First Time using Kodak TMX 100

[DREW WILEY]

Sruddy, For learning purposes, I recommend taking along a large 18% gray card or gray disc with you for awhile, metering that, and then, by comparison metering, learning to recognize what surfaces in the natural world equate to that same midtone value. Finding an equivalent depth of asphalt gray is sometimes possible in a scene, but you probably need to recognize what kinds of vegetation shades do too. After some practice, it becomes intuitive. But that's still going to be just the midpoint value. With TMax films, you're deepest shadows should be no more than 3 stops below that, and you brightest highlights 3 stops above, relative to your "normal" development time, which of course can be adjusted for less or more contrast if needed. Good luck, and just take it a step at a time. You'll get there.

 

[Bill Burk]

@sruddy

iPhone shots of prints are great, we know you can only appreciate a print in person.

I still think everything you have shown is fine! There will always be a few highlight keys that blow out. That’s not the “soot and chalk” Ansel Adams railed against.

You might elect to increase exposure but not by much… and you don’t have to.

You might add 30 seconds developing time. But you don’t have to. You are really close to right on.

 

[sruddy]

@sruddy

iPhone shots of prints are great, we know you can only appreciate a print in person.

I still think everything you have shown is fine! There will always be a few highlight keys that blow out. That’s not the “soot and chalk” Ansel Adams railed against.

You might elect to increase exposure but not by much… and you don’t have to.

You might add 30 seconds developing time. But you don’t have to. You are really close to right on.

Thanks Bill, I’m anxious to develop the second batch with the small changes you mentioned.2/3 pf a stop EC and 30 seconds more development, which would put me up to the minimum develop time. I would like to get up to a number two filter. Most of the images from the first batch were number 1. The other thing that happened on several images is in order to maintain a shadow detail I wanted, the black level suffered. One thing I can’t understand is why longer than normal development times equal higher contrast. I am under the impression shadow detail will develop before highlights. So in my mind if this is so, the longer you develop the film, the denser the highlights will get, which would shorten the tonal range and lessen contrast. I guess I haven't read the right document or seen examples for this to make sense.

Sruddy, For learning purposes, I recommend taking along a large 18% gray card or gray disc with you for awhile, metering that, and then, by comparison metering, learning to recognize what surfaces in the natural world equate to that same midtone value. Finding an equivalent depth of asphalt gray is sometimes possible in a scene, but you probably need to recognize what kinds of vegetation shades do too. After some practice, it becomes intuitive. But that's still going to be just the midpoint value. With TMax films, you're deepest shadows should be no more than 3 stops below that, and you brightest highlights 3 stops above, relative to your "normal" development time, which of course can be adjusted for less or more contrast if needed. Good luck, and just take it a step at a time. You'll get there.

Thanks Drew good advice. I have done that in the past with other films, and should start using the spot meter again,at least for some situations until I get a better feel for getting the best exposures.

 

[MattKing]

I am under the impression shadow detail will develop before highlights.

It is the reverse.
Or more accurately, if you increase development, the density of highlight detail will increase more than the density of shadow detail will.
I expect though that you are conflating darker shadows (in your prints) with higher contrast. Higher contrast has more to do with the appearance of the mid-tones and highlights.

 

[sruddy]

It is the reverse.
Or more accurately, if you increase development, the density of highlight detail will increase more than the density of shadow detail will.
I expect though that you are conflating darker shadows (in your prints) with higher contrast. Higher contrast has more to do with the appearance of the mid-tones and highlights.

Thanks Matt, I guess I never really understood contrast as I always assumed if you look at a histogram and it was like a mound and touching both ends, you have good contrast, and if its not, you have less contrast. Maybe Im confusing it with dynamic range? I have heard folks talk about midrange contrast which I should learn more about as well.

 

[MattKing]

Here is an image with good contrast, but without many deep, dark shadows:


And here is an image with lots of deep, dark shadows, but relatively low contrast:

 

[sruddy]

Here is an image with good contrast, but without many deep, dark shadows:
View attachment 300895

And here is an image with lots of deep, dark shadows, but relatively low contrast:
View attachment 300896

ok After sleeping on this I realized why I keep misunderstanding what’s going on to the tones during development. I keep confusing that more density in a negative means lighter tones. My experience all my life has been with positive digital captures. When I think of density it’s actually opposite of whats going on in a negative vs positive. I wish I could watch a video to see exactly what happens during the development stage. Given this knowledge, I’m wondering why folks are saying I need more development time, if Im already not the happiest about the highlight clipping. I need to learn how to maintain both the shadows and highlights in a negative and how to get them transferred to a print.

 

[AZD]

I need to learn how to maintain both the shadows and highlights in a negative and how to get them transferred to a print.

Bingo. No matter your process, this is the key to getting there.

It’s impossible for any one person to provide answers to all your questions, and experimentation is required. For instance, talk of blown highlights, which is a term used frequently. But what does it actually mean to people? Did the highlights really approach the maximum density possible on the negative? Or do they contain details that are simply out of range for the print process and materials? You get the idea. You have to balance the advice with what you’re seeing.

Anyhow, many years ago Tmax 100 and 400 were used in bulk by the school photo classes. Man, what a range of outcomes… So many bad negatives and prints, but then you’d get one that just nailed it. So it can be done. My own amateur experience is that Tmax, for my preference, hates both underexposure and underdevelopment. Some of the denser negatives made pretty good prints.

 

[AZD]

BTW, the prints you shared are really quite good. You’re definitely on the right track.

 

[sruddy]

Bingo. No matter your process, this is the key to getting there.

It’s impossible for any one person to provide answers to all your questions, and experimentation is required. For instance, talk of blown highlights, which is a term used frequently. But what does it actually mean to people? Did the highlights really approach the maximum density possible on the negative? Or do they contain details that are simply out of range for the print process and materials? You get the idea. You have to balance the advice with what you’re seeing.

Anyhow, many years ago Tmax 100 and 400 were used in bulk by the school photo classes. Man, what a range of outcomes… So many bad negatives and prints, but then you’d get one that just nailed it. So it can be done. My own amateur experience is that Tmax, for my preference, hates both underexposure and underdevelopment. Some of the denser negatives made pretty good prints.

Thanks, it will be interesting to learn what the limitations of the printing process will be. I often see what appears to be plenty detail in highlights but no matter what I do with filters or time they can never be printed. They either look blown out or grey depending on filter and time. Scan them and process digitally, seems to be a different story. I suppose using a densitometer would take the guess work out of it, but I think I would like to get a visual feel for what is achievable before going that direction.

 

[MattKing]

I’m wondering why folks are saying I need more development time, if Im already not the happiest about the highlight clipping

Most likely your negatives aren't "clipping". Instead, you just aren't printing them dark enough.
When you under-expose and under-develop, you end up with negatives whose shadows are likely to print too dark, so you tend to reduce the printing time, leading to highlights that are too bright and lose detail.
Try to tailor your printing to the highlights with detail. Then see how the shadows and mid-tones render.

 

[sruddy]

Most likely your negatives aren't "clipping". Instead, you just aren't printing them dark enough.
When you under-expose and under-develop, you end up with negatives whose shadows are likely to print too dark, so you tend to reduce the printing time, leading to highlights that are too bright and lose detail.
Try to tailor your printing to the highlights with detail. Then see how the shadows and mid-tones render.

Thanks Matt, I'm in the process of reading, Way Beyond Monochrome, and it also said set print exposure for highlight and then use desired filter for contrast. So far I have not been able to do that because my exposure are a tad to short in most frames. When shooting in more open sun with little or no shade a normal exposure seems to work well. I'm interested to see how this next two rolls turn out. I'm adding 2/3 of a stop to all frames. Even though I underdeveloped by 30 seconds, I'm re considering my development adjustment as making two changes at once maybe not so smart.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

don't count his film out yet.developed in the Jobo in D76(1+1) for 11 min, it has a great tonal range and I often use it for skin tones because of that. that said, it's not a very sharp film.

Kodak claims it to be the world's sharpest film on the box.

 

[braxus]

Kodak claims it to be the world's sharpest film on the box.

I think its TMAX 400 that says that. The 100 says its the worlds finest grain.