Pyro and T-grain films

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

In another thread Steve Simmons wrote the following.

"My personal choices for films with PMK are FP4+ and Tri-X. Some feel, and I probably am one of them, that the benefits of a staining developer are somewhat wasted on T-Max as their grain structure minimizes the benefits of the staining process."

I disagreed with this statement and made my opinion known in a subsequent messge, to which Steve Simmons remarked that my opinions on staining developers were not universally held.

Below I am posting some facts, not opinions. The data is from film tests made of FP4+, TMAX-100, TRI-X 320 and TMAX 400. All were developed in Pyrocat-HD 1:1:100. I chose tests from each film that were as close as possible in Dmax at Step One in Visual mode. Readings were made with an X-Rite densitometer in Visual and Blue modes.

FP4+ Tmax-100
Step Visual Blue Visual Blue
1. 2.10 2.45 2.04 2.43
11. .92 1.14 .67 .80
21. .10 .10 .06 .07

TRI-X 320 TMAX-400
Step Visual Blue Visual Blue
1. 2.10 2.62 2.12 2.60
11. .68 .88 .94 1.13
21. .13 .15 .07 .13

For each film at each step the difference between Visual and Blue reading is stain density. It should be immediatly obvious that the percentage of stain for any given step of the tests is approxmately identical for all of the films. The obvious conclusion one must reach is that the T-grain films stain just as well as traditional films like FP4+ and Tri-X 320. I hope this information will serve to debunk the nonesene that T-grain films don't benefit from staining developers.

Sandy

steve simmons · Nov 20, 2005

This test apparently was for your formula only. Have you tested PMK, Rolo pyro, ABC?

This debate could go on for a long time. I simply was sharing some findings by a whole group of us that the t-max 100 did not offer the advantages in a staining developer that some other films offered - FP4+, Tri-X, Bergger, for example when developed in PMK. When I compared PMK with Pyrocat and FP4+ I preferred the PMK. I got better high value separation and equal shadow detail. I tested the Zone 1 density of the film with each developer and shot accordingly. Not everyone is always going to agree. Difference of opinion are to be expected. Again, I do not have any proporietary interest in any pyro formulae, I have not invented any of them, and I do not have any financial interest in the sale of any books, etc. about these formulae. I do not care what people use. I am just sharing my test results.

In an upcoming issue of View Camera we will test T-Max 100, T-Max 400, FP4+, and Tri-X for stain, overall sharpness, shadow density and high value separation. We will let the chips fall where they may and report the results accordingly. We will put PMk and Mr. King's formulae head to head and see what happens. However, the results come out we will not make this a personal issue, we will not challenge anyone else's findings, etc. Test results are test results. That is all they are. They are not existential, they are not personal.

steve simmons

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

jdef said:
What kind of stepwedge did you use for your tests? From the numbers you've posted, it looks like a 3-step wedge for the fast films, and a 21 step for the slow films. It looks like a big jump in density between steps 1 and 2.

Jay

I used a 21 step Stouffer TP 45, with density range from approximately log 0.05 to a maximum of log 3.35. All films were exposed to the same step wedge in regular BTZS type testing, i.e. five different sheets of film were exposed and developed for different times. For the comparison I simply chose fillms that had approximately the same maximum density at Step 21. The log density readings on the step scale was .06 at Step 1, 1.57 at Step 11 and 3.35 at Step 21.

Sandy

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

Yes, I have tested PMK as well and the results are not very different. I really don't know how the idea that the Tmax films do not stain well got started, but it is simply wrong. They stain as well as other films, which is easy to confirm, and there is really nothing to debate.

Of course, all of these films have slighly different curves so one would expect to see a slighly different result with each of them, whether developed in tradiitional or staining developers. Trii-X, for example, has a very long tone and flaring shoulder, in contrast to the short toe and very straight line of the TMAX films. FP4+ has a more linear curve, rather like the TMAX films, though with a slightly longer toe. All of this has important implications for which film would be best for a specific subject and lighting condition, and/or type of developer.

Your comment that "test results are test results" is a flawed statement. All tests are predicated on certain premises that stronly influence final results. So the design of a test is extremely important in that it directly determines the results. There are some subjects that would give much better separation and tonal values with traditional non-staining developers and films that have very linear straight line curves. Other situations would benefit from a the kind of highlight compression that the green stain of PMK causes on VC papers. Have you, or the person who is doing the tests, taken these considerations into account in designing the test protocol? Equally important, what printing process will be used for the evaluation? VC papers, graded papers, AZO, Pt./Pd?

So no, test results are not just test results. They are results that ensue from certain premises and a specific type of test protocol.

Sandy

steve simmons said:
This test apparently was for your formula only. Have you tested PMK, Rolo pyro, ABC?

This debate could go on for a long time. I simply was sharing some findings by a whole group of us that the t-max 100 did not offer the advantages in a staining developer that some other films offered - FP4+, Tri-X, Bergger, for example when developed in PMK. When I compared PMK with Pyrocat and FP4+ I preferred the PMK. I got better high value separation and equal shadow detail. I tested the Zone 1 density of the film with each developer and shot accordingly. Not everyone is always going to agree. Difference of opinion are to be expected. Again, I do not have any proporietary interest in any pyro formulae, I have not invented any of them, and I do not have any financial interest in the sale of any books, etc. about these formulae. I do not care what people use. I am just sharing my test results.

In an upcoming issue of View Camera we will test T-Max 100, T-Max 400, FP4+, and Tri-X for stain, overall sharpness, shadow density and high value separation. We will let the chips fall where they may and report the results accordingly. We will put PMk and Mr. King's formulae head to head and see what happens. However, the results come out we will not make this a personal issue, we will not challenge anyone else's findings, etc. Test results are test results. That is all they are. They are not existential, they are not personal.

steve simmons

Kirk Keyes · Nov 20, 2005

sanking said:
I really don't know how the idea that the Tmax films do not stain well got started, but it is simply wrong. They stain as well as other films, which is easy to confirm, and there is really nothing to debate.

100TMX certainly does stain, just like TMX100 did, but not as much as other films (at least with my experience with PMK). I suspect this is where it gets the bad rap.

By the way, Sandy, I'm confused by your initial data in this thread - you have:
FP4+ Tmax-100
Step Visual Blue Visual Blue
1. 2.10 2.45 2.04 2.43
2. .92 1.14 .67 .80
21. .10 .10 .06 .07

Are you saying that is for FP4+, TMX100, or both? I find with PMK, that FP4+ stains a lot more, relatively speaking, of course.

Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com

PS - Donald, thanks for your obviously unbiased opinions, again.

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

jdef said:
So, are these the steps that you're using for your comparisons, and not the steps 1,2 and 3 for the fast films, and steps 1,2, 21 for the slow ones that you posted?

Jay

The comparison for all films is at Step 1, Step 11 and Step 21.

Sandy

Kirk Keyes · Nov 20, 2005

Steve - I hope you'll let Sandy do an article for you on this as he certainly knows what he is doing in his testing and has a lot of experience in it. We need someone that is experieinced in testing resolution and staining developers otherwise, I suspect we'll end up with an article that will be missing in several areas and then we'll just come back online somewhere and debate this issue with no resolution as in the past...

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

jdef said:
So, are these the steps that you're using for your comparisons, and not the steps 1,2 and 3 for the fast films, and steps 1,2, 21 for the slow ones that you posted?

Jay

Sorry, I now see the source of the confusion. The Steps should be 1, 11 and 21, not 1,2,3.

Sandy

steve simmons · Nov 20, 2005

Kirk,

If you have specific examples of my biased testing lay them out. If you are just defending a position well then.....

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

Kirk,

The data is given for both films. Unfortunately the forum scrambled my columns and made the information very hard to read adn undeerstand. But, just as an example, For Step 1 the reading for FP4+ was 2.10 in Visual and 2.45 in Blue mode, for Tmax 100 the reading was 2.04 in Visual and 2.43 in Blue mode. Just read from left to right, the first two log values are for FP4+, Visual then Blue, the last two values for TMAX-100, Visual and Blue. Some of the confusion probably resulted from the fact that my identifcation of the Step values should have been 1, 11 and 21, rather than 1,2, 3. I am sorry this happened but when the formatting was lost when the message was posted I tried to correct it and failed to realize that I changed the labeling.

As you see, the percentage of density that the stain adds to overall density is virtually identical for both traditional and T-grain. I would agree that the consensus has been that the T-grain films don't stain as well as traditional films, but that is definitely not true with Pyrocat-HD as this data clearly shows.

Sandy

Kirk Keyes said:
100TMX certainly does stain, just like TMX100 did, but not as much as other films (at least with my experience with PMK). I suspect this is where it gets the bad rap.

By the way, Sandy, I'm confused by your initial data in this thread - you have:
FP4+ Tmax-100
Step Visual Blue Visual Blue
1. 2.10 2.45 2.04 2.43
2. .92 1.14 .67 .80
21. .10 .10 .06 .07

Are you saying that is for FP4+, TMX100, or both? I find with PMK, that FP4+ stains a lot more, relatively speaking, of course.

Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com

PS - Donald, thanks for your obviously unbiased opinions, again.

steve simmons · Nov 20, 2005

I could suggest Gordon Hutchings but there might be a concern about him becasue he created the PMK formula and wrote The Book of Pyro. I will do the testing, publish my testing procedures and my results and let the chips fall where they may.

steve simmons

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

steve simmons said:
I could suggest Gordon Hutchings but there might be a concern about him becasue he created the PMK formula and wrote The Book of Pyro. I will do the testing, publish my testing procedures and my results and let the chips fall where they may.

steve simmons

Do as you like, but considering the controversy that resulted from your last comparison my advice would be that you have one person expose and develop the negatives, another do the printing, and a third evaluate the results, and this should be done blind.

Sandy

David A. Goldfarb · Nov 20, 2005

Whoever does the testing--the questions I'd be interested in wouldn't entirely be answered by the results that Sandy is posting, though those are certainly interesting results, and I'd like to thank Sandy for posting them.

The stain may be there, but is it doing anything interesting enough with TMX or TMY to make someone who doesn't use a pyro developer want to take the plunge and mix their own? I don't shoot much TMX myself, and I don't shoot TMY at all, but I do keep stock solutions of PMK and ABC on hand, so if I thought I could get a better result with pyro, I'd use it. The barrier is higher for someone who doesn't already use pyro for other purposes.

For small format negs to be enlarged, given that TMX in D-76 (1+1) is so fine grained to begin with, can the grain masking effect of PMK significantly improve it? I think that when people say "there is no significant advantage to pyro for T-grain films," they are speaking to this issue in particular.

Can pyro produce the same edge effects with the T-grain films?

Will Pyrocat-HD give you a dual-use negative with TMX or TMY, as it does with traditional films? (If this is true, it might be a reason for someone shooting TMY in large format to use Pyrocat-HD, but it wouldn't be a reason for a 35mm shooter to use it).

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

jdef said:
Thanks for the clarification, Sandy. I remember when the article in VC was discussed, many (myself included, I believe) expressed dissatisfaction with the author's choice of TMX for the comparisons, citing its poor reputation for staining. I have since resolved this issue for myself, and my results mirror yours. The UV blocking property is a separate matter, and one I haven't bothered to test for myself.

Jay

I believe you may be cofusing an article by Howard Bond published in Photo Techniques with the one published in View Camera? As best I can recall Steve used FP4+ and Tri-X 320 for the View Camea article. However, Bond used one of the TMAX films and was criticized for doing so. As you and I both know, the TMAX films stain as well as traditional films, but the shape of the curve results in a different transfer of tonal values.

I chose not to provide the UV data because TMAX-100 has a coating that blocks the transmission of UV light. For this reason it is a terrible film for UV processes.

Sandy

gainer · Nov 20, 2005

I'm not sure if or where this fits in. I have done some testing with pyrogallol and othe staining developers, including hydroquinone. When I started playing with organic solvents for stock solutions, I was able to try a number of sulfite-free working solutions. As you must know, the sulfite concentration in the working solution has an effect on staining. I observed, but did not do any quantitative measurements, that the very simple combination of pyrogallol and TEA gave TMX a very visible stain. I doubt that one could use that combination with catechol, but catechol can certainly be stored in a glycol solution that can be used with any alkali of choice to make a sulfite-free staining developer.

I guess what I am trying to point out is that there are other factors involved beside the type of developing agent. It's not going to be easy to do a controlled test of all the factors.

The intensity of the stain may not even be the same for the densitometer as for the printing material. IMHO, prints of a step wedge negative can tell as much or more to the printer than densitometer measurements. Certainly, they will help to find the correlation between visible, measured, and photographically effective stain, especially if they are made on VC, graded and perhaps one of the "alternative." I have seen amidol referred to as a staining developer, but the stain I see on my fingers is pretty black. Hey, I'm 78 years old. I have a right to do whatever it is I'm doing.

nworth · Nov 20, 2005

Although the stain seems to be similar, note the differences in the step 11 densities between regular and TMax films. The curves must be quite different. If I may speculate, that may be where the perceived difference arises. The benefits of the stain may be somewhat masked by the gradation of TMax film.

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

One of the things I had hoped was to keep this thread one in which the issue was simply, how does a stained TMAX-100 negative print when compared to a stained FP4+ negative? I presume that if there are advatages of stained TMAX-100 negative it would manifest itself in all of the staining developers, not just one

OK, first of all there is no question but that TMAX-100 is capable of more resolution than FP4+. This is a simple fact of the emulsion, and would be true regardless of whether we develop in a traditional developer or in any of the staining developers. In my tests using the Air Force resolution chart I have been able to consistently get close to 80 lpmm with TMAX-100, and rarely as much as 65 lpmm with FP4+. The difference in resolution seen through a microscope is really very significant, and grain is also much less pronounced.

Assuming that the difference in resolution is real, and I believe it is, it would be obvious that at some magnification a TMAX-100 negative would have an advantage over FP4+. I doubt it would make much difference with sheet film, unless very large prints are envisioned. However, my thinking is that one should see a clear difference on 16X20 prints from medium format negatives.

BTW, I also compared Tmax-100 to Ilford Pan F, and the TMAX had more resolution and finer grain when developed in Pyrocat-HD than Pan F, which was quite surprising.

Sandy

David A. Goldfarb said:
Whoever does the testing--the questions I'd be interested in wouldn't entirely be answered by the results that Sandy is posting, though those are certainly interesting results, and I'd like to thank Sandy for posting them.

The stain may be there, but is it doing anything interesting enough with TMX or TMY to make someone who doesn't use a pyro developer want to take the plunge and mix their own? I don't shoot much TMX myself, and I don't shoot TMY at all, but I do keep stock solutions of PMK and ABC on hand, so if I thought I could get a better result with pyro, I'd use it. The barrier is higher for someone who doesn't already use pyro for other purposes.

For small format negs to be enlarged, given that TMX in D-76 (1+1) is so fine grained to begin with, can the grain masking effect of PMK significantly improve it? I think that when people say "there is no significant advantage to pyro for T-grain films," they are speaking to this issue in particular.

Can pyro produce the same edge effects with the T-grain films?

Will Pyrocat-HD give you a dual-use negative with TMX or TMY, as it does with traditional films? (If this is true, it might be a reason for someone shooting TMY in large format to use Pyrocat-HD, but it wouldn't be a reason for a 35mm shooter to use it).

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

gainer said:
The intensity of the stain may not even be the same for the densitometer as for the printing material. IMHO, prints of a step wedge negative can tell as much or more to the printer than densitometer measurements. Certainly, they will help to find the correlation between visible, measured, and photographically effective stain, especially if they are made on VC, graded and perhaps one of the "alternative."

There is no question about it, when printing with VC papers it it is an absolute fact that the effective printing density of the stain, whether brown, green or yelllow, is not the same as densitometer measurment. In fact, it is not even close. Measurement in Blue mode for graded papers, including AZO, comes much closer to showing efffective printing density, but stain color makes a lot of differnce. With UV processes, however, the effective printing density and densitomer measurment are almost exactly the same.

Sandy

Jorge · Nov 20, 2005

steve simmons said:
I could suggest Gordon Hutchings but there might be a concern about him becasue he created the PMK formula and wrote The Book of Pyro. I will do the testing, publish my testing procedures and my results and let the chips fall where they may.

steve simmons

huh.....this pissing contest has been going for about 3 years now, isnt it time you stop this?

You have two problems, you are not very good understanding sensitometry and you evaluate negatives by eyeballing them. Before you do your tests, take a tmx 100 film developed in PMK and run it through a color densitometer. You will see that the 3 channels (RGB) have different values. If TMX did not stain all in PMK the channels would have the same value, maybe with a variation of 0.02 plus/minus.

I know you say you are not a lab tech, but numbers do not lie nor are they influenced by preferences. Anybody that has used PMK, WD2D, ABC and Pyrocat know that TMX films stain in all of them, the degree of stain might be more apparent with some developers than others, but it is there with ALL of them using TMX.

Frankly, another test done by you which only reaffirms your preference is useless. Maybe you can have someone other than you do the test with controlled sensitometry, and eyeball confirmation and making a print does not cut it. As it was said before, all films would have to be developed to the same curve gradient with all the different developers, I dont think you know how to do this.

steve simmons · Nov 20, 2005

Developing all films to the same curve gradient will not produce the same print (this is a common belief by people who pay too much attention to curves)which is supposed to be the end product. I do not evaluate negatives by eyeballing them. I evaluate them by how they print. My testing of HD and PMK with FP4+ was not based on curves but on printing results.

David Goldfarb's comments are quite good and may go to the real important questions behind this debate. Answering them would involve developing a matrix of some sort, let me ponder....

steve simmons

Jorge · Nov 20, 2005

steve simmons said:
Developing all films to the same curve gradient will not produce the same print (this is a common belief by people who pay too much attention to curves)which is supposed to be the end product. I do not evaluate negatives by eyeballing them. I evaluate them by how they print. My testing of HD and PMK with FP4+ was not based on curves but on printing results.

David Goldfarb's comments are quite good and may go to the real important questions behind this debate. Answering them would involve developing a matrix of some sort, let me ponder....

steve simmons

Mr. Simmons, this only once more demonstrates your ignorance of sensitometry. If you are planning to study the effects of developers it is necessary that you "anchor" all other variables such as paper and printing time. The only way you can do this is developing all negatives to the same gradient so that you can print all of the different negative/developer combinations to the same time. Of course, this also assumes you know what is your paper exposure scale.

You are partially correct in saying that films developed to the same gradient in different developers do not print the same, but what you do when you develop to an equal gradient is anchor the dark and light tones equally in all films and you then can study the film behavior for the combination and see how the middle tones respond. Once again you are unaware of these controls .

Evaluating a print is nothing more than telling us what print you preferred, this is useless as your taste might not be the same as mine or anybody else who reads your magazine.

So if you intention is to publish one more article telling us why you prefer PMK, I would say you should spare your readers the boredom.

Kirk Keyes · Nov 20, 2005

steve simmons said:
Kirk, If you have specific examples of my biased testing lay them out. If you are just defending a position well then.....

Hi Steve -

I didn't mean to imply a bias in your reporting - I'm just saying that from my communications with Sandy that I am pretty confident in his methods. And that is the kind of person that you need to do this kind of article. If you think Gordon Hutchins would be a good choice, we'll I bet he would be too.

Either way - I would like to see someone that has done a lot of this kind of detail oriented film testing write the article. And make sure that they cover the aspects of resolution and sharpness as well as any stain/compensation that would also be done.

Kirk

For the record - I have been a View Camera subscriber since about 1995, I believe.

Kirk Keyes · Nov 20, 2005

sanking said:
The data is given for both films. Unfortunately the forum scrambled my columns and made the information very hard to read adn undeerstand. But, just as an example, For Step 1 the reading for FP4+ was 2.10 in Visual and 2.45 in Blue mode, for Tmax 100 the reading was 2.04 in Visual and 2.43 in Blue mode. Sandy

OK - I understand now. Thanks.

Kirk

gainer · Nov 20, 2005

I think it is more like pride of parenthood. My kids have done well, and I am happy about it. I mean my REAL kids. When you come up with an idea that a lot of people can use, the satisfaction is often more important than money. You hate to see your idea misunderstood or misused just because it was and still is part of you.

sanking · Nov 20, 2005

nworth said:
Although the stain seems to be similar, note the differences in the step 11 densities between regular and TMax films. The curves must be quite different. If I may speculate, that may be where the perceived difference arises. The benefits of the stain may be somewhat masked by the gradation of TMax film.

You are absolutely right. The curves are very, very different, and this has tremendous importance on how tonal values are rendered on the print. Unfortunately there is very little informatoin in the literature about the relationship between the curves of different types of films developed in staining developers. The only exception ot this is the excellent article by Howard Bond published a couple of year ago in Photo Techniques, in which he compared films develped in PMK and a non-staining developer. Bond's conclusion shows that he fully understood the importance of this relationsihp and how it impacted tonal values in the print. And he illustrated his explanation very well with excellent graphs. Finally, he used the specfic example of TRI-X to explain why some films and subjects work very well with a staining developer like PMK, which compresses highlight densities. It turns out that TRI-X and PMK are a good fit for VC papers because this film has a flaring shoulder that tends to result in loss of separation in the shoulders with over-development. Devlelopment in PMK compresses the shoulders of the negative when printing, in essence compensating or adjusting for a film curve characteristic that, if not adjusted, would give blown out highlight. Although I disagree with some of Bond's conclusions, on the whole I find his study exemplary in its methodology in asking the right questions, and in using the best available technology, including sensitometry, to answer them.

Sandy

Pyro and T-grain films

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