IS Tri-X Supposed to be this Grainy?

In recent years, I'm most used to shooting with Tri-X in my medium format cameras, where grain is really not much of an issue. For 35mm, I had a rather sizable supply of frozen Plus X that I've finally worked my way through -- and it supplied good, sharp negatives with relatively fine grain.
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I honestly don't recall where this roll of Tri-X came from, nor how old it is. I just found it in my freezer along with a bunc of other film I have stored in there. It does have a more recent "look" to the film cassette, or canister, though. So it's probably not that old.

I developed it in D-76, following Kodak's advice regarding time and temperature. D-76 is the only developer I've ever used and it's done a good job for me in the past. So here are a couple of shots. The camera was a Pentax MX, lens a Tamron SP 24-48mm zoom. The Pentax's meter is accurate and I was shooting at indicated settings.

The images are dupes, not scans. I shot duplicates of the negatives using a Sony NEX 7 and a Nikon AIs 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor. Post processing included mostly increases in contrast and a little bit of sharpening.




So, is this a normal amount of grain for Tri-X, or did I perhaps do something wrong in developing it? Or did I perhaps just get a wonky roll? Note, this isn't my first rodeo developing B&W. I've been souping my own since 1984.

No, not what I'm getting from TRIX prints.

Was the film purchased new or outdated when purchased?

Frozen since purchased or left lying around for a while (like, years)?

Did you overdevelop the film?

The contrast seems a tad on the high side. Is that development or scanning?

The scanning may have contributed to the grain. Your images certainly look oversharpened as well. Both these factors can contribute to excessive grain.

Too many unknown factors but I suspect a combination of 1. overdevelopment, 2. scanning to too high contrast, and 3. oversharpening may have caused the grain to show as it does in your posted pics.

Suggest you scan again for mid tones, lighten the contrast a bit in post processing, and avoid sharpening.

You will see a big difference, I reckon.

Don't be too annoyed about this, I did the same years til I finally worked it out. Scanning is n0t an art for the faint hearted...

Tri-X is a grainy film as compared with Plus-X.

The grain will vary with the choice of developer.
If you want fine grain, use a fine grain developer like Acufine.

- Leigh

too much agitation?

how much grain (degradation) in the duping?

jvo

This is what I typically get from TriX:



and

Something is wrong in your process - could be many factors, scanning issue, or extreme temperature change, or something else. Here is what I get from TriX regularly:
TriX in D76 (silver gelatin print scan):
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TriX in Rodinal (1+25):
Dead Link Removed

To be honest I was not much of a fan of Tri-x because of this kind of grain I used to get. I switched to fresher film and HC-110 and there was a very noticeable reduction in grain.

Thanks for all the responses, guys. I'll try to address your questions in order.

ozmoose:
I honestly don't remember or know where this roll of Tri-X came from. But at some point I had put it into the freezer. This might have been years ago, which is why I'm hazy on things.

No, I didn't overdevelop the film. I followed the recommendations from Kodak in terms of both temperature and development time. Specifically, 8.5 minutes at 22C (72F).

I adjusted the contrast some in post, but I did this because, typically when I dupe a B&W neg, contrast is soft. I have my camera's contrast setting set down a couple of steps, especially to prevent blocking up of highly saturated areas with slide film. For B&W I just leave it alone so the shadow areas don't block up. Then I adjust contrast as necessary in post -- after I've converted the image from negative to positive. This usually works pretty well. I can usually preserve quite a bit of detail in shadow areas doing this.

The "scanning" didn't contribute to the grain. I've examined the negatives with a loupe and it's plainly there.

I did add a slight amount of sharpening. I use Photoshop's excellent raw converter to convert the images over. I can do a lot of processing to images within the converter, but since these are negatives, it's hard to tell what effect I'm having, so I just let the converter rip, set to "auto" for exposure. For post processing beyond what the raw converter does, I prefer to use Corel's Paint Shop Pro. PSP has a sharpening command that Photoshop doesn't, called High Pass Sharpening. I like using it because it will sharpen an image as effectively as Unsharp Masking, but it doesn't add nearly as much noise and artifacts to the image as USM does. Nonetheless, I have it dialed down so the amount of sharpening added is minimal.

jvo: I don't think I agitated too much. Four flips (180 degree rotations) every 30 seconds, which is what I typically do. I start my developing time once I've poured in all the developer and conclude it when I begin to pour it out.

The dupe process does not add grain.

miha: thanks for those photos. They look like what I'm used to seeing when I shoot medium format. Example -- Tri-X 120 developed in D-76. This was taken with a Yashica Mat 124 and scanned on an Epson 4990 at 2400 ppi.


darkosaric: thanks for the example. Yes, what you've achieved is about what I expect. After much re-examination of my situation I think that I probably got a hold of a roll of Tri-X that had probably been stored improperly. I've shot 30-year-old Plus X Pan that looked way better than that roll of Tri-X. So before I make any more decisions, I'm gonna buy some fresh Tri-X and try again.

looks like you covered all bases - yup storage may be the culprit... good luck.

There are a lot of variables here including your creative approach to "scanning." But if you're looking at it through a loupe and not liking what you see (or expecting something different) -- well, that cuts a lot of things out.

That said, these don't look excessively grainy to me. I had a similar revelation when I started developing HP5 (Ilford's closest equivalent to Tri-X) and developing in XTOL 1+1. The prints were much grainier than I expected. Not that I didn't like it, but I did question it. See:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Another source of increased 'grain' can be a too cold wash. This will result in 'reticulation', check that your rinse is within a couple of degrees of your chemistry.

Folks, I've found the problem. I made two mistakes. I went back and looked at the old canister and it turns out that the Tri-X flavor I shot was Tri-X Pan and not Professional. Different times, although they're somewhat close. But the second and most serious mistake I made is I was reading the chart for 1:1 developing, but I was doing full strength. Doh! So I cooked that roll for about 2 minutes more than I should have. Add those two errors together and they likely explain why the film looks like it does.

I just checked my freezer and I have two more rolls of TXP. Expired in 2004, but it's been frozen the entire time I've had it. I didn't buy it. I think where it came from was an outfit I bought a few years ago. Anyway, I'm gonna load up another roll of this TXP into my Pentax MX and give it another try, but this time I'll omit the errors. I suspect I'll like this next roll a lot more.

Here is a scan of a print. 135 Tri-X

Urban Landscape by Rob F, on Flickr

Don't discount the use of a Sony NEX as a duplicator in causing this, though BVY, this is an increasingly conventional - and not "creative" way to digitize negatives in an era where there is little support for older film scanners, and incredibly expensive new ones. It's just an outgrowth of how people used to duplicate from film to film.

24mp is in about the right MP range to register film grain as pixel grain, i.e., exaggerating it, and if the negative is overcooked, the camera will push up the ISO to compensate for a dense neg, making things noisy, again manifesting as grain. A NEX also has a Bayer pattern filter array that has to be decoded, so that's yet another thing.

I don't think very much that film age, reticulation, or development is likely to be the culprit here. Film age would manifest as fog; reticulation is actually tough to get with today's hardened emulsions (or the use of hardening fixer); and you would have to be using some really weird form of D-76 to have it accentuate grain like that.

D

I don't think a few minutes of extra development would cause that look.

I think miha was hinting...

The grain looks to me like the kind of grain that would not be there...

if you took those negatives into the darkroom and made prints.

I've been shooting LF Tri-X for nearly 40 years and in my most recent shots on 4x5 Tri-X developed with HC-110 dil H (Jobo) I can barely see the grain to focus when printing in the darkroom. FWIW.

Sirius Glass said:

That would not happen to the OP if the OP would stop using D-76 and would switch to XTOL or replenished XTOL.

Click to expand...

Unlikely.

My ten years of experience with Tri-X and replenished XTOL has NEVER produced grainy results like the OP has. It is called using the right developer and RTFM.

My ten years of experience with Tri-X and replenished XTOL has NEVER produced grainy results like the OP has. It is called using the right developer and RTFM.

My ten years of experience with Tri-X and replenished XTOL has NEVER produced grainy results like the OP has. It is called using the right developer, RTFM and then follow the directions.

The question is of course is the OP talking about older Tri-X or the newer 400TX film. Kodak made major changes to the latter and listed a RMS granularity now less than the older film. They even changed the name to make this point. The samples provided by the OP certainly do not look like those given by Kodak which have less grain. Kodak provided a short pamphlet about the new films when they were released. The result of the change was the finest grain of ALL the ISO 400 films available.

The best way to compare the grain of bw
film is to enarge them.
If you want to compare Tmax100 with Tmax400,PanF with Ilford Pan100 (Kentmere),
If you want to see the difference in grain
between foma100 in xtol Vs d76,
Even when you doubt to see a difference
between Delta100 on ISO25 with perceptol stock and same procedure with
perceptol 1+2 - enlarge it.

There is allways a difference in grain.

Beware of having a good enlarger less.

This must not ever be a Rostock

Enlarge it on one wall of your darkroom
have a scale of 370cm x245cm and take
a 5x7 sheed of Ilford Mc Paper.
Do this with the films you want to compare.

with regards

The best way to compare the grain of bw
film is to enarge them.
If you want to compare Tmax100 with Tmax400,PanF with Ilford Pan100 (Kentmere),
If you want to see the difference in grain
between foma100 in xtol Vs d76,
Even when you doubt to see a difference
between Delta100 on ISO25 with perceptol stock and same procedure with
perceptol 1+2 - enlarge it.

There is allways a difference in grain.

Beware of having a good enlarger less.

This must not ever be a Rostock

Enlarge it on one wall of your darkroom
have a scale of 370cm x245cm and take
a 5x7 sheed of Ilford Mc Paper.
Do this with the films you want to compare.

with regards

Sorry for my smartphone : "enlarger",
"good enlarger lens", "not ever be a
Rodenstock" (lens)

with regards