How to achieve Grain with Trix

[Amund]

Well Vizzo has gotten some good advice how to really pull the grain out of the emulsion of Tri-X now Looking at the original question, he mentions a few photographers images, Nachtwey, Gilden and Salgado and from what I`ve found(Googled)
Gilden uses Tri-X, gets it developed in T-Max, printed with Dektol. Salgado uses Tri-X developed in Calbe A49, and Nachtwey, eh is now digital....

 

[Lachlan Young]

Nachtwey, eh is now digital....

Not according to Time magazine he isn't - he uses film and digital cameras depending on the assignment - Don't know what film he uses but it is almost certainly dealt with by one of the top pro-labs in NYC

Lachlan

 

[Amund]

Not according to Time magazine he isn't - he uses film and digital cameras depending on the assignment - Don't know what film he uses but it is almost certainly dealt with by one of the top pro-labs in NYC

Lachlan

Good! I`d hate to se him go fully digital.

 

[Huub S]

What also is important, is your enlarger. Condensor enlargers give a more grainy look than diffusor enlargers. The effect you discribe could very well be caused by the type of enlarger you use.
For good grain you could use Delta3200 at 1000 iso, developed in Microphen stock. If you have to much light: use a grey filter.

Huub

 

[fschifano]

One thing to keep in mind is that the Tri-X you buy today is not the same as the Tri-X your father (or grandfather) came to know and love. When Kodak moved production of this film to a new coating plant a couple or three years ago, significant changes were made. The film still has the tonal range that made it famous, but the new version has less grain and from what I can tell the emulsion is more resistant to damage when wet. IMO, it's a good thing though I'm sure others' opinions will differ. So if you are looking for the "Tri-X look" of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago; you might want to look at a different film. FortePan 400 comes to mind as one of the available film stocks with much more pronounced grain. The film is also available as Arista.edu "Made in Hungary" from Freestyle Photo. I've used this film in 120 and 4x5 and it shows a lot more apparent grain than and has a completely different look to it than Tri-X. Ilford's HP5+ is another good choice.

I've processed a ton of Tri-X in XTOL diluted anywhere from 1+1 to 1+3, D-76 straight and diluted 1+1, and a much smaller boat load in Rodinal at 1+50. I'm not a grain fanatic, so I've pretty much crossed Rodinal off my list of developers suitable for Tri-X. Properly done, you can get a very nice tonal range with this combination along with very sharp and well defined grain. I haven't come across anything else that produces quite the same look. Occassionally, I'll use this combination for that particular effect though not often. XTOL is at the other end of the spectrum; very sharp, very smooth tonal range, a bit of a speed boost, and very fine apparent grain. Once diluted, the results are pretty much the same regardless of the ratio. Development times are longer at higher dilution ratios, but that's about it. D-76, if you dilute it 1+1 is somewhere in the middle. Apparent graininess is less if you use it full strength, but what is there tends to get a litle muddy looking.

There is quite a bit of published information about using any of the developers I've mentioned with Tri-X. If lots of experimentation is not to your liking, the numbers published on "The Massive Dev Chart" will get you reasonably good negatives right from the start. Getting your personal preferences down exactly should take no more than 3 or 4 tries from there.

 

[Petzi]

Are you people talking about Tri-X 400? As far as I know, Tri-X 320 is a completely different film.

 

[Zathras]

I had an article by a woman who shot boxing with tri-x at ISO 4000 developed in HC-110 replenisher (not developer). 1:15, 75f, 5 to 7 min. My negs were grainy and had good contrast, a nice look for somthing like boxing.

I remember doing this in high school back in the 70's. It was a great combination for shooting indoor rock concerts as well. It was easy to blow out the highlights, but a properly exposed neg could look real good when printed up to about a 9x enlargement. Sharpness wasn't bad either.

Mike Sullivan

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Agitate a lot when you develop your film. If you want grain, Xtol is completely the wrong developer. Agfa Rodinal, Kodak D-76, or Ilford ID-11 will give (much) more grain than Xtol. Underexpose the film if you can, shoot it at 800 or 1600 if you can.
If that's not enough, use Kodak Tmax 3200 or Ilford Delta 3200. Even if you overexpose these (I think both at box speed is a push process, Delta 3200 is really about ISO 800), you'll get more grain than Tri-X. Delta 3200 in Rodinal is probably about as grainy as it gets. I made a 10"x15" enlargement (25x37.5cm) a couple of weeks ago from a Delta 3200 neg developed in Rodinal, and there is a LOT of grain. It's still looking pretty sharp, though. An appealing look.

Good luck.

 

[benjiboy]

I'm going back a long time, it's more than thirty years since I had a darkroom, but fom the recesses of my memory to get "grain like golf balls" with Tri-X in the old days we composed our pictures so that there was too much in the frame so we could blow the centre of the frame up, then the film was developed at a high temperature in a print developer, I think it was Ilford I can't remember which one.