Is anyone else doing side by side comparisons with the new and the old TMax 400? I ran a test yesterday after getting a new batch of clearly marked TMY-2. I shot both old and new on the same subjects at as near the same time possible considering I wanted to use the same camera. It was a cloudy day so not much changing.
I shot the films at EI 250 and shot a zone 7 test. I processed them in Rodinal 1:50 at 70F (which is my standard temp). The films both came out over developed a little at 9 minutes. I think I will cut back to 8 minutes.
On the light box the films are identical except one says Tmy-2 and the other says Tmy. Looking at them under an 8x loupe I could see no difference in grain. Pretty disappointing as I was expecting much less grain. Density and contrast seemed identical.
I taped a small piece of one film to a small piece of the other and put them in a negative carrier and put them in the Beseler 45 all the way up to the top with a 50mm nikor enlarging lens on. I purposely didn't keep track of which piece of film was which so I could do a blind test through the grain focuser. My first pick of which was finest grain was the old Tmy. But they were so close I couldn't really see a difference. I taped another set of films together and looked at them being aware of which was which and again they were so close that any differences might have been my imagination. I came to the conclusion that maybe the Tmy-2 was slightly more even grained and the old was slightly more clumpy looking.
I am going to print the films today. But obviously the new is not much different from the old in my test. Considering the positive reviews I have read I was expecting an obvious difference but in truth I don't see it yet.
Anyone else have similar results?
Dennis
I shot the films at EI 250 and shot a zone 7 test. I processed them in Rodinal 1:50 at 70F (which is my standard temp). The films both came out over developed a little at 9 minutes. I think I will cut back to 8 minutes.
On the light box the films are identical except one says Tmy-2 and the other says Tmy. Looking at them under an 8x loupe I could see no difference in grain. Pretty disappointing as I was expecting much less grain. Density and contrast seemed identical.
I taped a small piece of one film to a small piece of the other and put them in a negative carrier and put them in the Beseler 45 all the way up to the top with a 50mm nikor enlarging lens on. I purposely didn't keep track of which piece of film was which so I could do a blind test through the grain focuser. My first pick of which was finest grain was the old Tmy. But they were so close I couldn't really see a difference. I taped another set of films together and looked at them being aware of which was which and again they were so close that any differences might have been my imagination. I came to the conclusion that maybe the Tmy-2 was slightly more even grained and the old was slightly more clumpy looking.
I am going to print the films today. But obviously the new is not much different from the old in my test. Considering the positive reviews I have read I was expecting an obvious difference but in truth I don't see it yet.
Anyone else have similar results?
Dennis
