Some quick thoughts on Double-X 5222 v. Tri-X

Pentode · Oct 4, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
That's a very good link, @Pentode I might have to spring for a four hundred -- I just need enough bulk roll cans and a good way to measure it (close enough) in the dark to respool it to bulk loader lengths.

It’s a decent deal when you buy directly from Kodak. Not a bargain anymore but not bad.

I built a wooden widget that supports the 400’ roll on one side and a 100’ core on the other so I can roll off 100’ at a time. A piece of wood on the ‘take up’ side with some film cassette velvet on it acts as a feeler to indicate I’ve got about 100’ on there. It’s crude but it works. I keep meaning to refine it but I’m lazy.

Donald Qualls said:
You know, for the 3D printer crowd, it might be worth building a 35mm bulk loader that will take a 400' camera roll. Just saying...

I believe Alden made one for a hot minute but it wasn’t very popular so they don’t turn up often. I’ve never met one in person but I saw one on Evilbay once. Looked like a normal Alden 74 on steroids.

WonderWil · Oct 4, 2020

EI and ISO are not the same thing. EI tends to lower then ISO then its number suggests. You can still buy Double-X from many places.

Donald Qualls · Oct 4, 2020

WonderWil said:
EI and ISO are not the same thing. EI tends to lower then ISO then its number suggests. You can still buy Double-X from many places.

I think you misunderstand what EI means.

ISO film speed is arrived at by a prescribed series of tests, based on a manufacturer specified development process. EI (Exposure Index) is just an individual photographer's meter setting at the time they're exposing the film. It can be lower than the ISO speed (and often is, for photographers who make a certain kind of image or process certain ways), but it can also be higher -- which is usually an indication that the photographer intends to use a different developing process, "push processing" to make the mid-tones look as if the film were faster than it is, at the cost of sacrificing the shadow details.

I've personally never adopted EI below box speed, because my normal processes give me the details I want and need in shadows without the need to do so. I have, on a number of occasions, metered and exposed film at an EI one, two, even three stops above the ISO speed -- and once, by accident, five stops above (sheet film loaded backward in the holder). With special processing (usually just developing longer, or using a different developer than usual) one can usually get acceptable negatives one or two stops above ISO speed -- like Foma 100 at EI 400, or Tri-X at EI 1600, but three stops is a gamble, and five is pretty nearly an emergency. And further, some films will accept this "push" processing better than others.

Right now, I have the water bath at 102F and my chemical bottles standing in it, getting ready to process a couple rolls of XP-2 Super that were exposed at EI 800 (one stop faster than ISO speed). I expect good results, because I'll bypass the bleach step of the C-41 process, and leave the silver image intact instead of bleaching and fixing it away to leave only the dye image, as C-41 usually does. This "bleach bypass" increases the image density for a given exposure, equivalent to having faster film. It also alters color rendition in color films, but in XP-2 Super, it's like getting an extra stop of ISO speed for free.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 6, 2020

Bill Burk said:
Nice! Is the grain finer than Tri-X and TMAX-400? I imagine the need for cinema to look good on screen has driven the need for speed up to 200 but audiences reject 400 in any form as too grainy.

I would say pretty much comparable to Tri-X. I haven't shot TMY in 35mm, but I believe TMY is finer than XX.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 30, 2020

I took out the ELDIA film strip printer tonight to do some quick tests, and with 5 mins in D-97, the 5302 looks pretty dang good when contact printed on the Double-X developed in D-96.

Now I just have to do this 129,599 more times, and I have a feature film ready.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 30, 2020

If you've never seen an ELDIA... It's like a Leica body with a transparent back. The back holds your negative, and you contact print on paper or film, emulsion-to-emulsion. Then you take out the positive, and process as usual.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 30, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Right now, I have the water bath at 102F and my chemical bottles standing in it, getting ready to process a couple rolls of XP-2 Super that were exposed at EI 800 (one stop faster than ISO speed). I expect good results, because I'll bypass the bleach step of the C-41 process, and leave the silver image intact instead of bleaching and fixing it away to leave only the dye image, as C-41 usually does. This "bleach bypass" increases the image density for a given exposure, equivalent to having faster film. It also alters color rendition in color films, but in XP-2 Super, it's like getting an extra stop of ISO speed for free.

How were the results? Did you get a speed increase of 1 stop as hypothesized?

PhotoJim · Oct 30, 2020

I have a 400' can that I got in about 2008. I've been gradually shooting it, and storing it at ~-18 C. I shot a roll of it again last month after about a 4-year dalliance with digital, and I'm surprised at how elegantly it's aging. I don't have a densitometer, but the base fog does not seem higher than it did when the film was reasonably fresh.

I sure love this film. And I finally tried a roll in PMK last month, too (for the first time) and pyrogallol stains it beautifully.

Donald Qualls · Oct 31, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
How were the results? Did you get a speed increase of 1 stop as hypothesized?

It certainly seems that way.

Kiev 4, Jupiter-8 50mm f/2, XP2 Super, Flexicolor bleach bypass

Bill Burk · Oct 31, 2020

I picked up some D-19 (I guess that was a mistake because after reading this thread again I should have gotten D-96).

My thought (beyond playing with this EI 3 roll ), is to have a “fast” film with fine grain.

Correct me if I’m wrong but so far I think Panatomic-X : : Double-X will be a good pair to shoot as fine grain : : fast film

And if I were to shoot TMAX-100 : : TMAX-400 the pairing would be identical with the minor quality differences between T-Grain and traditional grain.

Kodak specs for TMAX-100 versus Panatomic-X show there is a little more sharpness and little more granularity with T-grain. The faster speed for similar performance makes TMAX-100 the obvious better choice for the logical person.

I struggled for years with this choice because I liked the qualities and pictures I get with Panatomic-X (since I still have some I never faced this hard choice.)

A 200 speed T-grain film would put this matter to rest.

Meanwhile I am looking for a film I can shoot fast and have finer grain than TMAX-400.

Donald Qualls · Oct 31, 2020

Bill Burk said:
Meanwhile I am looking for a film I can shoot fast and have finer grain than TMAX-400.

XP2 Super is about as sharp as TMY, if not a little sharper, and virtually grainless at box speed in C-41. My experience is that it can also gain 2/3 to 1 stop of effective film speed if you process with bleach bypass (retaining both the silver and dye images), with no increase in grain that I can detect with the methods I have at hand at the moment (I can't yet make large optical prints, which would be the definitive test). Beyond the true speed gain of bleach bypass, XP2 Super also pushes well up to a couple stops; if you combine the two (push 2 and bleach bypass) you might get as much as EI 2500-3200, albeit at that point probably with grain more comparable to Delta 3200 or T-Max P3200 at the same EI (I haven't tried this yet).

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Oct 31, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
It certainly seems that way.

Lovely! When processing XP2 at EI:800, do you push process (1 stop) along with bleach bypass?

Donald Qualls · Nov 1, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Lovely! When processing XP2 at EI:800, do you push process (1 stop) along with bleach bypass?

No, that's the great beauty of this -- standard process except bleach bypass. The extra speed/density comes from leaving the silver image in place rather than bleaching it away. Honestly, I think this might become my standard process for XP2 Super -- shoot at EI 640-800 and bleach bypass. Also why there's no or virtually no increase in grain -- I'm getting the standard "near grainless" dye image for EI 400, overlaid with the "very fine for its speed" silver image that I'd otherwise get by cross processing the XP2 Super in B&W chemistry. The dye further masks the silver image grain. The only real downside compared to, say, Fomapan is having to heat everything up, so I'll probably try temperature compensating the time for room temperature (or stand developing for 45 minutes) next time out -- not like I have to worry about color casts or crossover with a black and white emulsion.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Nov 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
that's the great beauty of this -- standard process except bleach bypass.

If this does work, I mean if others can get results consistent with yours, then the greater beauty of it, IMHO, is this. You can pick your EI for each frame in the range 100-800 as per the needs of the scene in the same roll, process in C41 with bleach bypass and then blix selectively. I think @Pixophrenic had proposed a similar approach though I don't know how far he took the idea. Sadly unconventional processing of C41 films has always been dealt with scepticism in this forum.

Donald Qualls · Nov 1, 2020

@Raghu Kuvempunagar The main reason "off-label" processing of C-41 (and E-6) films is looked at askance is that, for color, it invariably produces "problem negatives" -- negatives that are difficult or impossible to print well in optical processes and that require significant extra effort even to fix digitally. XP2 Super, being a B&W film (it was designed as C-41 so local processing labs could deal with it, instead of having to send it out for silver-image B&W processing) has none of those problems.

Honestly, if I have a camera that goes to f/22 and 1/500 (as all my "carry" cameras do, and for the "fun" cameras I can tailor what film I load for an outing), the only possible reason to want a lower EI would be to control DOF or intentionally shoot with motion blur, and the same thing could be done with a 3-stop neutral density (converts EI 800 to EI 100) without the fooling around after processing. Plus, the latitude of XP2 Super is such that you could rate the film at EI 800 for the roll, and still shoot a frame at EI 100 without significant loss of image quality -- the canonical latitude is +2 stops and -1, or EI 100 to 800 without change in process. At the very least, processing with bleach bypass ought to move that range up to EI 200-1600, and I suspect you'd still get a printable negative at EI 100 even in bleach bypass process.

For that matter, if you're willing to do that level of post-process for individual frames, you could bleach and redevelop one or more times to increase the density of the dye image to get to EI 1600, maybe higher, without altering the initial process -- but it's very unlikely I'd do that (there would be so little shadow detail it would have to be a special scene to produce an acceptable print if shot that way).

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Nov 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
the only possible reason to want a lower EI would be to

It's a well accepted fact that XP2 Super gives finest grain at EI 100 or lower.

Donald Qualls · Nov 1, 2020

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
It's a well accepted fact that XP2 Super gives finest grain at EI 100 or lower.

As with any dye-image film, more light makes the dye image denser, denser dye image => fewer/smaller gaps in the dye that we see as grain. My comparison criteria is against silver-grain films, and I'm very, very happy to get EI 800 with grain and sharpness comparable to TMY at box speed. Most of what I shoot I'm wishing for just one more stop of light...

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Nov 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
As with any dye-image film, more light makes the dye image denser, denser dye image => fewer/smaller gaps in the dye that we see as grain. My comparison criteria is against silver-grain films, and I'm very, very happy to get EI 800 with grain and sharpness comparable to TMY at box speed. Most of what I shoot I'm wishing for just one more stop of light...

Not disputing your way of using XP2 Super at all. Some of us might want to get best of both worlds - EI:800 when the situation demands it and EI:100 when we need finest grain - and in the same roll.

Donald Qualls · Nov 1, 2020

@Raghu Kuvempunagar If you do your own C-41, there's no good reason you can't try it. XP2 Super is pretty well distributed and even if you process your color film with a blix kit, you can use B&W rapid fixer instead of the blix.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Nov 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
@Raghu Kuvempunagar If you do your own C-41, there's no good reason you can't try it. XP2 Super is pretty well distributed and even if you process your color film with a blix kit, you can use B&W rapid fixer instead of the blix.

Getting C41 kit has been rather difficult at my place unfortunately. But I do want to do some experiments with XP2. Super including bleach bypass in the not so distant future. Let's see.

Bill Burk · Nov 1, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
XP2 Super is about as sharp as TMY, if not a little sharper, and virtually grainless at box speed in C-41. My experience is that it can also gain 2/3 to 1 stop of effective film speed if you process with bleach bypass (retaining both the silver and dye images), with no increase in grain that I can detect with the methods I have at hand at the moment (I can't yet make large optical prints, which would be the definitive test). Beyond the true speed gain of bleach bypass, XP2 Super also pushes well up to a couple stops; if you combine the two (push 2 and bleach bypass) you might get as much as EI 2500-3200, albeit at that point probably with grain more comparable to Delta 3200 or T-Max P3200 at the same EI (I haven't tried this yet).

Thanks, I am not planning to use chromogenic black and white. Though I agree it replaces grain with dye clouds so effectively gives you grain free images.

Pentode · Nov 2, 2020

Bill Burk said:
Correct me if I’m wrong but so far I think Panatomic-X : : Double-X will be a good pair to shoot as fine grain : : fast film

That all depends upon what you mean by "fast". I think 5222 looks really great at 250, which is about where its rated speed sits, but I find it looks very pushed at 400. There are people out there using it at 400 very happily, so mine is just one opinion, but I think shadow detail really starts to suffer once you get above 320. I also haven't tried that many developers with it, so maybe there's a good combination I'm missing. If 250 is fast enough, however, I'd agree that Pan-X/Double-X would be a great pairing for general purposes.

Bill Burk said:
I am looking for a film I can shoot fast and have finer grain than TMAX-400.

The way I'm reading this, I assume you mean something other than 5222 (which would definitely not fit the bill). Honestly, I can't think of much that's going to give you finer grain than TMAX at 400. One of the Aviphot Pan derivatives, maybe? Rollei Retro 400s is really Agfa Aviphot Pan 200 but it loooks pretty nice at 400 and the grain is reasonable. Finer than TMAX?... I'm not sure. I doubt it. Have you tried Delta? I haven't used Delta films in over 20 years but I remember them being in the same ballpark, grain-wise, as TMAX.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Nov 12, 2020

Meanwhile, I printed some Double-X (in D-96) at 11x14 size. It's very pleasing, has a nice grain structure, different from other films, but not obtrusive.

Some quick thoughts on Double-X 5222 v. Tri-X

Pentode

WonderWil

Donald Qualls

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Raghu Kuvempunagar

PhotoJim

Donald Qualls

Bill Burk

Donald Qualls

Raghu Kuvempunagar

Donald Qualls

Raghu Kuvempunagar

Donald Qualls

Raghu Kuvempunagar

Donald Qualls

Raghu Kuvempunagar

Donald Qualls

Raghu Kuvempunagar

Bill Burk

Pentode

Michel Hardy-Vallée

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Some quick thoughts on Double-X 5222 v. Tri-X

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