Yes, you can. There is a simple and very effective way: the two-bath fixing method. After that you can wash your negative as always using ilford wash method. No pink dye anymore
Acros II is fine as a b&w film but the worst thing is that you can't use the Ilford wash method with it.
Yes, you can. There is a simple and very effective way: the two-bath fixing method. After that you can wash your negative as always using ilford wash method. No pink dye anymore
It's not so much better than other films
@Alan Edward Klein Thank you for the tip! I will try it next time. If this solves my banding problem, I owe you one!
I have started retesting Acros II, given that some of you have found it to be close to ISO 100 in your own tests. I want to emphasize the fact that I am not trying to dispute your findings. I am simply reporting on my own.
Since I cannot currently change the light quality of my sensitometer, I decided to use daylight as my light source and do the typical Zone System test for film speed. This particular variant of it is based on Fred Picker's method (e.g., Zone VI Workshop, 1974), but it has been recommended in other ZS-focused publications over the years. The method assumes Zone I density being 0.1 over B+F. I don't mean to suggest that this is "correct," only that it is a commonly used approach among ZS practitioners. There are, of course, alternative methods of estimating film speed.
Here's a summary of the method:
- Place a black card in shade or overcast light (to simulate Zone I).
- Put camera on a tripod.
- Focus on infinity.
- Fill the entire frame with the card.
- Set the spot meter to 1/4 of the manufacturer’s recommended speed (here ISO 25) (determined using a Minolta Spotmeter F).
- Close down 4 stops (with aperture and/or shutter speed), thus placing exposure on Zone I.
- Transfer reading to camera and expose.
- Close down and expose subsequent frames in ½ stop increments (I used a Minolta X-570, in good operating shape and a 50mm f/1.4 lens).
Here are the results:
I processed the film in stock XTOL (to give it a fair chance for full speed, as opposed to XTOL-R, which gets a fraction less speed) for 6:30 minutes at 20C, using rotary agitation (aiming for the CI of around 0.62).
I found the film speed to be around ISO 50, which is almost exactly what I expected based on my XTOL-R speed of ISO 41. Again, these are just my findings. There's nothing definitive about them. Here's a cellphone picture of the negative. The ISO changes by the factor of about 1.4 from one frame to the next:
I will continue testing Acros II, developing in D-76.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I ran this test twice, as I always do.
I suspect the differences between what you found and my results may be down to metering differences and the fact that I used a gray card with incident metering and you're using a reflective black object and reflective metering. Regardless of incident or reflective metering, if the meter is calibrated to ISO specs, the reading it returns will be for 12.5% reflectivity, so if you take an incident reading then put a grey card there, it will return about a half a stop brighter because it's returning 18% reflectivity. This is why a grey card metered through the lens with a reflective meter is always about a half stop brighter than the incident reading, and is probably why you're results say ISO 50 and mine say ISO 80.
Neither way is wrong, they're just a different way to determine usable speed.
I’m curious what people think of the dim view of t-grain films taken by Troop and Anchell in the Film Developing Cookbook (1998), pp. 14–15. In an aside, they call them “inferior” and chalk them up to the need to reduce silver content by penny-pinching manufacturers. That seems a bit hyperbolic since in the main text they point out that t-grain films offer finer grain and better sharpness/higher resolution. (See the higher resolution figures for t-grain films than conventional films posted by Henning Serger on this forum.) Still, T&A point out that this requires trade-offs, some already mentioned here: t-grain films require more exacting control of time and temperature in development and have less latitude for underexposure (and overexposure?). But I was interested in their claim that another trade-off is that the flatter-but-larger shape of tabular grain increases micro contrast at the cost of “smooth gradation of fine highlight detail” found in more classic films. Of course, the latter is harder (impossible?) to measure; the curves published here show macro contrast. But is this trade-off something experienced photographers have noticed?
I’m just getting back into film, and am drawn to Tri-X—perhaps partly because that was what I used when I first learned the art, as a kid, now many years ago—and I think Kentmere 400 looks great. (Of course, Tri-X is no longer the same either: Anchell laments the loss of older, gritty, cubic grain to the new Tri-X made of “semi-flat grain film with color-dye sensitizers” in Darkroom Cookbook [2012], p. 36.) The linear curve of TMX produces a wide, lovely range of tones evidenced by some of the examples posted here, but I have shied away from TMX so far because I’m interested in film as a change from the digital look of a grain-free, linear response with quick-to-clip (or blow-out) highlights. Is the preference for conventional grain just a sentimental attachment to the analog noise of film grain, as an escape from the digital grid? Or is it also that films with more of a shoulder to the curve handle highlights and overexposure more gracefully (which I see as a real benefit of film)? And can we see real differences in micro contrast, fine highlight detail, gradation, etc., between the different film types, as T&A claim? (They recommend overexposing by up to 2 stops and underdeveloping by 20–30% to reduce micro contrast and improve the gradation of t-grain films.)
It is interesting to hear some prefer Delta 100, which, according to Anchell and Troop’s description, has a slightly more conventional grain shape than TMX, even as others hold out TMX as the technically “superior” film (according to measurements of film speed, finer grain, etc.).
This is why a grey card metered through the lens with a reflective meter is always about a half stop brighter than the incident reading, and is probably why you're results say ISO 50 and mine say ISO 80.
I like TMAX 100 and 400. But the one complain I have is the blandness of white skin tones.
In a TMAX image everything looks great except white skin tone.
Welcome to the forum!
Thanks! Been lurking awhile but happy to join the conversation.Welcome toAPUGPhotrio!!
I’m curious what people think of the dim view of t-grain films taken by Troop and Anchell in the Film Developing Cookbook (1998), pp. 14–15. In an aside, they call them “inferior” and chalk them up to the need to reduce silver content by penny-pinching manufacturers. That seems a bit hyperbolic since in the main text they point out that t-grain films offer finer grain and better sharpness/higher resolution. (See the higher resolution figures for t-grain films than conventional films posted by Henning Serger on this forum.) Still, T&A point out that this requires trade-offs, some already mentioned here: t-grain films require more exacting control of time and temperature in development and have less latitude for underexposure (and overexposure?). But I was interested in their claim that another trade-off is that the flatter-but-larger shape of tabular grain increases micro contrast at the cost of “smooth gradation of fine highlight detail” found in more classic films. Of course, the latter is harder (impossible?) to measure; the curves published here show macro contrast. But is this trade-off something experienced photographers have noticed?
Since the characteristic straight line of TMax goes way down to the threshold of Z2, and if you meter carefully, that is where your threshold of perceptible shadow gradation (not pure black) should be placed.
Perhaps I misunderstand your statement..............but, if talking zones, I would have to disagree with the notion that the threshold exposure is at ZII, that seems to me what is being implied, but I could have the wrong perception. Wouldn't the threshold exposure be at ZI (the speed point, if talking ZS).....i.e., the first useful density on the negative above Z0, or above the paper's Dmax, where it has a differentiating low tone but no texture? I agree completely with your assessment of the standard ZIII placement of shadows that can often push the important high values too far up. For myself, I look first to place "a" shadow value at ZII or ZI, that, being the shadow area(s) where I'm not seeking full texture (ZIII) but will accept less than that. Then, if I can get my most important shadow detail to "fall" on ZIII or IV even, I'm happy with that, because that helps to protect the upper end of the curve where the most important high value will be. I may feel that an N-1 development is still needed, given my initial placement, but then that's what the other side of film holder is for.
Could you post some of your pictures that show these effects?Tech Pan was pathetic at trying to mimic 4X5 results. Not only was it incapable of handling highlights and shadows anywhere near as well as ordinary film, even using special developers, but if enlarged directly from 35mm much, exhibited enlarged little dots in the sky too.
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