Tabular grain technology

cliveh · Jan 4, 2012

What are your thoughts about tabular grain technology? I never use it, as although the theory is good, how easy is it to get all the grains pointing in the right direction? I think it is unnatural in the context of grain placement. Am I just a purist?

keithwms · Jan 4, 2012

Not sure what you mean. Are you asking who uses epitaxial or t-grained films? And I'm not sure what you mean by "the right direction"... even tabular grains aren't arranged in perfect rows and columns liked pixels.

brucemuir · Jan 4, 2012

cliveh said:
how easy is it to get all the grains pointing in the right direction?

Not too, you have to shoot all your shots tilted at least 45 degrees.

I've seen a lot of lower end wedding shooters that were quite good at it.

BobD · Jan 4, 2012

I use a magnet taped to the side of the tank during development. The faster the film, the larger the magnet should be because the tabs are bigger and heavier. Of course, if most of my shots are portrait mode I put the magnet on the bottom of the tank instead of the side. Ansel Adams taught me that trick once during a poker game in Yakima. Ansel was a terrible poker player BTW.

Photo Engineer · Jan 4, 2012

Seriously, t-grains all lie flat and parallel to the plane of the film support. Surprise, surprise.

The real problem is preventing them from cracking as they go around the rollers in 120 film cameras. The turn is too sharp for some grains and will cause cracking and fog. Kodak has eliminated this, but IDK if others have except for Fuji and Ilford.

PE

lensmagic · Jan 4, 2012

how easy is it to get all the grains pointing in the right direction?

It helps to use a polarizing filter.

tomalophicon · Jan 5, 2012

Yes, you're just a purist.

Worker 11811 · Jan 5, 2012

brucemuir said:
Not too, you have to shoot all your shots tilted at least 45 degrees.

I've seen a lot of lower end wedding shooters that were quite good at it.

No. That's not how you do it.
You have to hold the camera upside down and shake it like an Etch-A-Sketch before every shot.

Tabular grain technology

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