First Time using Kodak TMX 100

[Andrew O'Neill]

When I used Tmax 100, I exposed it at EI 64, and developed in Xtol 1+1. Continuous agitation for 8 or 9 min... Can't remember. Beautiful negatives anyways. Never did like HC-110...

 

[otto.f]

Never did like HC-110...

A long time ago I worked a lot with HC110, for TriX mostly. It was more fascinating than the best option when I look back now. Anyway, I could never get Tmax100 satisfactory with HC110, with the same problems as OP reports. So that’s consistent.

 

[Helge]

A long time ago I worked a lot with HC110, for TriX mostly. It was more fascinating than the best option when I look back now. Anyway, I could never get Tmax100 satisfactory with HC110, with the same problems as OP reports. So that’s consistent.

Why are people using HC110? Seems pretty mediocre to worse than average developer on all counts.
No doubt there is a reason(s). But what is it?

Anti fogging, size and keep ability is possible candidates. But surely not clinching?
Grain, speed, compensation and curve is bettered by other developers AFAIK.

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, I used HC-110 for years with both T-Max 100 and T-Max 400 (mainly 400) and was quite happy with the results.
Mostly 1 + 49 in latter years, and for quite a while in a replenishment regime.
I was also using Plus-X, and I dabbled with a couple of other films too.
HC-110 was/is quite flexible, had extra-ordinary keeping properties (and still seems to keep well) and was well suited to my needs.
X-Tol is better in a replenishment regime, but I still have a bottle of old HC-110 and a couple of bottles of the replenisher, and I'm not getting rid of them.
Choice of developer makes relatively little difference. Issues of practicality don't.

 

[ic-racer]

Hard to say over the web, Bill. But the posted negs themselves look distinctly underexposed and overdeveloped to me.

Yes.
Try e.i 50 with that cameras meter.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Helge - why on earth do you think HC-110 is a mediocre developer? At least in the original formulation, the concentrate keeps seemingly forever. It can be made to reliably work over a wider range of dilutions than any other developer I can think of. I've used it for all kinds of technical applications involving TMax. No, it's not my "go-to" pictorial developer; but it could hypothetically be. TMax has such fine grain to begin with, that grain is rarely an issue like with ole Triassic-X. And contrary to what you state, HC-110 is one of the most versatile developers ever when it comes to a wide range of gamma choices. I've done hundreds of densitometer plots with TMax which prove it. But aside from lab applications where this kind of wide range of control is needed, I've already explained elsewhere a number of times why I prefer a staining pyro developer for TMY400, and Perceptol 1:3 for TMX100 when it comes to outdoor shooting.

 

[Helge]

FWIW, I used HC-110 for years with both T-Max 100 and T-Max 400 (mainly 400) and was quite happy with the results.
Mostly 1 + 49 in latter years, and for quite a while in a replenishment regime.
I was also using Plus-X, and I dabbled with a couple of other films too.
HC-110 was/is quite flexible, had extra-ordinary keeping properties (and still seems to keep well) and was well suited to my needs.
X-Tol is better in a replenishment regime, but I still have a bottle of old HC-110 and a couple of bottles of the replenisher, and I'm not getting rid of them.
Choice of developer makes relatively little difference. Issues of practicality don't.

Thanks. Will have to try it at some point. Even if just to say I did it.
Compactness and ease of use could be nice if I ever decide to develop while traveling. Just a syringe of syrup, fixer, stop and a few drops of Stab.
Would probably even fit in the tank.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, I gotta admit I wouldn't go with Kodak's recommended B dilution of HC-110 for TMax, but something more dilute, for longer time.

 

[Helge]

Helge - why on earth do you think HC-110 is a mediocre developer? At least in the original formulation, the concentrate keeps seemingly forever. It can be made to reliably work over a wider range of dilutions than any other developer I can think of. I've used it for all kinds of technical applications involving TMax. No, it's not my "go-to" pictorial developer; but it could hypothetically be. TMax has such fine grain to begin with, that grain is rarely an issue like with ole Triassic-X. And contrary to what you state, HC-110 is one of the most versatile developers ever when it comes to a wide range of gamma choices. I've done hundreds of densitometer plots with TMax which prove it. But aside from lab applications where this kind of wide range of control is needed, I've already explained elsewhere a number of times why I prefer a staining pyro developer for TMY400, and Perceptol 1:3 for TMX100 when it comes to outdoor shooting.

It just doesn’t seem to do anything that isn’t done better by other developers.
It’s kind of the Swiss Army Knife syndrome (except the knife in that, is actually pretty damn good).

I’m aware of the different dilutions. But again, they are just variations on a theme.

Flexibility is not always a good thing, if it comes at the expense of performance and if you are not really using the flexibility.

Keep ability is nice. But I easily go through a five liter XTOL dilution, even with very moderate shooting in the winter (on average about a roll a week), well before any expiration sets in.

Could you tell me a use case or cases where you prefer HC 110, or use it as well as any other dev for a particular film?

For example I like XTOL and TMax or pushed HP5. Low grain maximum speed and a slight S curve.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Helge - I'd surmise you just aren't all that familiar with HC-110. As you should know, originally a Swiss Army Knife meant high-quality Swiss-made Victorinox. Now it means any cute little red pocket knife given away free, and that goes dull slicing off a piece of warm butter. And I will repeat, very few developers are as flexible as HC-110. For example, I can use it for developing nearly straight line very low contrast masks used in conjunction with color negative printing. Try that with anything else. I've used it for other technical applications the other direction. This is not really the ideal thread for explaining those kinds of things. But I have hard data - lots of real densitometer plots, and not just "I like it" or "don't like it" opinions. And there's a tremendous amount of experience from the past with HC-110. I have even used it for developing dye transfer matrix film in drums - a very demanding experimental application requiring total predictability. But that kind of usage is nothing new, only the drum option is, along with a few modernized tweaks - not as if I had the time on my hands to fully carry out that kind of labor-intensive application! But as a carefully controlled test, it was totally successful.

I generally avoid S-curves because I often shoot in high contrast environments at high altitude or here in deep redwoods, or in the desert. HC-110 does a decent job maintaining the long straight line of TMax, but is not necessarily the best developer at that. TMax RS did it especially well, but is no longer made, was always costly, and did not rein in the highlights anywhere near as well as pyro. D76 produces a sag in the middle of the scale, and hence a longer toe - undesirable for my own applications. In less demanding or contrasty situations, I simply opt for less expensive FP4 or ACROS, or if shooting 8x10, maybe HP5.

 

[markbau]

I think one of the reasons HC 110 was/is popular is because AA’s development recommendations in his last books was based around HC 110, people thought it was AA’s “secret” Never mind that most of his iconic negs were developed in D23!

 

[Paul Howell]

HC 110 like D76 and Xtol are middle of the road developers, a balance of grain, contrast, and while holding to shadow details and close to box speed. Although I have not used HC 10 much I would not hesitate to recommend it. Ansel Adams did use HC 110 in his later work, he mention HC 110 as his go to developer in the 1981 edition of the negative, Fred Pickering pushed HC 110 as a miracle developer. AA work spanned 60 years and over the decades used ANCO 47, FG7, D23, to name just a few. If alive to today, maybe Tmax 400 with Tmax developer or Extol, who knows?

 

[GregY]

sruddy, as others have said, don't write TMAX100 off yet. I first avoided it because i heard it was finicky with time & temperature variables, but in the last few years i started using first for 35mm, as a replacement for Agfapan25. It is a brilliant film of great potential. It is important to adress those questions asked... Are you exposing it at box speed? How are you metering? Lastly, i think HC-110 is a fine developer, but I'll address my comments to "time." My choice of developer is Pyrocat HD and my typical development times with slow & fast films is typically 9 & 15 minutes. I think any developer with very short development times (3-4min) can easily end up with problems due to operator error. How big is your tank(s)? How long does it take for them to fill or empty? TMAX is capable of great detail.....but my suspicion is that your film is underexposed and underdeveloped. Check out this article by Alan Ross, who did lots of testing of this film for Kodak. https://www.alanrossphotography.com/pdfs/Getting-the-most-out-of-your-film-FREE-DOWNLOAD.pdf

 

[Craig]

Drew, Have you ever compared HC-110 and Ilfotec HC? They seemed similar to me with the dilutions and times, but I've never done a side by side comparison.

 

[NB23]

Tmx is an extremely tricky film. Sometimes it’s gorgeous, and other times it’s an infinite sea of dull grays. Definitely the worst film to start with, it’s just so hard to master, or at least to standardize.

The perfect tmx negative has to look a bit thin to the naked eye. That’s how it’s supposed to look.

After hundreds of rolls, I understood that, for my needs, ilfosol-3 is the best match for this film. Its adds the muche needed punch and grit that is otherwise totally lacking with D76/HC110/xtol

 

[Helge]

Helge - I'd surmise you just aren't all that familiar with HC-110. As you should know, originally a Swiss Army Knife meant high-quality Swiss-made Victorinox. Now it means any cute little red pocket knife given away free, and that goes dull slicing off a piece of warm butter. And I will repeat, very few developers are as flexible as HC-110. For example, I can use it for developing nearly straight line very low contrast masks used in conjunction with color negative printing. Try that with anything else. I've used it for other technical applications the other direction. This is not really the ideal thread for explaining those kinds of things. But I have hard data - lots of real densitometer plots, and not just "I like it" or "don't like it" opinions. And there's a tremendous amount of experience from the past with HC-110. I have even used it for developing dye transfer matrix film in drums - a very demanding experimental application requiring total predictability. But that kind of usage is nothing new, only the drum option is, along with a few modernized tweaks - not as if I had the time on my hands to fully carry out that kind of labor-intensive application! But as a carefully controlled test, it was totally successful.

I generally avoid S-curves because I often shoot in high contrast environments at high altitude or here in deep redwoods, or in the desert. HC-110 does a decent job maintaining the long straight line of TMax, but is not necessarily the best developer at that. TMax RS did it especially well, but is no longer made, was always costly, and did not rein in the highlights anywhere near as well as pyro. D76 produces a sag in the middle of the scale, and hence a longer toe - undesirable for my own applications. In less demanding or contrasty situations, I simply opt for less expensive FP4 or ACROS, or if shooting 8x10, maybe HP5.

No I’m not familiar with HC 110, so thanks for the clarification and explanation. You made me curious. I’ll get a bottle.
It’s a actually not easy to find a good rundown of the developer online, so it easily appears a bit “why?” when you look at the data sheet and comparisons.

A Swiss Army knife can be made by Wenger too (though they are owned by Victorinox now?) they are marvoulus tools and I have several of the various army editions (best weighting between gimmicks and bulk).
But I’d take a real screwdriver or bottle opener any day over the knife.

It does give me a bit of pause, that none of the people talking HC 110 up here, are currently using it.

 

[MattKing]

I use HC-110 for special projects - the sort of things that having a very good developer that stores really well is perfect for.
Developing really old 616 film is one example.
But if I went back to using developer one-shot, I'd probably go back to HC-110. It is very good.

 

[NB23]

I’m using it. Sill have 3L of the original stuff. I’m keeping it for my 250 rolls of tri-x and 150 rolls of hp5 i have. For pan-f and tmx100, I prefer ilfosol-3.

No I’m not familiar with HC 110, so thanks for the clarification and explanation. You made me curious. I’ll get a bottle.
It’s a actually not easy to find a good rundown of the developer online, so it easily appears a bit “why?” when you look at the data sheet and comparisons.

A Swiss Army knife can be made by Wenger too (though they are owned by Victorinox now?) they are marvoulus tools and I have several of the various army editions (best weighting between gimmicks and bulk).
But I’d take a real screwdriver or bottle opener any day over the knife.

It does give me a bit of pause, that none of the people talking HC 110 up here, are currently using it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Helge - A forum like this one is rarely the best place for technical information. It's nice for talking about preferences and opinions. And although I am a heavy user of TMax in multiple formats clear up to 8x10, and find it 100% predictable, I will be the first to admit it's not the best choice for beginners just trying to get on first base. Likewise, HC-110 has a deeply layered history of special applications which rarely match the generic needs of people here on this forum. Once one learns to properly mix it, it's just as easy as any other developer to use. But its wide range of usages might not be familiar to many in the same manner as it was for previous generations. I'm not trying to promote HC110, but just come to its defense as a really versatile product. But I don't use it often enough myself to comment on the latest reformulation of it. I'm still using concentrate at least 15 years old. There are already threads dedicated to that particular question.

 

[Helge]

Helge - A forum like this one is rarely the best place for technical information. It's nice for talking about preferences and opinions. And although I am a heavy user of TMax in multiple formats clear up to 8x10, and find it 100% predictable, I will be the first to admit it's not the best choice for beginners just trying to get on first base. Likewise, HC-110 has a deeply layered history of special applications which rarely match the generic needs of people here on this forum. Once one learns to properly mix it, it's just as easy as any other developer to use. But its wide range of usages might not be familiar to many in the same manner as it was for previous generations. I'm not trying to promote HC110, but just come to its defense as a really versatile product. But I don't use it often enough myself to comment on the latest reformulation of it. I'm still using concentrate at least 15 years old. There are already threads dedicated to that particular question.

That is up to you and me to make a it a good place.
It’s not worse, and I’d say better than places like Reddit or YouTube.
It’s quite rare to find a place, site or book that just hands you a good intro on a platter. So asking for clues and cues is what a forum is good for. Then do your own digging.

TMX to get back on topic, is AFAICT quite overrated in its difficultly for beginners.
Sure, it’s not like HP5 where you can abuse it to hell and get a passable image.
But if you follow a recipe and have reasonably good technique, you’ll will get a good result on the first roll.
You can tweak and experiment from there.

 

[DREW WILEY]

A major issue is that so many people don't know how to use or even own real light meters these days. They rely on onboard automated or semi-automated small camera programs, or else guess at the exposure based on some kind of exposure "latitude" mythology, as if this were a film like Kodacolor Gold engineered with a seemingly endless toe for sake of careless amateurs, which would of course, if that were itself a black and white film, come out miserably bland. But frankly, I don't fudge with HP5 either, really with any film. But I'm after optimal exposures, not merely passable ones. One is only as good as their weakest link; and once one gets sloppy at one part of the process, it's inevitable they'll get sloppy with other aspects too, and eventually that all adds up. So my philosophy is, learn to do it right to begin with, and after awhile, with some practice and experience, it becomes even easier and more intuitive than the careless way.

 

[sruddy]

sruddy, as others have said, don't write TMAX100 off yet. I first avoided it because i heard it was finicky with time & temperature variables, but in the last few years i started using first for 35mm, as a replacement for Agfapan25. It is a brilliant film of great potential. It is important to adress those questions asked... Are you exposing it at box speed? How are you metering? Lastly, i think HC-110 is a fine developer, but I'll address my comments to "time." My choice of developer is Pyrocat HD and my typical development times with slow & fast films is typically 9 & 15 minutes. I think any developer with very short development times (3-4min) can easily end up with problems due to operator error. How big is your tank(s)? How long does it take for them to fill or empty? TMAX is capable of great detail.....but my suspicion is that your film is underexposed and underdeveloped. Check out this article by Alan Ross, who did lots of testing of this film for Kodak. https://www.alanrossphotography.com/pdfs/Getting-the-most-out-of-your-film-FREE-DOWNLOAD.pdf

Yes I shot at box speed and underdeveloped by 30 seconds. So turns out it was underexposed and underdeveloped like you suspect.
I just loaded the same camera with more of the same and set the compensation for an extra 2/3 of a stop, and this time I’ll up the development another 30 seconds to match the minimum.
Here are a few prints shot with iphone. Not sure why I even bother posting these as iphone adds contrast which is blowing highlights. The only way I know to post a good print shot is to do it in the studio with strobes and polarized light. Wish i could come up with a quick and easy way that accurately represented the print. However not too bad considering my mistakes. I’ll post shots of the next rolls as soon as I can and I'll take the time to photograph them better.

View attachment 300780

My two favorite 35mm film cameras that will be helping me dial in this film. They both have working have meters that have been tested using metered strobes and charts in my studio.

I just noticed I put -2/3 stop EC when actually it's +2/3.

 

[pentaxuser]

. As you should know, originally a Swiss Army Knife meant high-quality Swiss-made Victorinox. Now it means any cute little red pocket knife given away free, and that goes dull slicing off a piece of warm butter.

Or indeed slicing through warm necks as I discovered on my walks through Whitechapel a few years ago

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

Or indeed slicing through warm necks as I discovered on my walks through Whitechapel a few years ago

pentaxuser

Jack, Did you use a Victorinox or Wenger?.

 

[pentaxuser]

Jack, Did you use a Victorinox or Wenger?.

Frankly I don't know but for goodness sake don't call me by my real name

pentaxuser