High key portrait with Tri-x

Hi!
I am asking if someone have use Kodak Tri-x film for high key portrait. Is there any developer, which is "the best".
Thank You for all tips!

i like tri-x highlights when exposed at EI 250-320 and developed in rodinal 1+50, so my thought is that this combination would do well for high key work.

Have a look at Nudi by Paolo Roversi, that was shot on Tri-X and is as high key as you can get.

One question - are you talking about TX 400 or TXP? The treatment of these two films is very very different - esp in a high key lighting situation with TXP.

RB

I would like to know differents for both films, RB. I have both films in my refrigerator, and I would like to try both.

For super fine rendition of highlights, and their accurate separation, I would recommend a pyro developer such as Pyrocat HD. It is a staining developer that aids in the highlight separations while masking the grain to a degree in those areas. It also intensifies accutance in the dense areas at the same time. Combine this film development with split grade printing, and you'll be on the right track.

I have used Tri-X with Rodinal in the past, but this accentuates grain. I wouldn't recommend it for 'high key' images. Medium and large format Tri-x in Pyrocat can be enlarged as much as 5x with favorable results.

what kind of print developer do you have handy ?
high key you can dilute print developer 1: "x" and
develop for "x" minutes.
you might want to test these things yourself before committing
yourself to doing what a random advice giver gives for advice

as for the difference between tri x pan and tri x 320 ..

a quick search reveals:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

have fun!
john

Rombo said:

I would like to know differents for both films, RB. I have both films in my refrigerator, and I would like to try both.

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TX 400 is extremely flexible and separates midtones well while compressing highlights so it is easy to print for most people. Grain i nice and not really "large". Fantastic general purpose film,

TXP is a different beast - I love it just as much. Grain is finer and it has an overall smoother look than TX 400. It does not separate shadows or midtones as well as TX 400 but separates highlights very very well. Depending on your scene you may find TXP harder to print. TXP is actually my favorite film for shooting caucasian female skin with my taste for tone placement. The one thing you really have to watch out for with TXP is that you make sure that your skin placement is in the strait line portion of the film, if you have a situation where there are whites like clothing and a slightly darker skin tone (esp with caucasian subjects) and you place the skin to low the skin will look really dull and lifeless while the whites will skyrocket away from the skin tones - imho this looks terrible. Do yourself a favor ant put your skin tones at zone VII. TXP looks really really good in high key situations where the skin highlights are VII/VIII/IX and the shadows are zone V ish.

Bottom line TX 400 good shadow and midtone contrast with "easy" to print but not super interesting highlights. TXP softer shadow and mid separation but fantastic highlight separation that can be challenging to print well if you do not have your exposure/process well controlled.

Hope that makes any sense.

Here is a typical TXP highkey shot if you know what you are looking for you should be able to see the way that TXP highlight separation works in this situation but you give up separation in the hair and shadows. (This is full frame scan but I print it at 8x10 so I don't want to hear about the arm crops)



RB

Forgot to mention if you use TXP I would NOT recommend HC-110 no matter what the dilution - it will accentuate the characteristics (depress contrast in the mids, increase in the highlights) unless you have already used this film in a high key situation and you know exactly what you are going for.

That being said I prefer softer working Pyro developers for TXP and especially with High key scenes. That is what was used on this negative (no big surprise - I use it 90% of the time)

RB

Hm, what about yellow filter. Do You recomend it?

High key pictures have varying levels of contrast, so it depends. There is absolutely no reason why you cannot get high key pictures with any film and developer combination out there. You just have to know what you want, and be willing to do enough informed experimentation to get it.

I would say that a good starting point with Tri-X (320 or 400), or any film, is a run-of-the-mill developer like Ilford ID-11 or Ifotec HC (equivalent to Kodak's D-76 or HC-110). Learn to manipulate exposure and development with a simple combination like this, and you will be able to learn the basics of getting what you want, and apply it to anything else down the road.

In general, for high key pictures, I will shoot a flat film (like Tri-X 320), overexpose one stop or more, overdevelop +1 or more, and print on a hard printing paper/high MG filter using a soft paper developer. Some of my favorite films for high key pix are Efke 100, Tri-X 320, and Delta 3200.

Rombo said:

Hm, what about yellow filter. Do You recomend it?

Click to expand...

The photo attached is without any filter - Red/Orange/Yellow/Green can be useful depending on how you want to render the scene - when I do High key setups I am usually making a judgement call on the way the skin will be rendered with respect to choosing filtration. If you do not have a lot of experience with shooting various skin and filter combinations I would recommend you experiment. This is a very subjective kind of thing.

RB

rwboyer said:

The photo attached is without any filter -

Click to expand...

What was it attached to?

Sirius Glass said:

What was it attached to?

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If you are asking about the TXP image I posted on page 1 - it was attached to:

An A12 film back, that was attached to a 503CW, that was attached to a PM45, the 503CW was also attached to a 150 CFi that was attached to two things - a Lee compendium hood and a pocket wizard flash trigger. The entire assembly was attached at two points the body / lens attached to my left hand and and my right hand was attached to the shutter button. I was then attached to the floor for extra stability.

The floor was attached to a lot of things - the most important being the house which was also attached to many things, the two important ones for this shot were the foundation and the electric company.

RB