Pushing Tri-X one stop

[chris00nj]

Kodak recommends that you can shoot Trix 400 at 800 without changing developing times.

For rated speed: 6 1/4 minutes at 70F with D-76 in a small tank
For 2 stop push: 8 3/4 minutes at 70F with D-76 in a small tank

Why not develop a little longer if exposed at 800. Perhaps 7 or 7 1/2 minutes?

 

[removed account4]

hi chris

i am sure 7 - 7.5 mins wouldn't hurt ..
the development times that are listed for films and chemistry
are just a ball park anyways, just like " asa " numbers.

i always shoot a little bit different than box speed ( about 1stop more )
and i over develop a little bit ... but that is just me, and i know others that do the opposite ..

the best thing to do is to just develop it the way YOU want, and note the results.
if you like what you see, keep doing it ... if not change things a little bit.

have fun!
john

 

[chris00nj]

hi chris

i am sure 7 - 7.5 mins wouldn't hurt ..
the development times that are listed for films and chemistry
are just a ball park anyways, just like " asa " numbers.

i always shoot a little bit different than box speed ( about 1stop more )
and i over develop a little bit ... but that is just me, and i know others that do the opposite ..

the best thing to do is to just develop it the way YOU want, and note the results.
if you like what you see, keep doing it ... if not change things a little bit.

have fun!
john

When you say you shoot one stop more, you shoot say Tri-X at 800 or 200?

 

[heespharm]

tri-x shot at 250 and 800 need little to no dev adjustment...it turns out just fine... i just agitate more when shooting at 250 to make up for lost contrast and agitate less for 800 to make up for over contrast (unless that's the look i'm going for)

 

[markbarendt]

The differences are simply dealt with at the enlarger.

This is one of the things that makes shooting Tri-x so nice. If you miss the "perfect exposure" by a stop, so what.

That said the best way to know is to do your own film testing.

 

[markbarendt]

tri-x shot at 250 and 800 need little to no dev adjustment...it turns out just fine... i just agitate more when shooting at 250 to make up for lost contrast and agitate less for 800 to make up for over contrast (unless that's the look i'm going for)

Shouldn't the overexposed neg get less agitation, and vice-versa?

 

[i40west]

I generally push-process Tri-X shot at 800, usually in D76 1:1 (I normally use D76 straight when not pushing). If you do you must understand that pushing one stop is not getting you an extra stop in the shadows, only the highlights -- you are increasing contrast.

Diluting the developer 1:1 gives you longer development time to help a bit with the shadows, and then you can give a bit less agitation to further reduce contrast -- though if you don't want to increase contrast at all, don't push process.

 

[2F/2F]

The highlights can block up fairly easily with Tri-X 400 (though not with Tri-X 320).

So, since a good-enough print for most people can be obtained from a negative that is one stop underexposed, and since pushing increases contrast, coupled with the fact that many people exacerbate the problem by deciding to push after they have shot in a dark and contrasty lighting situation, Kodak figures that for the average Tri-X user, "better" results will be obtained most of the time by simply printing the underexposed negative that has not been pushed.

Basically, I think Kodak is saying that a majority of the time, it is better to have to print up an underexposed neg than to take a chance that you may have to try to take contrast away from a neg that has too much of it. In other words, Kodak makes this recommendation basically because most people don't know what the hell they are doing, and there is less possibility of Joe Photographer screwing up his shot by not pushing than there is by pushing.

Of course, if you know when to do it, you can push any film you want however you want. Just know what you should expect to get before you do it, because, as Kodak sez, in many cases, simply having an underexposed and normally developed neg is better than having an underexposed and pushed neg.

 

[rjbuzzclick]

I just tried two rolls of Tri-X shot at 800 using the same development time as 400 in D-76 1:1, and wasn't happy with the results. The negatives were too underexposed for my taste. I had much better luck with Tri-X at 800 in Rodinal 1:50. I shoot Sunny-16, and scan my film rather than print so take that into account.

 

[i40west]

The highlights can block up fairly easily with Tri-X 400 (though not with Tri-X 320).

Yes; my usual description of Tri-X in this regard is that it's almost impossible to overexpose, but it's easy to overdevelop.

I think Kodak's recommendation is right, in the sense that if you push for ISO 800, you should probably know what you're getting into, and try it on a test roll before you do something important with it.

 

[Anon Ymous]

Since Kodak provides a good amount of information about their films, you can have a look for yourself and see what really happens. Technical publication F4017 has many characteristic curves for 400TX. The first one has a set of curves for 400TX in TMax developer. The lowest curve is for the recommended 6' development time and the 9' one is close enough for what is recommended for a 2 stop push (8'45'' at EI 1600). If you compare the points where density reaches 0,1 above film base + fog, you'll see that what you really gain is at most half stop, probably a third of a stop in shadow detail. Obviously, push processing for EI 800 will give you less than 1/3 stop in shadow detail. Is it really worth it? I don't think so, you can bump highlights and midtones with harder grades when printing and still get acceptable results. When doing normal processing, you can mix "proper" exposures and 1 stop underexposed ones in a roll. That IMHO is useful. In any case, push processing is a useful compromise, but not a miracle.

 

[Tom Stanworth]

I just tried pushing TriX 120 at a rated speed of 800 in my Mamiya 7 as a test for some shooting I might be doing I did:

Xtol 1+2
22 degs C
20 Mins, with one inversion at 15mins.

I shot outside in bright overcast conditions choosing subjects were there were some shaded and deep shadows to be sure I could consider what happened at the bottom end of the scale. I also shot some backlit scenes to be sure what happened when the light came through windows etc.

The result was an easy 800 and easily printable highlights. To be frank I am amazed... but should not be after finding 27 mins gives me usable negs at 1000 in my Leica M

I think if I were shooting scenes indoors with very bright windows I would use the above at 800 and cut out the 15min agitation altogether.
For general use I think the shadows are remarkable and I would feel confident shooting this combo at 1000 with the details above. I was really surprised to see just how much shadow detail there was there. Really excellent. If shooting a scene that was dead flat with no real shadows I think 1600 would be looking good...

I should add that I like fairly dense negs and print on a very diffuse 10x8 colour head so my timings would be very high for a condensor user.