Revisiting Tri-X 400 After Three Decades

[koraks]

We are now stuck with this stupid ISO system.

But this 'stupid ISO system' in no way depends on particular shutter mechanics. So the whole story you told above (again) is pretty much moot. It's a bit like arguing how you dislike the shape of a round wheel because at some point horses pulled carriages. There's a historic relationship, but the argument as such is nonsensical.

 

[Ian Grant]

We are now stuck with this stupid ISO system.

To clarify, Kodak had the ASA component of the ISO standard changed. The standard also allows film speed to be determined by the DIN standard instead, and that was not changed.

When I did my own Zone System testing with Tmax 100 & Agfa APX100 back around 1987 I found my effective EI speeds were Tmax 50EI, and APX100 100EI - box speed. Later I tested EFKE PL25, that was 50EI, the Daylight box speed, 25 for Tungsten lighting, due to it being Orthopanchromatic.

Agfa and EFKE would have both used the DIN method to determine the ISO.

Ian

 

[Milpool]

The speeds doubled in 1960 because the safety factor was removed. There were several reasons for this at the time, but they are less relevant now given the higher image structure performance of contemporary B&W films, so the solution is simple - cut the ISO speed in half. You don’t really give anything up doing that (unless you need a faster shutter speed), and at the same time it obviates the “need” to run the “personal EI” test. If you know a few things about this stuff you can simplify your exposure/development life and focus on printing/editing which is where the control is.

You'll note that ASA speeds were determined on the basis of print results. The goal was to find the lowest exposure that would provide excellent results. This worked, and I agree with this methodology. Then, after WWII, faster films became available. The cameras of the time (mostly leaf shutters) were designed for slower films, and this forced users into using the smallest apertures, because maximum shutter speeds were not very high (1/300 was the usual top speed for most cameras of the period). When this is done, the exposure is proportionally greater than it would be with larger apertures. So, 1/50 @ f/16 is not equivalent to 1/400 @ f/5.6 with a leaf shutter. This is because the entire aperture is uncovered for a proportionally longer time when the aperture is small. Nonetheless, the powers that be decided to double the film speeds in 1960. This would mean that an exposure of 1/100 @ f/16 under the old speed would become 1/200 @f/16 with the new higher speed. But that is the wrong approach. The correct thing to do would be to inform photographers who have leaf shutter cameras to use higher shutter speeds when they are using small apertures.

This whole thing was ironic, because right then, cheap Japanese SLRs with focal plane shutters started flooding the market, which made the change unnecessary. We are now stuck with this stupid ISO system.

 

[chuckroast]

The speeds doubled in 1960 because the safety factor was removed. There were several reasons for this at the time, but they are less relevant now given the higher image structure performance of contemporary B&W films, so the solution is simple - cut the ISO speed in half. You don’t really give anything up doing that (unless you need a faster shutter speed), and at the same time it obviates the “need” to run the “personal EI” test. If you know a few things about this stuff you can simplify your exposure/development life and focus on printing/editing which is where the control is.

Analytical definitions of ISO notwithstanding, I pretty much agree with you here so long as you also reduce development slightly - I typically start about 20% less than recommended for the film/developer/dilution/temp I am using.

Adding a full stop of exposure viz box ISO will give you better shadows, but it also runs the risk of overexposed highlights. For long SBRs, that means having some method of keeping highlights in check.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Andy, next time shoot your 400TX at EI 200, then develop it in D-76 1+1. Enjoy all the shadow luminosity you prefer and don't worry much about highlights burning out. See attached curve from fotoimport.no.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Andy, next time shoot your 400TX at EI 200, then develop it in D-76 1+1. Enjoy all the shadow luminosity you prefer and don't worry much about highlights burning out. See attached curve from fotoimport.no.

That's the plan, Sal. Thanks!

 

[Ben 4]

At the foot of this interesting discussion, it's worth remembering that it all began because of the differences in shadow detail in Andy's examples—shot in his camera and developed by him in his developer, one 400 film had more than the other!

 

[Milpool]

At the foot of this interesting discussion, it's worth remembering that it all began because of the differences in shadow detail in Andy's examples—shot in his camera and developed by him in his developer, one 400 film had more than the other!

And what does one take away from that? What conclusions, if any, can be drawn from the examples?

 

[chuckroast]

And what does one take away from that? What conclusions, if any, can be drawn from the examples?

My take away is that in this case Tri-X had lower shadow speed than HP5+.

But "in this case" has lots of interesting variables like, this developer, this scene spectral content, this agitation scheme, and so forth.

Like you, I find Tri-X shadow speed to realistically be more like EI 200. But that's also how I expose HP5+, at least for conventional development and agitation methods. When I semistand or EMA process these films, use use ISO speed as my EI.

As always, @Andrew O'Neill provides interesting experiments for us all to observe...

 

[Milpool]

I didn’t say I thought either Tri-X or HP5+ were anything other than ISO 400 films. I’ve never worked with HP5+ but I found Tri-X to be ISO 400. I don’t think the comparison in the video was valid but it’s time to move on.

My take away is that in this case Tri-X had lower shadow speed than HP5+.

But "in this case" has lots of interesting variables like, this developer, this scene spectral content, this agitation scheme, and so forth.

Like you, I find Tri-X shadow speed to realistically be more like EI 200. But that's also how I expose HP5+, at least for conventional development and agitation methods. When I semistand or EMA process these films, use use ISO speed as my EI.

As always, @Andrew O'Neill provides interesting experiments for us all to observe...

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I didn’t say I thought either Tri-X or HP5+ were anything other than ISO 400 films. I’ve never worked with HP5+ but I found Tri-X to be ISO 400. I don’t think the comparison in the video was valid but it’s time to move on.

I'm curious to hear why you think it was not valid.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I'm curious to hear why you think it was not valid.

Nothing invalid at all Andy. I've said this before and I'll say it again, everybody has their own way and tools (camera, shutter, light meter etc.) for determining their "OWN" ISO/ASA/EI or whatever they want to call it. So, Milpool can do his thing and you and I can do ours. Nothing written in stone as far as I know. Whatever floats your boat as my wife likes to say.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

But this 'stupid ISO system' in no way depends on particular shutter mechanics. So the whole story you told above (again) is pretty much moot. It's a bit like arguing how you dislike the shape of a round wheel because at some point horses pulled carriages. There's a historic relationship, but the argument as such is nonsensical.

No, it isn't. I remember when the change was made! I remember reading about it afterwards. I was just a kid, but I was already reading photo magazines.

1) Most cameras sold from the 1930s to 1950s used leaf shutters Do a search on the internet and you'll see the ads.

2) I doubt most photographers used a meter at all. My father, who owned an Argus C3 ( a leaf-shutter camera), used the instruction leaflet that came with the film to set his exposures. He used Plus-X most of the time, so I don't think the issue came up with his photographs.

Everyone who tests his exposures comes to the same conclusion: ISO is too high, and cutting speeds 66% to 50% will give better negatives.

 

[Augustus Caesar]

Analytical definitions of ISO notwithstanding, I pretty much agree with you here so long as you also reduce development slightly - I typically start about 20% less than recommended for the film/developer/dilution/temp I am using.

Adding a full stop of exposure viz box ISO will give you better shadows, but it also runs the risk of overexposed highlights. For long SBRs, that means having some method of keeping highlights in check.

That doesn't happen to me unless the sun is in the frame.

 

[koraks]

No, it isn't.

Yes, it is. Your argument goes "people used leaf shutters and no light meters in 1960. Therefore, the ISO system is now broken". It doesn't add up.

Let's drop the subject (which is to say, further ranting about the usefulness of the ISO system may be removed from the thread).

 

[Don_ih]

Your argument goes "people used leaf shutters and no light meters in 1960. Therefore, the ISO system is now broken"

Well, I found what he was saying interesting. If you think about an aperture set at f22 and a leaf shutter operating at 1/100, the shutter is taking 1/100 of a second to open and close to the maximum aperture of the lens. Say that is f5.6. The small area of f22 is uncovered for the entire duration of the shutter operation, but, if you set the aperture at 5.6, that larger area is uncovered for significantly less. A focal plane shutter doesn't do that. So a leaf shutter and a focal plane shutter would give the same exposure at wide open apertures at high shutter speeds, but a leaf shutter would give more exposure at closed apertures at high shutter speeds.

I don't care about the relevance to iso - I just find that idea interesting and I'm trying to think of a way it can't actually be true.

Actually, the comparison to focal plane shutters isn't necessary. At 1/100, f22 would be fully exposed for longer than f5.6 would, using a leaf shutter.

 

[Ian Grant]

To put the ASA speed change in context. I have 3 copies of a Focal Press book:

CAMERAS
THE FACTS
HOW
they work
WHAT
they will do
HOW
they compare

These books take their data and illustrations from the small Focal Press Camera Guides, They are an interesting mirror into the past

The first is 1957, a quick flick through and maybe 20-25% cameras have exposure meters built in. In the 1960 edition (published late 1959) far more cameras, over 40%, had built in meters. By the 1963 copy that percentage had risen to over 60%, and many without built in meters were 120 SLR & TLR cameras. Looking at the lower end consumer cameras only a few had no meter, all had leaf shutters.

So removing the extra safety stop from the ASA speed was totally unrelated to the use of leaf shutters, rather because the increased ability to control exposure more accurately made it unnecessary.

Ian

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

@Augustus Caesar I've been playing around with Pan F in D-23 spiked with Sodium Hydroxide. I normally shoot this film at EI 25 in D-23 1+3. In the spiked version (D-23 1+10 + 0.2g Sodium Hydroxide), definitely a higher EI than 25 is needed (still working on it). If I shoot the film at EI 25 with the spiked version, it looks over exposed, with very ugly midtones. Film manufacturer's ISO's to me are only starting points. Kind of like when we take metre readings. That Zone V reading is merely a starting point (unless we are reading a gray card or literally place a reading on middle gray ).

 

[chuckroast]

@Augustus Caesar I've been playing around with Pan F in D-23 spiked with Sodium Hydroxide. I normally shoot this film at EI 25 in D-23 1+3. In the spiked version (D-23 1+10 + 0.2g Sodium Hydroxide), definitely a higher EI than 25 is needed (still working on it). If I shoot the film at EI 25 with the spiked version, it looks over exposed, with very ugly midtones. Film manufacturer's ISO's to me are only starting points. Kind of like when we take metre readings. That Zone V reading is merely a starting point (unless we are reading a gray card or literally place a reading on middle gray ).

I've done D-23 1+9 with 0.5g/l of Sodium Hydroxide shooting both Fomapan 100 and Kodak Double X at full box speed. I developed semistand for an hour with an initial agitation of 2 min, and one 15 sec agitation at 31 min.

I found that this was about right for shadow speed, but that highlights could go out of bounds if one isn't careful. Pan F is described as "high contrast", so I suspect the juiced D-23 is going to accentuate that, possibly - as you say - in ugly ways.

I also discovered that this formulation was so acute that it drove 35mm grain pretty hard (the Double X), but it was fine for larger format.

Here is a scan from a silver print made with a Fomapan 9x12 negative thus processed. It was a challenging test because this was a very long dynamic range environment, but I though it worked out fine (a similar shot developed in highly dilute DK-50 was utter trash):

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

@chuckroast very nice definition!

 

[chuckroast]

@chuckroast very nice definition!

Thanks!

That's attributable to the super dilution of the D-23 which really mutes the solvent effect.

 

[pentaxuser]

My take away is that in this case Tri-X had lower shadow speed than HP5+.

There would seem to be some evidence from other videos on comparisons between HP5+ and Tr-X that the vast majority who shoot 2 identical scenes with 2 cameras at box speed seem to come to the same conclusion As far as I can recall I haven't seen any videos that reached different conclusions

In fact their conclusions are two-fold

1. HP5+ has better shadow detail
2. Tri-X has brighter highlights

Both of which seem to match Andrew's findings

I cannot say that they may not be "holes" in doing it this way nor that with experimentation you cannot make either film appear the same or very similar as the other but I do think that if we use what I'll term the "man in the street" method most users would find that Andrew's videos "ring bells" with them in terms of their own experiences

We have lengthy discussions on such matters and represent a much "broader church" in photography terms than the vast numbers of people who did take film photographs to record scenes using either HP5+ or Tri-X which were probably the most used films for the "man in the street".


pentaxuser

 

[chuckroast]

We have lengthy discussions on such matters and represent a much "broader church" in photography terms than the vast numbers of people who did take film photographs to record scenes using either HP5+ or Tri-X which were probably the most used films for the "man in the street".


pentaxuser

I think this is spot on. Tuning film-developer-agitation strategies is a useful thing to do. But, these days, I find the much harder problem is finding subjects that light my creative juices and then finding a compositions that respect those subjects.

 

[Ian Grant]

1. HP5+ has better shadow detail
2. Tri-X has brighter highlights


pentaxuser

My experience with HP5 is that it is an outstanding film in terms of both shadow and highlight details.

The one complaint I've heard about the upgraded Tri-X is that it has lost the gritty look that was once loved by photojournalists. You really need to use 35mm when comparing emulsions, as differences are far more apparent. It's also easy for Zone System (or other) testing as you can shoot a few frames, process, adjust development times for the next few, etc.

Another issue is we are talking about slight differences that can be evened out during printing or post scanning.

You are one of the few in this Forum (still active) to have seen two exhibition sets of my work, ranging from 120 (6x6 & 6x17), to 5x4 & 10x8 negatives. In a different post @DREW WILEY mentioned that you can't tell what film stock was used from a print.

My point being, some of that work was shot on Tmax 100, Delta 100, Fomapan 200, also HP5 (5x4 only), then Fortepan 200 and EFKE PL25 for 10x8. It's not the film, it's the creative user that matters. You make coherent.

Ian

 

[DREW WILEY]

You must have a different Drew in mine, Ian. I'd agree that current Tri-X 400 has lost its classic grit which once made it so appealing for photojournalistic work. But it's still relatively grainy. The 320 sheet film version still has a little more grain kick to it; but being enlarged to a lesser degree, might not be so obvious. Put a large Tri-320 print with a textureless area like open sky next to a comparable image from TMY400, however, and the Tri-X grain can look like shrapnel by comparison.

Where I tend to differ in opinion is with respect to how well HP5 can handle shadows. It's not an issue on an overcast or misty day; but I often encounter 12-stop scene ranges in the mountains, desert, or deep forest on clear days. In those high contrast scenarios, HP5 simply can't dig anywhere near as deep into shadow texture as TMax films or Foma 200 (or the late great Forte/Bergger 200 or Efke 25). Delta 100 is just OK if given an extra stop of exposure.

Again, this has nothing to do with which film is allegedly "better". Each has their own personality;
and I've certainly obtained a lot of wonderful prints from 8X10 HP5 film. But it will never attain the deep shadow control that old Bergger 200 did, or Super-XX before that. You can only salvage so much of that by means of scanning, or in my case, via unsharp masking.

Around here on our California coast, the fog varies by time of day; and the lighting ratio can change dramatically. Right now there's howling cold wind as the fog is being pushed over the hills behind me. When the fog is stopped by those same hills, then it might well be 40 or 50 degrees F hotter on the backside, like it was a couple days ago.