hated the business practices, he only bought GAF, Edwal, the expectation was Trix as there was a fast film that near Trix.

 

[Jay Schrotenboer]

Should work. That's what I do before writing them.

As it should be!! I find you do well with expressing your opinions in English, so please keep at it

 

[Sirius Glass]

Should work. That's what I do before writing them.

Alex, your command of English is better than many native English speakers who post here.

 

[markjwyatt]

Some Clues from Robert Shanebrook:

In "Making Kodak Film", 2nd Edition, 2016, Robert Shanbrook (maybe he will comment), page 336, Robert says that in 2003, all coating was moved from 13 Room to building 38, including Tri-X. He says that the moved films had to have changes made to the emulsion formulas and processes. Many customers at that time claimed they could see the difference. On page 17 he states that Tri-X uses conventional (3D) silver grains and TMAX tabular and 3D grains (in a section about ISO 400 films). On page 20 he shows a photomicrograph of Tri-X cross-section showing 3D grains and a fast (top) and slow (bottom) layer. I wonder if Tri-X always had two layers? On page 18 he shows a cross-section for TMAX 400 with a fast (top, T-grain; appears like lines) and slow (bottom, 3D) grains. No dates are given for either image. Figure 9 shows rolls of film with the cut end folded exposing both sides for old Tri-X (13 Room, 1997) and new Tri-X (Room 38). They look very close in color. Maybe the new emulsion is a little more glossy, but that could also be lighting differences, or a difference in the process.

 

[Craig]

OK, I'm quitting this conversation because people keep misquoting me.

I read, and re-read everything you wrote. You don't see modern films as an improvement over old ones, and don't see the need for fine grain films. That's fine, but I have a different viewpoint. You talked about fine grain film driving taste and thus demand in the 1950's and onward toward modern T-grain film, while I think the process was really the opposite.

After WW2, the general ethos in society was very forward looking: everything was new, improved and the emphasis was on "modern". After the depression and war, people wanted better and easier lives, and above all new things. It was driven by the technology and inventions that started because of the war, and there was the expectation that technology would improve at an increasing pace. It was the jet age, then the space age and computer age and above all an age of optimism that the future would continue to see new technology.

Anything that hadn't improved at this accelerated pace was considered old fashioned, stuffy and not worth considering. To give you an example, the famous Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC was going to be demolished because it was "old fashioned". It's a cherished and popular hotel now because of it's age and location, but in the 60's it was seen as "frumpy" and behind the times.

Photographers didn't exist in a bubble either, it was also a time of expectations that technology would make things better, and one thing that was certainly considered better was faster, finer grained films. As the market leader, Kodak was at the forefront of this, and couldn't afford to be static. Remember also that back then there were far more uses for film than pictorial and artistic uses. The scientific, commercial and medical uses of film were far more commercially significant than consumer pictorial films, and those users demanded better films. Think of the US spy planes and satellites that all used film - they wanted the best that was technologically possible. They had no interest in grain and "drama". Some artistic users may have wanted grain, but plenty didn't. It would have gone against the general feeling in society at the time of always advancing progress.

I read and understand your points, but I don't think they are nearly as universal as you ascribe them to be. If you want grain, you can use the old style Foma films. Me, I'm very happy with Delta 100 and it's nearly invisible grain.

 

[markjwyatt]

I read, and re-read everything you wrote. You don't see modern films as an improvement over old ones, and don't see the need for fine grain films. That's fine, but I have a different viewpoint. You talked about fine grain film driving taste and thus demand in the 1950's and onward toward modern T-grain film, while I think the process was really the opposite.

After WW2, the general ethos in society was very forward looking: everything was new, improved and the emphasis was on "modern". After the depression and war, people wanted better and easier lives, and above all new things. It was driven by the technology and inventions that started because of the war, and there was the expectation that technology would improve at an increasing pace. It was the jet age, then the space age and computer age and above all an age of optimism that the future would continue to see new technology.

Anything that hadn't improved at this accelerated pace was considered old fashioned, stuffy and not worth considering. To give you an example, the famous Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC was going to be demolished because it was "old fashioned". It's a cherished and popular hotel now because of it's age and location, but in the 60's it was seen as "frumpy" and behind the times.

Photographers didn't exist in a bubble either, it was also a time of expectations that technology would make things better, and one thing that was certainly considered better was faster, finer grained films. As the market leader, Kodak was at the forefront of this, and couldn't afford to be static. Remember also that back then there were far more uses for film than pictorial and artistic uses. The scientific, commercial and medical uses of film were far more commercially significant than consumer pictorial films, and those users demanded better films. Think of the US spy planes and satellites that all used film - they wanted the best that was technologically possible. They had no interest in grain and "drama". Some artistic users may have wanted grain, but plenty didn't. It would have gone against the general feeling in society at the time of always advancing progress.

I read and understand your points, but I don't think they are nearly as universal as you ascribe them to be. If you want grain, you can use the old style Foma films. Me, I'm very happy with Delta 100 and it's nearly invisible grain.

I think I agree with your view based on what my dad shared with me when he started teaching me photography in the 1970s. He studied photography in a high school vocational program ( a very successful one) in the mid-late 1940s. He impressed upon me that fine grain was better. One of the first films he gave me was Pan-X, then Plus-X, then HP5. I think he wanted me to understand the benefit of speed, but also the quality of fine grain. I recall that this was the general attitude in the 1970s, and apparently before that also. Today grain is trendy, and grain has always been used artistically in photography, and tolerated where not desired to get a shot that otherwise would be lost (e.g., photojournalism).

 

[MattKing]

In the 1970s, most of us felt that grain usually got in the way of the film doing what we wanted of them.
Modern films have less grain and are more likely to be able to do what we want of them.
Thus use of the term "improvement".

 

[pentaxuser]

Alex, your command of English is better than many native English speakers who post here.

I agree and had not the slightest notion from anything he wrote that it was not Alex's native language. He writes "well good" as we native English speakers in the U.K. now write. Yes this phrase has crept into our speech and is creeping in to our written English.

I was going to adopt this phrase until I realised a serious problem with "well" in the above context arises when I go to the doctor and have to tell him I am well unwell

pentaxuser

 

[bedrof]

I'm not sure what you mean by similar grain. If you mean looking through a grain magnifier then I'll have to take your word for it as I have no 1950s medium format negatives. But here is a 1950s photo from Maier that also has small heads in the subject matter and they look quite different than the example posted earlier. From what I've read she had others develop and print her images.

I wish I can get a tonality like that of the Vivian Maier in #60.

I once shot a roll of modern 35mm 400TX and a roll of Double-X 5222 at the same time, then processed them simultaneously in HC-110. I liked prints from the latter more.